[miserybeforethemusic]

Oh wow. This combo is really, really nice.


I imagine your Aria here would look just as good and probably sound even better. Even if this is more of a tube-fed circuit than it is a true tube amp, it's still doing something different than my current "gain with wire" desktop amp can. And I like it.

Just here going through track after track that used to be too sharp to my ears with the KP and they're all just a little smoother. Linkin Park's A Place for My Head has a lot more guitar energy than I'm used to seeing on the KP, both the bass and 6-string. Tesseract's Beneath My Skin again brings the bassist much more forward in the mix than I'm used to hearing with the E12a.

This is cool stuff. Have more testing to do, for example feeding the KPs balanced, but this Little Bear B4-X is pretty cool. A little bummed I dont have one with the misprint, but I hear I get better OPAMPs in trade. Win some, lose some.

 

[miserybeforethemusic]

Just had a(nother) wow moment with those KPEs and I was not expecting it.

This track is haunting as [expletive] on the LittleBear/Pixel 3a combo. It has this brute force that I haven't yet experienced. At all. Until now.

Well, I guess that takes away my prepared statement of "there's no way this is going to work for opera." My heart sank with that rendition. I'm impressed.

 

[SavoryTruffle]

Seems like running my monitor out through 3.5mm extension into a 3.5mm to USB C conversion into the Fiio BTR5 doesn't work.

What do I need to make monitor 3.5mm out work with a headphone amp? Is the issue that it's trying to run through USB and 3.5mm at the same time? Do I need an amp with a line in? Or is there some other option with my current equipment?

Edit - Looks like I needed an amp with a 3.5mm Line In or something like RCA. Too many digital/analog conversions in the chain. Oh well.

 

[ryanjsoo]

And there's the trade-off. I used to have this problem with quite a few pairs of monitoring headphones, including the Beyer DT1990 Pro. There is so much detail, so much musical information, that it physically tires you out after a while. Listener fatigue is definitely a real thing.

About how long can you usually listen before you feel it's time to take a break on them?

Hi Ryan! Love the reviews and been a THL fan for a year+ now. My wallet isn't. Please give the team my best and keep it up with the content. I have a lot of gratitude/respect for reviewers like you and Pinky. Have slowly adjusted my review ethic based on the way you guys editorialize.

Quick aside: does anybody from THL have the A&K SR25 in their review stable? Curious to see what your team's opinion of it is.

Anywho, thanks for dropping by and providing the measurements/insight!

Thank you for your kind words, was a great post to wake up to and apologies for your finances haha

I will pass on your comments to the team and enquire if anyone will be working with A&K in on an SR25 review, at the moment we haven't covered that model.

@PhoenixSong I agree, I believe one review called them muffled and that was Bruno's concern, but I wouldn't say they are. Technically, the Aria could do better, not bad but not outstanding for the price. The focus is on the tonality and build quality/general design here which can maximise the perception of detail that is there, but certainly cannot introduce detail the driver is incapable of producing. Hope that clears up my stance.

 

[Bruno Ibanes]

Thank you for your kind words, was a great post to wake up to and apologies for your finances haha

I will pass on your comments to the team and enquire if anyone will be working with A&K in on an SR25 review, at the moment we haven't covered that model.

@PhoenixSong I agree, I believe one review called them muffled and that was Bruno's concern, but I wouldn't say they are. Technically, the Aria could do better, not bad but not outstanding for the price. The focus is on the tonality and build quality/general design here which can maximise the perception of detail that is there, but certainly cannot introduce detail the driver is incapable of producing. Hope that clears up my stance.

So, Aria is the new "no brainer" in the $100 range? Or Starfield still keeps the first place?

 

[miserybeforethemusic]

So here's a fun combo:

2V out from the SR25 going straight into the Little Bear, then balanced out to the B2 with Azla tips on. I know not everybody's going to have a setup like this, but good lord is this a lot of IEM power in a small package. Wish I could describe what I'm hearing accurately, but I honestly can't and that's a first for me. While the bottom end is definitely fatter, it doesn't feel artificially boosted or overwhelm the midrange and peakiness in the presence region is significantly tamed down.

Not everything is sunshine and roses, though. Since the B4-X is battery-powered and can't be used while charging, I'm on the clock the second I turn it on. And there's warmup time (I'm clocking about 30-45 minutes at the moment) to subtract from that as well. Also, despite this being a "portable" amp, it rings like a bell if you tap the casing (known to happen with tubes, so at least they're doing something).

Very complimentary setup. I did briefly try using one of my ddhifi dongles out to the amp and, while that's possible, just isn't any comparison to getting that full Line Out from the SR25. This is sound with authority, but done in a way that doesn't beat you into submission.

 

[Canabuc]

Well did some more listening to my Aria after about 15 hours or so of burn in running a YouTube burn in video.

Made a big difference already. That treble peoe claim is grainy seems to have smoothed out and the bass has extended.

Before it lacked bass compared to my Blon BL-01 and now it is on par but with much better mids and a wider soundstage and a nice clarity in upper mid range.

Do not hear any muffling on multiple female vocal tracks I have tried.

Weird thing about this item is that it just doesn't favor any sound profile. The mids are not too forward or recessed. It is not sibilant or peaky I. Treble and is not shouty. Yet there is airiness in the highs and detail in treble.

The bass is not boomy or overwhelming any other frequencies but extends deep and has nice texture.

I think at this price point it is a no brainer for build quality and sound quality that goes with any genre but favors none.

