Dunu Mirai In-Ear Monitor Headphones - Official Discussion Thread

[taronlissimore]

We gave a sneak peak at Mirai during CanJam Socal this year and now, Mirai is finally live and brought to life!

Pre-Order the Dunu Mirai Now

The Mirai is something we at Headphones.com, Precogvision and Dunu have been hard at work for the last two and half years to deliver an IEM experience that we feel is truly different from others. irai is intended to encapsulate the type of sound that the market might be more open to in the future—except you get to hear it now.

While many IEMs strive for neutral benchmarking, the Mirai intentionally ventures into more colored waters. Despite these deliberate frequency alterations, it doesn’t compromise on tuning fundamentals, resulting in a sound that’s both musical and tastefully executed.

The Mirai is infused with the high standards of Precogvision, leverages the strengths of both DUNU and Headphones.com. While DUNU brings its rich history and technical prowess, Headphones.com offers its community-driven focus, product design insights, and industry knowledge. The result? An IEM that both parties are proud to present to audiophiles.

The Mirai comes with a custom, white Dunu DUW02S cable (not featured in our lifestyle photography as it wasn’t complete yet but you can see it below) and has ear tips carefully sampled and selected by Precogvision to give you the best out of the box experience with Mirai as possible

The Dunu Mirai is our first product collaboration from top to bottom and we’re incredibly proud of what we were able to achieive.

The Mirai is expected to start shipping in early December in limited quantities. Price is $1099 USD.

To learn more about the Mirai and pre-order, click the link below!

Learn More about the Dunu Mirai and Pre-Order

[taronlissimore]

@Resolve interviews @Precogvision in this video on the background of the Mirai, how it came to be and the collaboration process between Precog, Dunu and Headphones.com. If you’re looking to learn more about the Mirai and the thought process behind it, this is the video to check out.

The Collab - Dunu x Precogvision Mirai

[Carl_Toribio]

Any news on when they start shipping out? I’ve got mine pre-ordered since November

[taronlissimore]

Yup! Dunu let us know the first batch left their warehouse on Saturday and will be enough to fill all pre-orders. We don’t have tracking yet but I would expect them to start shipping from our warehouse in the next week or two.

[Donald_Wolff]

This is my review of the Dunu Mirai. I per-ordered this the day it came up on headphone.com, and was looking forward to getting it in. $1100.00 so I thought it would be world class build and sound, When I first opened it I was not happy. The cable looks and feels like a cheap plastic toy, and the IEMs are very light and feel like they spent $5 for the shells. I am running this on a Schiit Midgard, Lokius, and Modius, not off a phone. As for the sound, it not bad, clean clear but very little in the bass. If you want to feel the hit in the lows, forget it. You can hear the drums but not feel a thing, the mids are nice and clean, so female vocals are nice. The highs are good but not great, and in no way worth the 1+k . What I truly think is that somebody is making a lot of money on a very mid level set. If they spent more then $75 building this I would be shocked. Look for something else to drop a thousand bucks on, this set at that price is a joke!

[senorx12562]

For some reason, this is exactly what I expected. Glad I bought the Monarch mk III.

[Resolve]

Just for folks wondering, here’s the measurement result vs population average (JM-1):

B&K 5128:

Raw

Calibrated

GRAS:

Raw

Calibrated

[taronlissimore]

@Donald_Wolff

As for the sound, it not bad, clean clear but very little in the bass. If you want to feel the hit in the lows, forget it.

I’d be curious to know which tips you used as this sounds like a seal issue. I had originally tried the coloured silicone tips (green) and found that I wasn’t getting a good seal. Swapped over to some Dekoni Bullets I had on my desk and found there is plenty of impact in the low-end.

@Donald_Wolff

If they spent more then $75 building this I would be shocked.

I couldn’t speak to Dunu’s raw materials cost in making the Mirai but the faceplate is stabilized wood, the project took two years of development, comes with a customized coloured variant of the Dunu DUW-02 Cable, 3 modular connectors (2.5mm, 3.5mm and 4.4mm), a customized colour leather carry case, airplane adapter, completely customized packaging from our design team along with a 1/4" adapter and airplane adapter.

[Donald_Wolff]

For tips, I tried 4 different ones, the Dunu ones that came with it. AZLA SednaEarfit XELASTEC, Divinus Velvet Silicone, and my fav, the TANGZU Tang Sancai Wide Bore! I let it burn in over 15 hours. I did not know that it had stabilized wood, it looked like cheap plastic. I just want to say I have nothing against Dunu, Headphones.com or Precogvision, I did buy this the first day it came up for pre-sale. But I have cheap and expensive IEMs and I have never seen a 1k+ IEM that looked as badly made and felt as inexpensive as this. After re-watching the video, what I truly think is after 2 years Dunu said this is it, take it or we will move on. I don’t believe that Precog or the guys from Headphones.com really like it, but so much is riding on it they have no choice.

