[phiemon]

Which Oriolus are you guys using? It looks amazing

Traillii Ti

 

[Steranko]

The Penon Turbo Universal IEM and Sony WM1A.
Penon Obsidian Cable & ISN CS02 Cable.

Looks very high quality. What's your views on these Penon Audio IEM? How do they sound in comparison to other TOTL IEMs? Thanks!

 

[Redcarmoose]

Looks very high quality. What's your views on these Penon Audio IEM? How do they sound in comparison to other TOTL IEMs? Thanks!

I compare it to two TOTLs in this review.
https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/penon-turbo.26608/reviews#review-31534

 

[Steranko]

Which Oriolus are you guys using? It looks amazing

Yes, easily my favourite IEM at this time. Just evaluating them now for the past week.

The Original (Mark 1) Oriolus Traillii is a high-end hybrid in-ear monitor (IEM) that was released in 2022. It is the flagship model of Oriolus, a Japanese/Chinese audio company that is known for its high-quality IEMs. The Trailli features a 3-way design with 12 drivers per channel: 4 electrostatic drivers and 8 balanced armature drivers. The electrostatic drivers are responsible for the high frequencies, while the balanced armature drivers handle the mids and lows.

The electrostatic drivers in the Trailli are made by Sonion, a Danish company that is known for its high-quality electrostatic drivers. The Sonion electrostatic drivers in the Trailli are the latest generation, and they offer a level of detail and clarity that is unmatched by other IEMs in their class. The balanced armature drivers in the Trailli are made by Knowles, a US company that is also known for its high-quality balanced armature drivers. The Knowles balanced armature drivers in the Trailli are tuned to provide a smooth and natural sound signature. The Traillii's sound signature is balanced and natural. The treble is detailed and airy, without being harsh or fatiguing. The mids are smooth and lush, with a good amount of body and presence. The bass is tight and well-controlled, with good extension. The Trailli's sound stage is wide and spacious, with excellent imaging. This makes it a great choice for listening to a variety of genres of music, including classical, jazz, rock, and electronic music. The Trailli's build quality is excellent. The housings are made from aluminium and stainless steel, and they are very well-made. The cables are from Peter Wong, also high-quality and detachable, making it easy to replace them if they are damaged.

The new Oriolus Traillii Titanium was released in 2023, limited to 199 and selling at a whopping US$8200 retail price. Considering that they don't use any precious metal or jewellery style dressing to demand that price, it sells well without any crazy marketing spend on them.

Using the same number of drivers, 12, they have apparently improved the bass and the treble more detailed and crisp. This time the cables are made in-house and not from PW but feels like PW. One of the hardest thing in tuning is to create the sound as close to the original as possible but tinkering on refining the edges so it gives that detailed resolution and relaxed sound making it very comfortable to listen to and not to harsh on the ears. The Trailli is very close to this point. I had already listening to the original Trailli for some time and thought it was impossible to improve on it and I was wrong. The bass on this has improved and the treble is as balanced and non-fatiguing yet clearly articulated as it gets. Imaging is just perfect for my ears. I've love to the the FR graph for this one if anyone has it? I saw a video of Mr Rao and really bought into his ideas, philosophy and expertise of IEM making.

Here was a summary some one did about him which I extracted:

1. He was nicknamed "the old man" by his colleagues in his early career because his family name "Rao" and the word "Lao" (meaning "old") are (a bit) homophonous, and he had a balanced attitude towards work (like a senior). He kind of accepted the nickname and has been using it himself since.

2. His company's branding is a bit messy (he has used Mini-Audio, Raosound Studio, The Old Man's Audio Workshop, and Oriolus), because he's been running a small business for years and thus he wasn't incentivized to build brand awareness back then (and he couldn't register the "mini audio" name he seemed to prefer due to legal reasons). He has mostly settled on the Oriolus name these days, although he still prints "Raosound Studio" and "The Old Man's Audio Workshop" on products on sale in China probably because the community is very familiar with them by now.

3. His products are a bit controversial within the Chinese audiophile community, but he doesn't care that much about public opinions (probably explains the pricing of Traillii and why he didn't launch it officially in China). In fact, his company doesn't have a marketing department at all, which might explain Traillii's humble packaging. He dedicates most of his resources to R&D and manufacturing, and leaves almost everything else to agents (Cyras, MusicTeck, etc.). He believes he should focus on making good products and letting them "speak for themselves", and "we can't cater for everyone, who has the freedom to choose, but the ones that love our products".

