[ezekiel77]

I just spend some good time with Mr. Lee from Elysian Acoustics today so I will give some thorough detail impression on this. Hope you guys get some info out of it.

Elysian Acoustics Minerva-Revision

Driver configuration: 4x Balanced Armatures (2-lows, 1-mid and 1-high)


Comments about the Sound

This is a very different animal to the old Minerva which has a tweeter and a different driver configuration altogether. This is what happens when you make the most out of those four really well-selected and tuned-with-extreme-care BA drivers.

Lush, balanced, and tastefully colored (and never overboard), the Minerva-R is filled to the brim with life and excitement with its sound signature.

Yet despite the brightness in its signature, not once was it ever fatiguing to my ears and it really scale incredibly well with how accurate its precision is in reproducing the instruments with seemingly minimal effort.


Bass

Good lord the bass on these…!

They go deeeeeeeeep. Deep, very punchy yet decay just on the right amount of speed and timing. This is something I don’t expect since the bass response from the original Minerva is nowhere near as deep and addicting as this.

The dual low-BA drivers certainly did their job in unison here delivering this type of low-frequency that I normally would expect out of a well-tuned dynamic driver.

While it’s not as natural well-decayed as a good well-tuned DD, this type of bass is definitely close to it.

Great job!


Midrange

The midrange is sweet, lush, full of life and character.

Syrupy thick, full and head-enveloping, yet when a song calls for it, can be as airy as it can be -- the midrange here is nothing short of addicting, and whatever BA driver it’s being used for the midrange, it’s clearly being pushed at its peak performance with such accurately precise sound positioning that singers are being pinpointed with laser-like positioning that is so on-point that it nearly threw me off guard.

This is especially clear when I listened to Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On.

It just draws me in and I am completely lost in that emotionally-invoking vocal performance that is unforgettable even after so many years. I can easily just forget about analyzing the sound performance and just lose myself in the beauty of the note reproduction. It just drifts away with the music note.


Treble

Free of fatigue, and extend very far. It’s capable of reaching towards our local stars, but not quite the level of Hades’ seemingly endless ascension.

But it’s nothing to be scoffed at, despite not having a tweeter like the original design, the treble here is still bloody amazing. Airy, and sparkly, clear and full of detail, yet never got sibilant.

It is also extremely revealing, so much so that you will benefit from a very well-mastered track fed into it. The Minerva-R will just throw gobs of detail towards you in a very forward way. This might be a bit too much for some as it doesn’t quite have the smoothness of Hades that may make the sound more forgiving, compared to this Minerva-R which can really rip apart bad recordings.

Long story short: You WILL get what you feed with the Minerva-R, along with every error found in the music notes.


Spatial

Soundstage is expansive, deep and very 3D-lifelike. Thanks to its high level of accuracy in note reproduction, the Minerva-R is very revealing and might get overwhelming with details at times when you play a complex track like Carmina Burana orchestral pieces.

If this sounds familiar, you’d be right since this sounds like Artemis over again -- except here there’s one difference -- the staging of Minerva-R is very expansive and wide, giving a more out-of-the-head experience that gave off that “big sound” presentation that can be very impressive.


Sensitivity/Source-Pairing

Paired with the LG V30+ with its impressive Quad-DAC configuration on the smartphone, this IEM scale just as well even with this simple pairing.

Much like the flagship brother -- Hades, the Minerva-R loves power. It’s sound became more revealing at higher volume output and yet retained itself fatigue-free.

When paired with the V30+, there were no audible hiss from my experience. However, hissing detection wise, depending on how sensitive your ears are -- YMMV.


Impression Scoring

Bass: A+

Midrange: A++

Treble: A+

Spatial: A

Pros: Lifelike presentation of midrange that is both sweet and full of emotion and character, surprisingly deep bass that’s evenly distributed with just-right-fast-decay and punch very well, amazing treble extension and incredibly revealing.

Cons: Treble could be a bit smoother. Very unforgiving due to its revealing nature, can be a bit picky on tracks quality, but you get what you feed with it, detail retrieval might be a bit overwhelming for some

Overall Rank for Elysian Acoustics Minerva-R: A++

Good stuff! Hope to audition it next time I'm in KL.

 

[Rin1990]

Good stuff! Hope to audition it next time I'm in KL.

It will be on Stars Picker Audio soon. So, enjoy yourself with it

Also, I must say Minerva-R's scaling can be a bit insane since from a phone alone it already sounded amazingly detailed.

It you pair it with a good source, it will definitely reveal itself even more. My flimsy Fiio X1+E12A really don't do the IEM justice.

 

[ahmadfaizadnan]

It's priced at RM 4099.

Ahh, I see. I'll definitely try them when I get back.

Wow you're part of the review tour? Did you get your hands on the Mason V3 as well?

Yeah but just the Mentor V3. Obviously, there is quite a number of us that applying for Mason V3 but only got me on the Mentor V3. But considering that I am going back this May, I am good with Mentor V3 because I am not sure what my turn gonna be if I am on the Mason V3 list.