 

[Precogvision]

Was speaking with Bruno in PM and we thought this breakdown might help some users thinking on the new Moondrop Aria vs Starfield.

So from my POV, the Aria is a bit brighter than the Starfield, so I would say that it is actually clearer. In isolation, i.e. not in comparison to the Starfield, the Aria definitely doesn't have any tuning features that would make it sound distant or muffled to me, there are no large dips around the midrange, perhaps some listeners prefer more "room" in the lower-midrange but this shouldn't affect vocal positioning.

I'll attach my independent measurements below, you can see a bit more upper-midrange/lower-treble on the Aria and, otherwise, near-identical frequency response. I think most people would say they sound very similar overall, I definitely wouldn't call the Aria muffled, this could be due to unit variance/defect perhaps - at least, it is not the case for my units.

I've spoken to a few people behind the design and the driver is basically the same as the Starfield, the only difference being the CNT coating on the Starfield diaphragm. This means the driver is stiffer but also heavier, it will offer more headroom at high volume but the lighter Aria driver will offer more agility/faster transient response at lower volumes - general consensus is that it is more detailed, technically this would be correct and I would agree from subjective listening too.

Re quality control, IMO it is very good on the new Moondrop offerings. For example, you can see how close the channel matching is on my Aria below and the Starfield performs just as well. This would suggest they go through a lot of checks before leaving the factory to ensure good performance for each unit. The tolerances on the metal housing are also better on the Aria vs the Starfield. I cannot confirm here whether I've received better units as I am a reviewer and this has supposedly happened before. That said, I did personally purchase a Blessing 2 and you can also see it has very close channel matching, all graphs below:

So overall, the Aria is a slightly brighter Starfield with a little less sub-bass and a bit more distortion if you like to crank very high volume. But for reasonable listening volume, the Aria sounds more natural and detailed to me.

Okay, this is interesting because I had the exact opposite impressions. The Aria that I heard sounded less bright and more bassy than the Starfield. I wonder if this is just unit variance, or maybe there was a stealth revision?

Edit: I’m going to chalk it up to unit variance. Crin’s look almost identical. Banbeu’s got a Starfield that measures like yours and another that measures like the one I heard.

 

[Canabuc]

Okay, this is interesting because I had the exact opposite impressions. The Aria that I heard sounded less bright and more bassy than the Starfield. I wonder if this is just unit variance, or maybe there was a stealth revision?



Edit: I’m going to chalk it up to unit variance. Crin’s look almost identical. Banbeu’s got a Starfield that measures like yours and another that measures like the one I heard.

Your measurements look alot like zpolt on YouTube. His comparison of Starfield and Aria also had the Aria sounding more bass heavy and was part of what lead me to the Aria over the Starfield.

I wonder how much these measurements are affected by break in

Be interesting to see a plot out of box and after the suggested burn in by Moondrop and see if things change at all.

 

[430633]

Mine has hit the 75 hour burn in mark 2 days ago with no conclusive evidence, other than reduced "thickness" in the bass and slightly more filled out notes (eg. cymbals sounded like only treble at the start but had a little more fleshed out details after, maybe due to improved flex of the drivers allowing for a wider range of frequencies to be reproduced concurrently with greater ease). However, the nature of the sound and the balance of the frequencies did not seem to have changed at all as one would expect- if anything, external noise/sounds heard prior to listening combined with my biological state (tiredness etc.) had a far more notable effect on my perception of the sound. The volume at which music is being played has a significant impact on sound perception too; slightly louder and the treble becomes annoying- softer and the mids appear to lose prominence ( this might explain our mixed impressions of it)

Currently undergoing an additional 112 hour+ burn in regime I drafted, composed of brown, pink and white noise as well as frequency sweeps and tones. I will refrain from making any further judgement until I have had at least heard it on several different occasions after the completion of this extreme process

 

[430633]

An additional note, I remember thinking that the 4.5-7kHz region of the Aria sounded rather intense during frequency sweeps I listened to with it. With these graphs you posted we can see that the dB of the Starfield is reduced in that area compared to the Aria. This could be a major source of difference

 

[430633]

https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/hp/moondrop-kxxs.php#srw35&gsc.tab=0
Hmm according to this measurement of the KXXS there is a resonance in that region. Wonder if it's similar to varying degrees with the Starfield and Aria

 

[Canabuc]

Mine has hit the 75 hour burn in mark 2 days ago with no conclusive evidence, other than reduced "thickness" in the bass and slightly more filled out notes (eg. cymbals sounded like only treble at the start but had a little more fleshed out details after, maybe due to improved flex of the drivers allowing for a wider range of frequencies to be reproduced concurrently with greater ease). However, the nature of the sound and the balance of the frequencies did not seem to have changed at all as one would expect- if anything, external noise/sounds heard prior to listening combined with my biological state (tiredness etc.) had a far more notable effect on my perception of the sound. The volume at which music is being played has a significant impact on sound perception too; slightly louder and the treble becomes annoying- softer and the mids appear to lose prominence ( this might explain our mixed impressions of it)

Currently undergoing an additional 112 hour+ burn in regime I drafted, composed of brown, pink and white noise as well as frequency sweeps and tones. I will refrain from making any further judgement until I have had at least heard it on several different occasions after the completion of this extreme process

But as you said the treble notes sound better as do the bass.

 

[430633]

But as you said the treble notes sound better as do the bass.

"Better" is a subjective term and does not mean it is any less harsh. I did say that the nature of the sound remains unchanged
Edit: Now that I've reread what I wrote, I'm certain that I did not even use the word "better" which you claim I did

 

[430633]

*To my ears