4. I saw some headfi-ers exclaimed over how Traillii could outshine many competitors without proprietary tech. In Rao's own words, he believes most of the Hi-Fi gear manufacturers don't actually own real core technologies because they're limited to downstream development; all they're doing (including his) is essentially customizations over what component manufacturers provide them (very true IMHO in many cases, although I’d still like to point out exceptions such as 64 Audio’s Apex tech, which vastly improves wearing comfort over long period of time). His team tries their best to keep in sync with the latest technologies upstream offers and research how to adapt them for their products. For instance, they got their hands on the electrostatic tweeters the moment Sonion announced the first version.

5. It's actually quite interesting to see Traillii included only BA and ES, considering Rao claimed in the late 2018 interview that "BA will never sound like DD", although he followed that he would still explore full BA architecture, with Oriolus Mellianus as an example (as some may know, Mellianus, or "the Silver Oriole", is their previous flagship IEM in 2018). We can see that Rao eventually followed Sonion's guidance on a BA + ES architecture in his next flagship Traillii, but tuned the BAs to a point where they sound very close to good DDs (IMO this is one heck of an achievement).

6. Rao actually care(d) about pricing! He said in the 2018 interview that "we'll also feel sorry for our customers if we priced (Oriolus Finschi) too high (because of cables)" (lol). He also believes in cables (another mystery solved lol), saying the reason he didn't include a cable with mic for Finschi, which mostly targets smartphone users, was "they mostly don't sound great, also custom ones are very expensive".

That's all from my personal viewpoint on this. Hope it helps.

 

[hawker]

 

[Podster]

Full metal Portable ？

Very nice Gavin I've always imagined if Nagra did portable it would resemble that LOtOO Mjolnir, I'd be the happiest Clam (Nerd) walking around with that things case around my neck plus my AKG 701's. I would care less what people thought or said of me as it truly would be their loss Seems a breeze after sinking $25K into my home rig

Have not been by in a while as I've nothing really new just playing my old school gears Very old school really but still working like a charm FiiO X3ii with SE-215's, not fancy but does an awesome job!

 

[carlosedp]

The Penon Serial with it's new cable...

 

[NickleCo]

Opus 2 and Andromeda 2017.

Man i love the patina turned out on your pair!

 

[GiullianSN]

Man i love the patina turned out on your pair!

Must agree on this one. It does look better than a new one in this way.

Sharing this beautiful pairing here as well...

 

[Podster]

 

[Unterstuffz]

My First DAP (Ibasso DX160) bought used switched the Battery an Flashed the OS Having a lot of Fun

 

[firesign]

My First DAP (Ibasso DX160) bought used switched the Battery an Flashed the OS Having a lot of Fun

What OS do you have now?

 

[Amadeo Nospherathu]

Yes, easily my favourite IEM at this time. Just evaluating them now for the past week.

The Original (Mark 1) Oriolus Traillii is a high-end hybrid in-ear monitor (IEM) that was released in 2022. It is the flagship model of Oriolus, a Japanese/Chinese audio company that is known for its high-quality IEMs. The Trailli features a 3-way design with 12 drivers per channel: 4 electrostatic drivers and 8 balanced armature drivers. The electrostatic drivers are responsible for the high frequencies, while the balanced armature drivers handle the mids and lows.

The electrostatic drivers in the Trailli are made by Sonion, a Danish company that is known for its high-quality electrostatic drivers. The Sonion electrostatic drivers in the Trailli are the latest generation, and they offer a level of detail and clarity that is unmatched by other IEMs in their class. The balanced armature drivers in the Trailli are made by Knowles, a US company that is also known for its high-quality balanced armature drivers. The Knowles balanced armature drivers in the Trailli are tuned to provide a smooth and natural sound signature. The Traillii's sound signature is balanced and natural. The treble is detailed and airy, without being harsh or fatiguing. The mids are smooth and lush, with a good amount of body and presence. The bass is tight and well-controlled, with good extension. The Trailli's sound stage is wide and spacious, with excellent imaging. This makes it a great choice for listening to a variety of genres of music, including classical, jazz, rock, and electronic music. The Trailli's build quality is excellent. The housings are made from aluminium and stainless steel, and they are very well-made. The cables are from Peter Wong, also high-quality and detachable, making it easy to replace them if they are damaged.

