Cross-posting from the Elysian Pilgrim thread:
My initial reaction to Pilgrim was at CanJam NYC 24 where I got to demo a pre release version. When I heard the impossible news that Elysian was going to price this at $399, I thought, "there goes the ChiFi market" ...those moondrops and dunus were about to get pulverized by Elysian.
However, while awfully good, it still sounded a little bright and thin in the mids for me and my snobby tastes and criticisms. But by just a little, and honestly not enough to care if they were truly going to sell at $399, because something I also heard was a similarly engaging tuning as I heard on the Anni and Diva 23, but somehow with better bass. So at $399, I thought that was like the entry point to the Elysian tuning, a gateway Elysian!
As I waited for release, CanJam Singapore happened, and low-and-behold, another Pilgrim appeared at a rumored 2x price with similar internals but a different finish and tuning, and an EA cable. Rumor and talk around these threads, combined with news from Singapore, was that this was an Elysian/EA collaboration version, with some influence from EAs founder in the tuning. They were going to finish it in black, as opposed to the stainless steel look of Pilgrim, and give a minor retune to add bass, reduce brightness, and thicken mids while still sounding inherently like Pilgrim. This was going to be called the Pilgrim: Noir as everyone now knows.
At first I thought, "that's confusing", but I also thought those retuning tweaks might work for me even better than the OG did based on my initial impressions. And since this would still be an Elysian gateway drug under a kilobock, I was definitely in on the Noir the day I read about it.
Thanks to the awesome folks at EA and Hifigo, and the whole EA support staff, which has probably grown tired of me by now, I have been listening to Pigrim: Noir for several days now since receipt and burn in last week. I bought it that very day I read about it, blind with my own cash because I had a feeling that any improvement on the Pilgrim would be worth it, and a good EA cable with the package would be icing on the cake.
Tldr, I was (luckily) not wrong (this time!) as the rumored tuning changes and included EA cable were true, to a fault. The EA Eros 8w cable in its matte black finish matches perfectly with the Noir, not only aesthetically but sonically as well. This is a high grade cable, certainly no average stock cable. And the returning...wow, exactly what was rumored and reported from Singapore, thicker mids and especially deeper bass. What a package!
I have also recently received a tour unit of the OG Pilgrim from HiFiGo, and will begin listening to it to try and discern if these differences are really there or if I've got some good, old confirmation bias
Very exciting times for the sub kilobuck category! Was everyone ready for Elysian to do this!? I was, so thanks Elysian, EA, and HiFiGo!
