Today I had the great pleasure of visiting
Addicted To Audio in Melbourne with
@Damz87 @lycos and
@jaydoc1, despite the weather being... typical of Melbourne.
With the rain behind us, we settled in to a couple of hours' listening & chatting at A2A's portable audio counter. Special thanks to Ernie who was kind enough to arrive for work early to be of service, Ernie owns a pair of Monarch MKII's and is quite a fan of them.
I won't go into great detail since it's very difficult to hear minute differences between transducers, cables & sources in such (relatively) noisy conditions. However we certainly gathered a solid 'general overview' of the IEMs were fortunate enough to hear, so I'll present some of my thoughts here.
UM Multiverse Mentor
These are the most impressive IEMs I've ever heard. A fraction physically larger than I'd like, with a heavy but extremely high quality cable. Possibly the most resolving earphones in existence, with amazing separation, a very large soundstage, the best non-DD bass I've heard (enough to fully satisfy my taste), an extremely smooth and forward midrange... gosh I'd like more time with them to form a more detailed opinion but based on this morning's demo they may be as close to perfect as today's technology will allow. They're extremely full-bodied however, perhaps a touch too much so with the wrong source & would fair best with something laidback most likely.
Noble Viking Ragnar
I spent far less time with the IEMs that followed so my impressions will be briefer. Ragnar felt extremely well made and looks unique. They seem tuned to deliver as much detail as possible and seemed a tad thin, especially right after the full-bodied Mentor. Taken alone Ragnar were extremely impressive, but competition is quite stiff at the high-end these days so I am forced to nitpick that their midrange wasn't as satisfying as I'd like, and tonality was not up to Mentor standards. I did listen to them with some classical and they sounded brilliant - leading me to suspect they'd be a great match for the genre, but the problem is there are many other choices in this price bracket that I suspect would be better all-rounders. Ragnar seem suited to someone who particularly wants a reference-style IEM that's tuned on the dry & thin side.
Astell & Kern Pathfinder
These weren't on my radar at all but they really impressed me. They are very sparkly up top - which happens to be an IEM tuning guilty pleasure I've always had a weakness for, they featured terrific bass impact and an extremely wide, open soundstage. I didn't listen for long enough to detect if coherency is an issue or not, but nothing jumped out in that regard. Physically they are gorgeous, extremely well made and quite small compared to some of the TOTL hybrids. The cable felt unacceptably cheap however, and I would feel compelled to change it. That said I do hope to audition these again, and don't always find myself saying that.
Noble Kublai Khan
Unfortunately I didn't have much time with these, and well... they mustn't have had much impact on me since I can't actually remember the particulars of how they sounded except that I did enjoy them, and may have even preferred their tuning to Ragnar's. This is not to suggest they were lacklustre at all, but when you demo IEMs alongside the Mentor... others have a tendency to melt into the background alongside "the rest".
Dita Dream XLS
Somehow I had missed demoing these previously. It turns out I wasn't missing much, they have a very flat, underwhelming character and the shells aren't especially small or comfortably shaped either. No way would I ever choose these over my A8000 or IE600.
Thieaudio Monarch MKII
I gave these another listen, having not been dramatically impressed the last time I heard them. They're actually quite good, the DD is a little slow but if you can forgive them that they're quite satisfying particularly for the price, offering more than a taste of truly-TOTL offerings for a fraction of the investment. I prefer them to the Thieaudio V16 Divinity since they seem better tuned and less bloated. However, to suggest the Monarch MKII compete at the very summit alongside the likes of Mentor, Traillii, Jewel and their ilk (as some reviewers have done) is to believe in a fairytale or confess the limits of one's hearing.
Sincere thanks once again to Addicted to Audio for hosting us. All of us who attended greatly appreciate the tremendous role they've played in putting Melbourne on the portable audio map, giving us invaluable opportunities to demo products we would otherwise have to purchase blind.
Mentor is the new king. Long may he reign.
I'm hoping it's a glitch in the tracking!
. I can hear the tiniest nuances (the bow quivering, the movement of the strings)
