Moondrop Droplet arrived!
TLDR; Moondrop succeeded the soul of Etymotich ER4 series by Droplet (
with stock Foam Ear tips. I do believe Droplet is designed to play with Foam Ear tips) in Single BA pathway. I see Herbert(SEO)’s passion for Single BA from the sound of Droplet.
It is Moondrop’s answer to ER4.
A crossroad of Generations
I can hear Droplet saying “Pops, you are legendary, but your bass lacks slam what younger generation is desperately demanding, and your can’t hear distant sound, rest now pops. Now, Let me carry you.”
Droplet retuned ER4 and solved those weak point. But it only works with foam ear tips, regular ear tips will make Droplet to sound very thin in note weight and dry.
▶︎Personal Purchase from Hifigo
It comes with the collaboration army style dog tag key chain which is extremely heavy, when I opened the box, that iron tag popped out and ”drop”ed on my feet, ouch! it seriously hurts
The shell is way smaller than I expected, smaller than ear tips. You can see USB-C DSP connector size vs droplet shell size, wow that’s small.
OOTB sound impression:
▶︎I recently came across single BA named Floaudio Lily, and enlightened by very unique characteristics; it changes behavior when amped or directly thru line-out signals.
▶︎Long Story short, Droplet is another surprise, actually better than Lily… the diffusion field and internal echo inside that acoustic camber is a thing. Very nice timbre
▶︎Weirdly Droplet only comes with foam ear tips (maybe by some error or something) So I’m using the stock foam ear tips of which I’m usually not a fan of them because it basically kills sub-bass resonance. For Droplet it does match with the somehow elevated sub-bass, pretty good, of course the sub-bass imaging is blurry because of this foam tip, but the timbre itself isn’t bad.
▶︎Diffusion Magic. When you take a look at FR of Droplet, you may wonder, “heck, whats that 3khz small peak?” , it’s the same trick used for Crin’s FiiO FHE, a small 3khz peak will generate a room for notes to diffuse as well as the vocal spotlighting effect, it doesn’t work all the time, but it worked on FHE. It’s also working on Droplet. A fun factor for imaging. Noticed something from FR? Droplet has almost neutral flat slope from pinna gain peak 3khz all the way through 14khz, that is the Diffusion Magic.
I like line-out signal than amped one on Droplet as well. Unamped one is already hard hitting enough
If you are interested in how far a single BA could amaze you, Droplet is a good surprise. It doesn’t feel fully crumbled that most of single BAs do.
Moondrop did it again…I know their CEO is Ety fan and he had a dream to pursue that single BA pathway, I’s say it’s a success. Droplet is nimble, energetic and fun to listen IEM, with surprisingly nice imaging and timbre of diffusing notes.
Neutral? No. Colored for vocals, with Moondrop’s VDSF nicely implemented.
It makes me wonder why Moondrop gave a go for Stellaris… They are sane and Droplet proofed they are.
▶︎2 hours listening note:
Following up with Droplet noise floor.
Yes there is a noise floor on Droplet, it’s
acceptable level but there is. Also the cable switch play/pause has 5ms ish lag and when operated with cable play/paise switch, you will hear 5ms of 90db+ music for certain players. Using player side’s play/pause causes no issues.
Other than that, Droplet has breathtaking smooth tuning, as you can see that from FR, a stable slope all the way from 3khz to 14khz.
This stable slope reminds me of Softears RSV’s custom tweeter, and the tonality of Droplet’s treble and RSV oddly has some similarities. RSV has an intentional dip with high path filter for 12khz but Droplet is more easy going with that area.
Actually Droplet (with stock foam tips) is in a sense a little energized mini-Softears RSV.
[Post OOTB Droplet Impression]
Droplet is worth post script:
▶︎Timbre is extremely well balanced, not that I’d expect from sub$100 range for 2023, it certainly has Softears tuning spirit the high-end tonal approach.
▶︎Cymbal diffusion makes Droplet special, especially to side ways
▶︎As it has rolled off 16khz+, lossless and above won’t benefit much from this, Droplet is suitable for more casual listening yet high performing enough to “wow” hardcore audiophiles.
At the end of the day, from the size & side sleeping compatibility, tonal accuracy, wide diffusing imaging illustration and widely applicable to any music genres, I found Moondrop Droplet is yet another smashing hit material coming out of mighty Moondrop. You just cant imagine a single BA could do this much, even better than Floaudio Lily.
It reminds me of See Audio’s Yume OG DD, that sounds like BA with very low bass floor. SR5 may have applied similar Driver of Yume and retuned it with sub-bass lift. It has sub-sub-bass, below audible zone.
Probably they run out of first batch and backordering from plant.