[Donald_Wolff]

One other thing, I think it is funny that I can’t leave a review on the youtube video (posted it 9 times and it was pulled down all 9 times) or on the website. No bad review allowed!

[VSG]

I’m not involved with this collab at all but actually it was Precog behing relentless about what he wanted the Mirai to sound like that resulted in the 2+ years this product took, not DUNU giving up at any stage.

[taronlissimore]

@Donald_Wolff

I don’t believe that Precog or the guys from Headphones.com really like it, but so much is riding on it they have no choice.

Your subjective opinion is your subjective opinion and there’s nothing wrong with that! The great thing about this hobby is that something that you find to be bad someone else will find great. However, I will ask that you do not make hyperbolic, baseless accusations towards myself or our staff.

@Donald_Wolff

One other thing, I think it is funny that I can’t leave a review on the youtube video (posted it 9 times and it was pulled down all 9 times) or on the website. No bad review allowed!

I can’t speak to the Youtube comment but it’s likely getting autoflagged by Youtube’s spam filter. This can happen if you type “headphones.com” as it thinks you’re typing a link. Unless someone is threatening a member of our staff or saying something grossly inappropriate, those comments are not moderated.

On the website, I do only see one review of the Mirai that has been submitted in our back-end. I am not sure what the communication time is like between when a review is submitted and when it’s published by the 3rd-party software we use but if you submitted it, it will be up at some point.

[Donald_Wolff]

Ok sorry for the comments on the staff. I just find it hard to believe I’m this far off the mark with the quality issues! Just to make one last point, I have written 10 different reviews over the last year and 8 have been positive. This and one other on hifigo were negative.

[taronlissimore]

A quick unboxing video from @Jaytiss who posted this over in the Head-Fi thread for those wondering about the packaging experience,

Dunu Mirai Unboxing Video and Graph

[Resolve]

The reason we don’t talk about it is because of conflict of interest not because we aren’t enamored with it, and any suggestion that we aren’t is both unfounded and outright false. Maybe we can dig out our initial reactions and post them at some point as there were definitely some “holy shit the bass” moments, but I don’t feel like elaborating on sentiment towards the product beyond that reaction. What I will say is that the unit I have is the audio product I’ve been daily driving since I got it, despite @taronlissimore begging me to bring it in so he can listen to it. I refused, flat out. So he had to wait until he got a production sample in.

With regards to “is it good though?” questions, it’s important to understand that IEM preferences vary more than they do for over-ears in large part due to the fact that IEMs bypass the pinna, meaning that the pinna effects contributing to the HRTF at the ear drum of the individual have to be assumed. If that assumption is wrong for the individual, then it’s less likely to be well received. If that assumption is right, then it’s more likely to be well received.

On the one hand, I feel that it makes most sense to tune IEMs closer to a population average pinna for these effects, since it’ll be more likely to be well received by the widest range of people, and the Mirai is not tuned strictly to a population average, even though it’s closer than what you find with typical Harman IE tunings. However, there’s also an argument to get it far more specific to a certain segment of the population, to be even better received by that group. And this is where tuning to a particular preference may yield a better result for people with a similar preference.

Simply put, we should expect there to be outliers in terms of the reception of any in-ear product, and based on the three big factors for sound quality, HRTF, HpTF and Preference, you’re bound to see differing reports. I expect some will like it, and some won’t. If you want to get a better understanding - to better predict if you will like it, you have to learn how your pinna effects differ from population average. That’s not exactly an easy task, but this is really all you can do without trying it.

Consider IEMs you’ve heard in the past and how they measure. Consider where the elevations differ for you compared to how it shows on the graph. As an example, I know that my pinna is closer to population average than that of the B&K 5128 (relative to ISO 11904), and I also know that I have a big boi ear canal that causes more energy at around 6.1khz than what graphs typically show for IEMs, unless I use flange tips and really jam them in there, then that 6.1khz region reduces for me.

If you’re set on chasing the sound quality dragon with IEMs - as I imagine many on forums who are deep in the hobby tend to be - you either have to get lucky with the right product for you, or you have to spend some time learning about how different features of the FR show up for you specifically.

[Essentials]

Instead of moaning about it why don’t you just send it back?

[Nuance]

Or he can sell it to me. $200, final offer.

[Donald_Wolff]

I did at a $427 loss, so thanks

[Donald_Wolff]

Sorry a $429+ loss sent it a week ago and have heard nothing yet so maybe at a $1150 loss I don’t know.

[VSG]

Mirai in the house