DUNU Zen Impressions
Hey all, I've been listening to the Zen on-and-off for the past week, so here are the first impressions. I've been following the progress of this IEM for some time now, and I was quite excited to get my hands on it. Many thanks to DUNU for providing me with a unit for review.
Theoretically, this should be a fairly balanced tuning, and yet, I just don't hear it that way. The Zen's bass is likable enough with good amounts of mid-bass; I really don't have much to note otherwise. The midrange of the Zen sports an aggressive ear compensation that transitions into a strongly emphasized upper-midrange. It's thin and anemic, generally not too pleasant to listen to for my preferences. Honestly, it reminds me a lot of the Viento-B; that is, if the Viento-B was pumping steroids in all the wrong places. For male vocals, sure, it's passable, almost preferable if you enjoy that slightly thicker weight. But anything that remotely tokens the upper-midrange is overly forward and edgy. The treble presentation on the Zen also needs work. It's quite dark with virtually zero air, but there's a strong peak at around 8-9kHz which lends to an uncanny clanky-ness to the way hi-hats are hit. Cymbal crash, likewise, is just painfully emphasized. Juxtapose the two and you have a recipe for fatiguing, yet perplexingly dark treble; the Zen triggers the "stuck in-a-pit" effect hard.
For intangible performance, the Zen's presentation is a more intimate one like most of Dunu's other IEMs. Resolution is passable. Macrodynamic contrast seems decent not unlike the Luna, but as many would know, a lack of treble air often lends to the perception of an overly dampened sound, leaving me to speculate some. The timbre is also just "off" on the Zen whether by virtue of the tuning or the driver itself. I suppose it
does remind me of the Luna's metallic tinge in this regard. Ultimately, looking past all this, even if the Zen is technically competent, it's not really $700 material, you know? It's competing with the likes of the S8 and Monarch at that price point.
The more I listen to the Zen, the more I think, "Hey, this really isn't all that bad." But that's why it's not exactly good either. A good IEM is an IEM that
commands my attention from the start, that
makes me say it's good. Here, I'm left more perplexed, pondering what went wrong. The Zen's not as technical as its predecessor, the Luna, not as well-rounded as the excellent SA6, and not competitive with the likes of the Starfield or ER2XR on the basis of tonality. It exists. Believe me, I really wanted the Zen to be more - it was stacking up to be the single-DD endgame - but at the end of the day I'm in the business of speaking true to what I hear. There's a lot of people with whom I generally agree with that think the Zen is pretty sweet, so who knows, maybe I'm the crazy one.
Score: 4/10