Prisma Audio is a one-man operation ran by Josh, or "Veebee" as many know him by on Discord, based out of Melbourne, Australia. The Azul is his first labor of love sporting 2BAs and clocking in at $300 USD. You can find the product page here.
Some words from the product page:
The product page photo:
What it looks like in real life (my photos):
I currently have MRS's unit on hand for review, but here are some early impressions:
You can see above that MRS has made some updates to the graph tool as well! Anyways, the closest point of comparison to the Azul is the ER4XR. The Azul, then, is foremost a reference monitor that aims to present sound in a clear, unadulterated manner. Some people might not know this, but I actually really dislike the ER4XR: Textureless, limp bass, compressed imaging, and pretty horrible timbre.
There's no doubt that the Azul suffers on some of these same fronts. But the Azul has a few tricks up its sleeve. It kills some of the shout, and more importantly, takes the treble in a very different direction. Those who have heard the ER4XR or ER3XR will know that they are fairly dark monitors; by contrast, the Azul has excellent treble extension with perhaps a tad too much attack incisiveness even. Something else that stands out about the Azul is its macrodynamic contrast - it doesn't sound nearly as "flat" for decibel gradations as the aforementioned IEMs - which presents itself not dissimilar to the venerable Moondrop Blessing 2.
Admittedly, I was fairly milquetoast on the Azul when I first heard it. All I heard were the hallmarks of the ER4XR, an IEM which I may respect, but again, that I do not personally like. But that's changed, and the Azul's been growing on me as I put more hours on it. I've noted this before, but the more time I spend listening to an IEM, the more critical I will be of it; in other words, the phenomenon often dubbed "burn-in" is most closely a negative one for me. A quick look at my impressions versus reviews of most IEMs will lend credence to this. Alas, the Azul has surprised me, and to me that is the tell-tale sign of a solid piece of work.
Reviews:
Prisma Azul Review - Uncolored (In-Ear Fidelity)
Prisma Azul - Hard to Hate, Hard to Love (Animus Hates Everything)
Prisma Audio - Un-neutered Neutral (eloelo on Head-Fi)
Prisma Azul Review (Audio Discourse)
Prisma Audio Azul Review - It's Legit! (Super*Review)
Prisma Audio Azul Review - When Less is More (Headphones.com)
Some words from the product page:
Smooth. Clean. Extended. Sometimes in life, you find that less is more, and that's the exact mindset we had when tuning Azul. Two balanced armature drivers, perfectly in sync, provide crystal clear highs and deep bass. A neutral, relaxing presentation places you in the middle of your music. A balanced soundstage keeps every instrument perfectly in place.
All this is wrapped in a precision 3D printed shell, and closed with a machined blue anodized aluminium faceplate.
And, as always, it's designed and made in Melbourne, Australia.
The product page photo:
What it looks like in real life (my photos):
I currently have MRS's unit on hand for review, but here are some early impressions:
You can see above that MRS has made some updates to the graph tool as well! Anyways, the closest point of comparison to the Azul is the ER4XR. The Azul, then, is foremost a reference monitor that aims to present sound in a clear, unadulterated manner. Some people might not know this, but I actually really dislike the ER4XR: Textureless, limp bass, compressed imaging, and pretty horrible timbre.
There's no doubt that the Azul suffers on some of these same fronts. But the Azul has a few tricks up its sleeve. It kills some of the shout, and more importantly, takes the treble in a very different direction. Those who have heard the ER4XR or ER3XR will know that they are fairly dark monitors; by contrast, the Azul has excellent treble extension with perhaps a tad too much attack incisiveness even. Something else that stands out about the Azul is its macrodynamic contrast - it doesn't sound nearly as "flat" for decibel gradations as the aforementioned IEMs - which presents itself not dissimilar to the venerable Moondrop Blessing 2.
Admittedly, I was fairly milquetoast on the Azul when I first heard it. All I heard were the hallmarks of the ER4XR, an IEM which I may respect, but again, that I do not personally like. But that's changed, and the Azul's been growing on me as I put more hours on it. I've noted this before, but the more time I spend listening to an IEM, the more critical I will be of it; in other words, the phenomenon often dubbed "burn-in" is most closely a negative one for me. A quick look at my impressions versus reviews of most IEMs will lend credence to this. Alas, the Azul has surprised me, and to me that is the tell-tale sign of a solid piece of work.
Reviews:
Prisma Azul Review - Uncolored (In-Ear Fidelity)
Prisma Azul - Hard to Hate, Hard to Love (Animus Hates Everything)
Prisma Audio - Un-neutered Neutral (eloelo on Head-Fi)
Prisma Azul Review (Audio Discourse)
Prisma Audio Azul Review - It's Legit! (Super*Review)
Prisma Audio Azul Review - When Less is More (Headphones.com)
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