The new Oriolus Traillii Titanium was released in 2023, limited to 199 and selling at a whopping US$8200 retail price. Considering that they don't use any precious metal or jewellery style dressing to demand that price, it sells well without any crazy marketing spend on them.

Using the same number of drivers, 12, they have apparently improved the bass and the treble more detailed and crisp. This time the cables are made in-house and not from PW but feels like PW. One of the hardest thing in tuning is to create the sound as close to the original as possible but tinkering on refining the edges so it gives that detailed resolution and relaxed sound making it very comfortable to listen to and not to harsh on the ears. The Trailli is very close to this point. I had already listening to the original Trailli for some time and thought it was impossible to improve on it and I was wrong. The bass on this has improved and the treble is as balanced and non-fatiguing yet clearly articulated as it gets. Imaging is just perfect for my ears. I've love to the the FR graph for this one if anyone has it? I saw a video of Mr Rao and really bought into his ideas, philosophy and expertise of IEM making.

Here was a summary some one did about him which I extracted:

1. He was nicknamed "the old man" by his colleagues in his early career because his family name "Rao" and the word "Lao" (meaning "old") are (a bit) homophonous, and he had a balanced attitude towards work (like a senior). He kind of accepted the nickname and has been using it himself since.

2. His company's branding is a bit messy (he has used Mini-Audio, Raosound Studio, The Old Man's Audio Workshop, and Oriolus), because he's been running a small business for years and thus he wasn't incentivized to build brand awareness back then (and he couldn't register the "mini audio" name he seemed to prefer due to legal reasons). He has mostly settled on the Oriolus name these days, although he still prints "Raosound Studio" and "The Old Man's Audio Workshop" on products on sale in China probably because the community is very familiar with them by now.

3. His products are a bit controversial within the Chinese audiophile community, but he doesn't care that much about public opinions (probably explains the pricing of Traillii and why he didn't launch it officially in China). In fact, his company doesn't have a marketing department at all, which might explain Traillii's humble packaging. He dedicates most of his resources to R&D and manufacturing, and leaves almost everything else to agents (Cyras, MusicTeck, etc.). He believes he should focus on making good products and letting them "speak for themselves", and "we can't cater for everyone, who has the freedom to choose, but the ones that love our products".

4. I saw some headfi-ers exclaimed over how Traillii could outshine many competitors without proprietary tech. In Rao's own words, he believes most of the Hi-Fi gear manufacturers don't actually own real core technologies because they're limited to downstream development; all they're doing (including his) is essentially customizations over what component manufacturers provide them (very true IMHO in many cases, although I’d still like to point out exceptions such as 64 Audio’s Apex tech, which vastly improves wearing comfort over long period of time). His team tries their best to keep in sync with the latest technologies upstream offers and research how to adapt them for their products. For instance, they got their hands on the electrostatic tweeters the moment Sonion announced the first version.

5. It's actually quite interesting to see Traillii included only BA and ES, considering Rao claimed in the late 2018 interview that "BA will never sound like DD", although he followed that he would still explore full BA architecture, with Oriolus Mellianus as an example (as some may know, Mellianus, or "the Silver Oriole", is their previous flagship IEM in 2018). We can see that Rao eventually followed Sonion's guidance on a BA + ES architecture in his next flagship Traillii, but tuned the BAs to a point where they sound very close to good DDs (IMO this is one heck of an achievement).

6. Rao actually care(d) about pricing! He said in the 2018 interview that "we'll also feel sorry for our customers if we priced (Oriolus Finschi) too high (because of cables)" (lol). He also believes in cables (another mystery solved lol), saying the reason he didn't include a cable with mic for Finschi, which mostly targets smartphone users, was "they mostly don't sound great, also custom ones are very expensive".

That's all from my personal viewpoint on this. Hope it helps.

Thanks, this confirmed a lot of my guesses and thoughts about Oriolus products.

 

[Amadeo Nospherathu]

Man i love the patina turned out on your pair!

Thank you!
I really think that this is the look of the IEMs that suit them much more. And I am inclined to believe that this was the primary intention of the manufacturer. Because it looks very charismatic.

 

[Amadeo Nospherathu]

Opus2 as source, (Dita Truth silver custom interconnect) Aroma A100 with Power station (with Sparkos Opamps) and CA Supermoon with DHC Symbiote Elite 19 cable (Rhapsodio adapters, Pentaconn Coreir tips).