Precog's IEM Reviews & Impressions

Wow, what a great Shoot out writeup. As an Iem lover it was right up my street. A very engaging piece of writing. So enjoyable infact, I read it twice. Thank you @Precogvision.

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JH Audio Layla Aion impressions

Jerry Harvey Audio is not a brand with much presence on most audio forums I frequent. But take a dip into the professional world, and JH Audio is suddenly one of the biggest names on the block with no shortage of well-known musicians using their IEMs. It should come as no surprise that JH Audio has bigger priorities than us casual hobbyists. However, this does beg the question: How good are their IEMs actually? Courtesy of Headphones.com, I currently have the Layla Aion on hand for review. The Layla Aion is a collaboration between JH Audio and Astell&Kern that sports 12BAs and that will set you back $3500. From what I can see, it’s pretty similar to the Layla, JH Audio’s halo model, so this should set a reasonable precedent for what we can expect from the brand.

The Layla Aion has a pair of bass dials integrated in its cable for each of the Left/Right channels. You turn these dials to increase/decrease bass presence; I’m guessing these dials work via adjusting impedance accordingly. Pretty cool. But the maximum bass setting is not good at all. On this setting, the Layla Aion sounds overly bloated with the farty quality that characterizes BA drivers having been pushed past their limits. As a whole, the sound signature brings to mind the dreaded descriptor of “mud-fi”. Best to lay off the bass; personally, I chose to set the dial to the 12 o’clock position. On this setting, the Layla Aion’s bass just sounds like normal BA bass; it has no slam, no dynamics. Pretty inoffensive for what it’s worth.

But the midrange of the Layla Aion is an affront to any self-respecting weeb listener. Actually, scratch that: any listener with normal hearing. The Layla Aion’s pinna compensation is non-existent, falling outside the scope of any academic target curve. You have a minor bump at 1.3kHz and then an abrupt dip after, where most IEMs would be rising. This is followed by a baby hump at 3kHz which has no place being there. The Layla Aion has no upper-midrange; female vocals sound incredibly suppressed and diffused. Male vocals sound slightly more correct, but that’s not a high bar. This IEM is effectively limited to a very specific subset of music - dark, slow, male vocal tracks - to sound passable.

You’ll notice I said “dark” tracks, so let’s talk about the Layla Aion’s treble. Our perception of the treble frequencies is partially baked into the balance struck with the bass frequencies. But feel free to dial back the bass all you want - to the bare minimum - because it doesn’t change the Layla Aion fundamentally having almost zero treble extension. Subjectively, and on paper, the Layla Aion’s treble rolls off even earlier than 10kHz. Maybe JH Audio was going all-in on a more relaxed tuning, I don’t know. But it’s not an excuse. The Layla Aion still sounds fatiguing (even if it doesn’t hit me at first) because of how off the 7kHz peak is contrasted to the rest of the treble response. There’s also, like, $25 IEMs with better treble extension than this.

If you’re wondering about technicalities, they’re not good. As in “not good to the point of which I normally don’t take the time to talk about it” not good. But the Layla Aion isn’t some random, sub-$100 IEM. It’s a multi-kilobuck IEM with expectations. Notes are blunted from head-to-toe. Staging is slightly better than average, but individual instrument lines are smushed and nigh impossible to discern from one another. The Layla Aion sounds incredibly compressed and boring; perhaps this perception is partly baked into its lack of extension. No matter how you cut it, there’s no way you’d know that this IEM has 12BAs. There are 1BA IEMs, such as the Etymotic ER3XR, that handily out-resolve the Layla Aion.

The JH Audio Layla Aion. A pretty IEM that doesn’t sound so pretty in my opinion.

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But what about the otaku’s?

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Symphonium Helios Impressions

It’s becoming increasingly rare that I get excited about an IEM these days, but this is one I’ve been eager to hear - enough that I probably refreshed the DHL tracking about a hundred times throughout the day waiting for it to arrive yesterday! (And yes, DHL conveniently decided to deliver at nearly 8PM which is why these impressions are going up today). But I digress. I think it’s only proper that I lend some context about Symphonium, a brand that most readers have probably never heard of before. Symphonium is a small Singaporean brand, and the Helios is their 4BA flagship IEM. Yup, you heard me right. A humble four BA drivers, and it’s very reasonably priced at $1100 too.

