BGVP is another company I have only barely heard of. I’ve seen their products and I’ve read mixed reviews about them so I never really tried to buy anything from them in the past. But this newer IEM of theirs landed at my house a month ago.
The DMG is a 6-driver earphone with 2 dynamic drivers, and 4 Knowles balanced armature drivers. The headphone is well constructed with a metal housing that fits very well in my ears. The shiny paint finish looks stunning and its minimalist design is really appealing to me.
Accessories & Build Quality
The unit comes in a box that has the recycled tan paper look and below it is a nice presentation of two smaller boxes, which contain the DMGs and its accessories. The MMCX detachable cable that is included is silver colored and is very nice. It may be one of the nicest cables I’ve seen included with a Chinese branded IEM. It’s very lightweight, attractive, and soft. It also has a L-shaped 3.5mm connector.
The IEM also comes with 4 different styles of tips, each with varying sizes. There is a pair of foam tips, and then 3 sets of silicone tips in small, medium and large each. In addition, ear hooks are included as well as a cable clip.
The other accessory included are the threaded filters. The IEM has screw-on filters that can change the sound signature, and comes with the stock ones in the color of the IEM (black, red or blue), as well as a silver one for treble boost, and a gold one for bass boost. I found the filters to be very subtle in change and that they do come off very easily – too easily actually, which can be annoying and problematic in the long run.
Sound
In listening to the DMG, I was quickly surprised by how well it sounded in every genre. I wanted to write a review on these sooner, but I just didn’t know where to start and how to really approach this. It wasn’t a price category I was used to. They’re priced at $140 and everything I have is either half that price, or double that price. I’ve only had a small handful of IEMs in this price point and I no longer hand them in hand. The last one I owned in this range was the 1More Quad Driver and these are significantly better than those in every way. I also had the Campfire Comet for a short-time and I found the DMG to be actually quite similar to it, if not better.
So where to start?
First off, I’ve listened to this IEM with a few different sources. My daily portable is the Onkyo DP-S1 DAP which has 6 Ohms OI in balanced mode, as well as the Ear Studio ES100, also in balanced. At home, I have been using an iFi IEMatch in balanced with either the Topping DX7 or the Pete Millet Starving Student Tube Hybrid.
The DMG took me by surprise. They had a very clean sound, and while there is a small bit of warmth to them, I never found them excessive. This is using the stock filter by the way, and my discussion will revolve around the use of this one only to make things simple. Again, the two other filters make very subtle differences, as I will let you see in the Frequency Response graph below.
As shown, the filters have small difference. The gold filter has a more pronounced mid-bass hump and lower treble response giving it a more bass emphasis. The silver filter follows the stock filter very tightly, however drops the lower mids down a couple decibels giving the upper mids and treble more emphasis. The stock filter, overall, is the most balanced of the three.
The DMG has a pretty good warm/neutral sound signature with slightly recessed mids. It’s a very mild U-shape but the treble is also boosted so it gives a lot of detail and air to songs. When looking at it’s frequency response with IEM Diffuse Field compensation; it actually looks somewhat similar to one of my favorites – the Hifiman HE560, though with a slight mid-bass hump (+2-3dB) and earlier drop in mids. Perhaps this similar signature is what has drawn me into this IEM so much.
I don’t want to get carried away. The HE560 is an over-ear planar headphone and it definitely has a more open, tight and richer sound, as well as much more extended on the low end, than the DMG, but from a basic sound signature point of view, they are similar.
In comparing it with the Campfire Comets, and this is strictly off of memory, I found the DMG better extended on the upper end and less vocal-forward. The Comets have an extremely pleasant sound that is genre-independent, and really works well as an all-arounder. It’s only flaw was that it did everything well but excelled at nothing. It plays within the box and doesn’t go out of it – it has no deep bass extension and has a lack of air.
With the DMG, I actually found it to sound balanced well like the Comets were, but extends much more in the upper end. This gives those little guitar plucks in acoustic songs that extra zing, or the cymbals crashing more naturally.
The other IEM I mentioned before that I listened to in this bucket is the 1More Quad Driver. This one regularly goes on sale for around the same asking price as the DMG, at around $140. The Quads have more punch to them, and while still detailed, they lack the cohesion between the bass, lower-mids and the rest of the spectrum. This is really due to the mid-bass hump that’s present to give that warm, punchy bass signature that many people crave. It’s an IEM that’s suited for pop and EDM music, and unfortunately for me, it’s not what I listen to. The DMG on the other hand works really well with what I like – that is indie rock, folk, country/bluegrass, jazz, post-rock and classical.
The DMG does lack a little body sometimes, and occasionally the treble can be a little sharp. The slightly recessed mids does make these points more apparent. So, occasionally, some songs do sound a bit uneven, however, overall I found this IEM to handle my normal listening library with ease and pleasure.
Overall
BGVP really did a fine job on this IEM. It delivers a well built IEM with some small flaws at a price point that’ll make new audiophiles who are ready to step up from the sub-$100 range headphones into the next level very happy. This seems like a very logical step up from the T2/T2 Pro or the TRN V80 I recently reviewed.
The biggest weakness to me, and perhaps are a gimmick, is the filters. They don’t do a whole lot and I don’t really see the value too much in having them. Instead, you get threads that can be easily stripped and become loose over time. I already have found myself unscrewing the filters accidently when changing out tips or just when removing the IEMs from my ears.
The DM6 is the next step up from this brand and I am excited to hear how that will sound. The early impressions on them have been exceptional and the manufacture’s IEM compensated curve looks extremely flat – my ears are anxious with curiosity!
Credits
The BGVP DMG was provided to me by Linsoul for the purpose of providing an honest, unbiased review. As with all my reviews, I try to mix an objective measurements/science approach along with my own subjective listening impressions into consideration and to provide readers with my honest feedback.
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