New toy arrived yesterday, sadly with some woes...:/
I preordered the Moondrop Dusk, because I really liked the Blessing 2: Dusk back when it came out and I was interested in this new update, which promised a DSP featured sound upgrade and ways to change the sound signature. Those DSP profiles are made by people with a lot more knowledge than I have and they spent the time creating the sound signature they prefer, which I am interested in hearing. Even before the Dusk came in, people were talking about the dysfunctional app from Moondrop, that is used to change DSP settings and some QC issues like channel imbalance.
Yesterday I was really skeptical if I should even open them up, because all the negative news I have read about. But I did in the end and to my dismay, the whole package feels a lot cheaper than the Blessing 2: Dusk.
The packaging is nice enough I guess, but it already starts with the included carrying Case, which is noticably of lesser quality than before, especially the zipper.
The IEMs seem pretty flimsy themselves as well and the cables are bottom of the barrel cheapo. Everything has a plastic-y vibe to it. Because it is all plastic.
The measurements on the back of the box, which would be great to see, if Moondrop had a stricter factory tolerance.
The DSP cable makes noise. Yes you read that right. It is noisy on its own and I heard it immediately. This article backs me up as well:
https://headphones.com/blogs/reviews/moondrop-x-crinacle-dusk-an-inconvenient-truth
If I had read this article before I opened the box, I would not have done so. It's a complete joke to be honest. After trying for 30 minutes to get the Moondrop app working, I gave up and switched to the regular, even cheaper feeling, 3.5mm cable. Timmy from Gizaudio made the DSP profiles available as .txt files for Wavelet and added some more as well.
The stock DSP profile sounds... Okay. On some tracks it's better than the analogue tuning, on some the analogue tuning sounds better. I would still have to evaluate more thoroughly and also test the other DSP profiles. But I am disappointed. This IEM cost 350 Euros. It's of course no crazy high budget release, but these cables and the overall feel of the Dusk screams 100 bucks at best to me, even with the 2DD, 2BA, 2 Planar driver setup.
The most advertised feature of this product is faulty and borderline completely disfunctional.
When I asked Shenzhenaudio for a partial refund or the possibility to return the item for free, they denied my request, claiming their policy, as the product functions as normal. But in my opinion, this is product is not fully functional. This is my last purchase from Shenzhenaudio for sure.
I will most likely sell the Dusk here, if anyone is interested, just beware of its faults. Bad advertising, I know, but it is the truth. It's not a horrible IEM by any means. But it is certainly not what I expected it to be.