In the interest of transparency, the Helios was also developed with consulting from Subtonic. Subtonic is an upcoming Singaporean audio brand; a partnership between several audio enthusiasts that includes @toranku of Head-Fi fame. I regularly converse with Toranku and would consider him a good friend and someone who inspired my style of reviewing.

I had already seen the graph of the Helios, and it wasn’t ever really a question of whether the Helios was going to be well-tuned given the individuals at the helm. Nonetheless, this can be considered neutral with bass boost; I’ll also give a quick run-through of the overall tonality as well as some possible weaknesses.

The first thing that strikes me about the Helios is its bass performance. I praised the 64A U6t for its BA bass not too long ago, but the Helios is just as much a winner in the BA bass department. This is partly due to its tuning which is concentrated almost solely in the sub-bass regions, therefore emphasizing a high degree of cleanliness. But the Helios is no less a slouch in the intangible department either. It actually slams, so much so that I wouldn’t mind putting it up there with my beloved 64A U12t. I still don’t find it quite as “organic” - the Helios’ bass texture leans more dry than the U6t and U12t, perhaps due to a lack of mid-bass - but the Helios sets the standard at a kilobuck for BA bass. Yes, I think prefer it to the Sony IER-M9’s bass (certainly at least tonally) from memory.

The midrange of the Helios continues to follow the Harman target closely throughout the lower-midrange. Despite the more gentle approach taken to the pinna compensation and the upper-midrange, then, the Helios’ note weight definitely skews slightly thin to my ears. Is this bad? Not at all, but this is where tonal preference will divide some listeners on the Helios’ tuning. Personally, I think it could use with some more warmth. I also want to say that the Helios is almost too clean for its own good here. While I don’t hear any exaggerated instances of sibilance on my usual test tracks like Girls Generation’s “Flyers” at 0:46, transients seem to have a slight edge to them that makes even very small instances of sibilance, such as on Loona’s “Voice” at 0:25 to 0:30, pop more than I’m used to. This is especially apparent when listening with the Azla Sedna tips.

My only real complaint with the tonality of the Helios would be its treble. It’s something of a double-edged sword. I cannot deny that it is wonderfully extended and mostly smooth without any egregious dips or valleys in sine sweeps. But here’s the not-so-favorable side of that sword: the treble of the Helios teeters on abrasive to my ears. I have to imagine that this abrasiveness is partly baked into excess air as, again, swapping off the Azla Sednas for the Symphonium tips mostly fixes this issue. But either way, the timbre of the Helios’s treble seems somewhat distinct from the bass response which is surprising given that this is an all-BA IEM. This applies to the midrange to a lesser extent. At times, I could even mistake the Helios for sounding more like a hybrid than it does a BA IEM.

You might see where I’m going; the Helios doesn’t sound as coherent as I’d like. As with IEMs like the Thieaudio Monarch and the Moondrop Variations, this feeling is ostensibly attributable, at least partly, to the tuning. From the Helios’ razor sharp bass shelf, slight dip to the lower-midrange, and to its excellent treble extension, it all culminates in a more segmented if not clean presentation. I have to admit that my critiques of the Helios are, to some extent, because it’s actually too damn good in one department or another. The midrange is too resolving, bringing out micro-detail I don’t want, the treble has too much air resulting in slight harshness, and the timbral inconsistency is partially because the bass is so good for a BA. I’d say these are some of the better problems to have. Your average listener probably wouldn’t pick up on the coherency issues, and the excess treble air would likely be a boon for most listeners.

It doesn’t hurt that the Helios has a strong technical foundation with little to no weaknesses in the departments I usually index for. Detail is good. I hear that faint ring to the backdrop of Taeyeon’s “I Found You” which usually only presents itself to me on my speakers. Imaging is slightly out-of-head and the Helios’s layering chops are excellent. While not as holographic as the Andro 2020, the Helios edges out the Andro 2020 in terms of positional incisiveness in A/B. And as much has I like to complain about dynamics, the Helios is certainly not compressed for macro-dynamic contrast. Transients also lean fast, and I find myself glued to BoA’s Deluxe album. Honestly? I’m hard-pressed to ask for more on the front of technicalities. You (or at least certainly I ) wouldn’t know this IEM toted a mere 4BAs if it wasn’t in the product literature.

