Empire Ears Odin - Official Thread

That would be the U18t. The “reference-tuned” 64 Audio universal IEM.

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Thanks T! Never seen it before.

Now…back to Odin discussion!

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Ooops sorry. I forgot to say what was in the picture. I posted the picture in this thread as it has the Empire Ears in it which is my latest acquisition. Along withe the Odin is also my EE Hero on the left next is the EE Odin with the 64 Audio U18t and last but not least the Original Campfire Andromeda. I shall be posting a follow up with impressions of the Odin and a comparison piece.

Yes the U18t is pretty.

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I own the Odin too and will be preparing a review soon. As far as I am concerned, they are the best Head-Fi equipment I’ve ever listened to. Also they scale nicely with the source. (little spoiler :wink:)

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Agreed Tom. They are the best thing I have had in my ears.

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I’d love to see you write some IEM impression mashups. Odín in the left ear and Tia in the right! Or is it the other way around?

Your comments always command my attention (no joke).

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Thank you @pennstac I really appreciate you kind words. I had also thought about the amount of iems to orifice ratios. But I won’t go there… lol. One in each ear and one in either nostril. What a thought.

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Listening to the ODIN right now off my TT2 - T4 - ODIN and using Qobuz … fantastic IEM… just prepping it for going on a demo tour soon along with the HERO =)
Sneak pic of one of the pictures I got of these two awesome IEMs…

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So, I read on head-fi about the Odin’s cable being very fancy and pricey. I thought I’d look into this myself and, interestingly, EE sells the cable separately. The cable alone costs $1,300, which is more than a third of the Odin’s $3,400 price.

As a point of reference, Campfire Audio’s $1,500 Solaris 2020 has a $200 cable.

Too bad you can’t order the Odin with a cheaper cable…

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I’d be curious to know why the Odin Stormbreaker cable is priced at $1300.

They say that it’s made of OCC copper, but I can get a well-made custom OCC cable with premium connectors from any number of highly-regarded companies (Arctic, Double Helix, Norne, Forza etc) for $200-300. The price goes up as the materials get more expensive so at Double Helix, for instance, $1000 gets you 19awg OCC silver. I’m assuming that after materials and labor, those companies are making a profit at those prices.

I’m not criticizing the Odin’s pricing, as I understand that elite headphone manufacturers charge a premium for their headphones and IEMs. They need to make a living, and I can’t buy cheaper alternatives at the same level of quality. I’m just wondering how they’re justifying the $1000 premium for the cable.

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Yes, I’m fine with Empire Ears charging the prices they wish, and for people being happy to pay for high-end cables. But I think it’s worthwhile for folks to know what it is they’re paying for.

My first thought had been to wonder what new tech or R&D investments had yielded a $3,400 IEM. I was curious about how the innovations may have afforded improvements to the sound. But I wonder if this is a different proposition (value- or otherwise) when EE is, in effect, selling a $2,100 IEM with an expensive cable. I wonder what the ratio between the price of the cable to the overall price of the IEM is for other manufacturers like Unique Melody, 64 Audio, etc…

Then again, I don’t have experience with high-end cables, and I don’t know what synergistic benefits, if any, the IEM and the cable produce together.

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That’s one way to look at it. You could also think that you’re getting a 1300$ cable included with the 3400$ iem for free. :wink:

I would like to compare to similarly priced IEMs like Tia Fourté that may have a cheaper cable in terms of overall sound quality.

In the end it’s the whole package and you have to decide if a high price cable upgrade is worth it.

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Yeah, it would really be a wonderful treat to sit down and compare a handful of totl IEMs. And it might be fun to switch around and compare cables - to the extent that connector compatibility permits - although I suspect my hearing and ability to discern differences would be the weak point in such a comparative analysis.

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pretty sure the cable is not necessarily baked into the price… but, I think that when it comes to cables… you are more paying for the time spent making them than anything else… I like to think of cables as neck candy… though I do think with IEMs it can factor more than with headphones for any perceived difference… though I personally would not be able to comment on this. So when you think about cables as expensive necklaces made of silver/copper… it makes more sense… to me at least ha! though I do think cable prices are ridiculous…

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NAm customers are at a bit of a disadvantage re IEMs. Look at the price to performance ratios of the Monarch, Clairvoyance, MEST from Asian manufacturers and who knows what else that we don’t have easy access to here.

I wonder how this ratio compares to the headphone market? Seems like there may be more value with these IEMs?

The Odin most definitely appears to be TOTL but look at how close some people rate the thieaudio gear at almost 1/5th the cost. Is there a roughly $800 headphone that provides similar competition for something like the $4000 Utopia? I don’t know, maybe, nothing immediately comes to mind.

IEMs are a weird market to me.

Edit: Happy cake day! @Tchoupitoulas.

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The ODIN and Hero demo tour will be live tonight I’ll keep it open for a couple days or until we have too many people sign up… please read the main thread post regarding how we are doing these tours and picking participants =) which can be found here:

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I agree that the price to performance ratios across the different markets are interesting and hard to get a handle on. I suspect they’re devilishly difficult to compare. I can only speak personally and anecdotally here, but my sense is that the experience of listening to IEMs as opposed to headphones is a fundamentally different one, much as it is again with loudspeakers.

I can’t say what would represent the equivalent price to performance ratio between speakers and headphones. But for headphones that are 1/5 of the Utopia I suppose one could mention the HD 650, given the heights to which they’re said to scale? But then that raises another apples to oranges issue of the quality of one’s chain. Is there a comparable price to performance benefit of an entry-level DAP versus a flagship Cayin, A&K, or Sony DAP? And now there’s the issue of the cable. Does the Utopia come with a $1,500 cable (which would be in proportion to the price of the Odin to its cable)? My understanding is that the Focal cables are decent enough apart from ergonomics.

It seems as though IEMs increase steeply in quality as you get to the $500-1000 range and that the curve of diminishing returns levels off pretty dramatically after that. Or am I wrong? (I’d gladly be corrected on this point). I’d be interested to hear the impressions of those who’ve heard the Odin here!

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If I were going to spend that money, I’d rather pay $2100 for the IEM, and whatever @Torq charges for his custom cables.

With purple sheathing, of course.

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Let’s not give them any ideas.

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Officially, they charge $1,000 for the Utopia cable - if you order a spare.

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