The million dollar question is whether the Helios is top-tier material. To be blunt…nah. Not quite. It lacks that last leg of refinement, perhaps special sauce, that would place it at the top amongst greats like the 64A U12t, Empire Ears Odin, and Elysian Annihilator. But for the price of a little more than a grand, I have zero qualms giving this my stamp of approval. At least on the basis of sound quality, as the shells of the Helios are comfortable but quite large and stick out more than I’d like. But I digress. Symphonium has released a highly competitive IEM for its respective price bracket, one that is definitely worthy of kilobuck gatekeeper status in my eyes. And as far as the bias scale goes, I think the score will speak for itself.

Score: 8/10

All critical listening was done off of the 2.5mm jack of my iBasso DX300 with the stock cable and the stock tips. I found the included Azla Sednas to be a tad strident for my preferences, so I swapped to the other included Symphonium tips.

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Can confirm the Helios are quite good. Using them off the Burson Audio Conductor 3X Reference in low gain. The bass quality is very good. I’ve actually been swapping between the MEST MK II & 64 Audio U6t for my commutes in the last two weeks and the Helios might be the front runner between the three. I’ve only had them for two hours of listening now though so take early impressions with a grain of salt but early on these feel like a real serious contender in the $1099 price bracket.

Shell size as well as nozzle are quite big though so for those with with smaller ears / ear holes, you may have some fit issues. The 2-pin connector portion also sits quite high which isn’t an issue with the stock 2.5mm cable but when using 3rd-party cables with memory wire hooks, it can sit rather high. This leads to the cable fit being loose instead of snug around the ears.

Despite those nitpicks though, the Helios is very impressive and I’m looking to spending more time with them this week!

Some of the tracks used for testing

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I also got a loaner unit of the Helios and it’s very good. Will post more comments and perhaps a special YouTube Livestream of it soon…

It’s nicely tuned, good bass quality and quantity and smooth and refined sound with gobs of clarity and details. May be a slightly forward treble presentation but nothing that is bothersome. The fit is the biggest concern for perspective buyers as it has a long, wide and angled nozzle that doesn’t quite fit well in my right ear but I’m able to get a tight seal regardless.

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As we will be getting more reviews and details on the Symphonium Helios (I am lucky enough to be expecting to demo them also in the near future), I have created a thread for these IEMs here:

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A post was merged into an existing topic: General purchase advice: Ask your questions/for advice here!

Vision Ears VE7 Impressions

I’ve been hankering to write impressions on the VE7 for some time now, but as some might already know, I’ve had a bad stroke of luck with the units I’ve received for review. It seems the third time’s the charm, though, and I finally have a unit that sounds like it should.

The first word that comes to mind when I hear the VE7 is “hazy”. But it’s not the bad kind of haziness, no, no. It’s the type of haziness that, in tandem with the VE7’s solid treble extension, largely comes across as a pleasant sense of musicality that harkens to the CFA Andromeda 2020. The VE7’s treble definitely deserves more attention, and I think it helps to lend context with the VE7’s older brother, the VE8. In my eyes, the VE8’s biggest weakness is its treble extension. It rolls off of 10kHz strongly and sports some unwanted peakiness to what treble it does have. This culminates in a gritty, compressed treble response that (in my opinion) is quite “lo-res”. By contrast, the VE7 has noticeably better extension and smooths over the VE8’s peakiness, or at least brings it much closer to an ideal mid-treble oriented response. It’s a thumbs-up from me.

The VE7’s other standout is its midrange. Like it’s brethren the VE8, it’s a thicker, saturated interpretation that favors the lower-harmonics. Piano simply drips with richness, and as much as I enjoy shouting out trashy K-Pop tracks in my reviews, I actually grew up listening to country music. Singers like George Strait and Easton Corbin come across as somewhere between sweet and buttery on the VE7 to my ears. The VE7’s might even be a little too smooth on something like Uncle Kracker’s “Smile” where I’m accustomed to more texture, but I almost find myself not minding. The VE7 also fixes the VE8’s sibilance issue, with vocals tokening the upper-midrange hitting south of neutral and being mostly devoid of intangible grit. Man, I just really like this midrange; as far as I’m concerned, this is Western tuning done justice.

That said, I wouldn’t expect much by way of the VE7’s bass. It sounds pretty much the same as the VE8’s bass which I didn’t think was noteworthy. It’s not as one-note or as dry as the Andro 2020, sure, but that’s not a high bar. The VE7 is also not really mind-blowing for technicalities. It has noticeable blunting to note definition due to its warmer tuning; furthermore, staging is firmly confined to the head-stage as is characteristic of IEMs with these standard shells. It’s a “cozy” presentation if I’m being nice and, that said, I do find the VE7 to have a good sense of detail and pleasant timbre. The VE7 also leans slightly quicker in terms of speed with a decent sense of dynamics. Not the best dynamics I’ve heard, mind you, but serviceable enough that I don’t find myself getting bored. Overall, reasonably good technicalities for such a toasty IEM in my book. Stack on excellent coherency and a great tuning, and you have a formidable package for the warm IEM connoisseur.

Unfortunately, what really capsizes the VE7’s competitiveness is its high cost of entry. It was already fighting an uphill battle against other established players at its pre-order price of $1300; now it’s sitting at a staggering $1860 which is more than a 40% price increase! That’s not a good look in my opinion. The Andromeda 2020, for instance, is considerably less costly, sports similar tonality, and is arguably more technical (at least in the imaging department). This makes me hard-pressed to recommend the VE7. With all that being said: It’s no secret that I’m not really into any of Vision Ear’s other IEMs I’ve heard; be it from the VE8, the Erlkonig, the Elysium, or to the EVE20. Let it be known that the VE7 would be my choice if you’re keen on a Vision Ears IEM and price was no object.

Score: 7/10

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That’s a pretty cool looking shell. Would love to see some macro shots of it.

Your best bet would be to ask this on the ‘General Purchase Advice thread.’ I’ll link your post to it so you can get some suggestions.

A few weeks ago, published an interview with Antdroid and today I am very happy to publish a new interview with the host of this thread and headphones.com resident IEM reviewer, @Precogvision.

I am not going to cross post the inteview here, so again, my apologies for making you click on the link and visit my blog, but I think it is certainly worth a read!

(Also available in Spanish for those interested, just follow the link and click on Español to change the language)

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Checked into the hotel for CanJam today and finally got to meet the Headphones.com crew in the flesh! It’s going to be a busy next couple days, but I’ll be doing my best to run around, hear all the new IEMs, and write-up impressions. Also got to steal a certain IEM after the team meeting:

I’ll say it’s purrty sweet on initial listen, but I’m also exhausted from driving most of the day so more thoughts will have to wait.

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CanJam SoCal 2021 Day 2

Hey all, here are some CanJam Day 2 impressions. Probably can’t cover everything I heard, but hopefully this gives a good feel of what I was able to get through. Bear in mind that, especially with the headphones, show conditions in terms of noise level are not good. I dislike listening loudly and this can make it difficult for me to get an accurate assessment of a headphone’s performance. I also do not remember most of the specific DAC/Amps that I heard most of these headphones off of, so you can just consider them very, very rough impressions. No scores or anything of that nature of course.

64A Duo : Gave the 64 Duo another listen today. It’s actually better than I gave it credit for on first listen. The foam tips that I was using yesterday sort of blunted everything which is why I generally avoid them. The DD that the Duo is using is pretty reminiscent of the Tia Trio to my ears. In A/B with the 64A Nio, the Duo’s bass decays more quickly and is tighter despite the IEMs sporting about equal bass quantity. The Duo’s bass is not as wooly and thick for sure (this could be either a pro or con depending on one’s preferences).

Audeze LCD-5: From what I could tell, these headphones were the star of the show with a never-ending line for them all day. They’re OK I guess. Very good detail and technicalities obviously, but the tonality wasn’t really to my taste. It does remind me of the LCD-4 to some degree which I wasn’t too impressed by either. Regardless, I couldn’t really discern much because I didn’t recognize any of the test tracks available. Hint: More K-pop tracks next time pls.

DCA Stealth: The Stealth sports what I hear as a neutral to upper-midrange oriented tonal balance. The overall tonality here is actually quite good, especially for an closed-back headphone. Pretty much every other closed-back I’ve heard has undesirable tonality. However, my biggest criticism of the Stealth lies in its intangibles. It does not sound like it is able to resolve anything more nuanced than surface-level detail, and it’s dynamics are generally flat and boring. It also has the dry timbre that characterizes most planar headphones. Ultimately, while the Stealth definitely has its niche, one would have to index heavily for tonality for it to be a consideration in my eyes.

Focal Utopia: Pretty darn good. I’ve often heard this described as a Clear on steroids, and I think that’s a pretty fair assessment. It’s more technical and does not have the sibilance issue that I associate with the Clear. I do not think this sounds quite as boxy either even if staging does not extend much further than the Clear. I’ve heard a lot of reports about metallic timbre with the Utopia. But perhaps by virtue of the Forge Tube amp that I was listening off of, this wasn’t really a big problem. While I observed some harshness in the treble, that was pretty much it. A remarkably good all-rounder and with Focal’s signature dynamic contrast.

HiFiMAN Susvara / Shangri-La Jr: Honestly, these sounded pretty similar to me tonally. That’s a good thing because there are quite honestly no tonal flaws to either of these headphones, at least to my ears. HiFiMAN can definitely tune. My overall impression of the Shangri-La Jr. was that it was somewhat vanilla as a whole, but that the Susvara was definitely impressive. It plays at the top for detail, resolution, and imaging. I thought the only aspect with which it fell short was in the dynamics department. But it’s not hard to see why the Susvara is often deemed one of the world’s best headphones - it makes very little mistakes.

Meze Empyrean: This has a very colored sound. It is quite warm and thick with good amounts of mid-bass, but it also sports some spice up top in the treble. The biggest problem with this headphone’s tuning is definitely a strange recession at 1.5kHz. Vocal overdubs on Taeyeon’s “Feel so Fine” and a lot of the female vocalists on Sawano Hiroyuki’s work sound really telephonic. I can see why this type of sound might appeal to some listeners, and this recession does benefit center image distinction to some extent, but I do feel that these tuning choices negatively impact the Empyrean’s ability to resolve detail. It generally sounds somewhat goopy for lack of a better word.

Meze Empyrean Elite: Definitely an improvement over the Empyrean in the technical department, at least in terms of note definition and control. The 1.5kHz dip is still present, but not quite to the same degree. I noticed this had a very “boxy” presentation wherein stuff that would normally token the sides of the stage was squeezed to the center. Funnily enough, Resolve tells me he had the opposite impression, so I’m not sure what could account for this. Anyways - a pretty decent headphone, just not remarkable for the hefty price.

Meze Rai Penta: For some reason, I get asked to review these a lot on YouTube. These have a weird signature that I suppose does harken to the Empyrean in some respects. It’s definitely pretty warm with a similar sub-1kHz shelf as the Empyrean. Bass is OK for a dynamic driver, perhaps slamming just a tad harder than the Helios in A/B, but clearly falling behind in terms of control. The midrange generally sounds off. The Penta also has mediocre treble extension and does not resolve much more than surface-level detail like its older, headphone brethren. Not impressed.

PhilPhone: The dark horse of the show for me beyond a doubt. The PhilPhone is a DIY headphone made by Zerousen, better known as Phil on various Discord channels. This was my first time hearing a biodynamic and, my, can this thing slam. It might just have some of the best bass that I’ve heard of a headphone with its terrific swing, texture, and bass tactility. I spent about an hour listening to this off of the “slam stack” (DC2 BHA1) and couldn’t stop smiling the whole time. The crazy thing about this headphone (or maybe by virtue of the DAC/AMPs in the stack itself) is that it does not distort no matter how much of a juicy bass shelf you add to it. And it’s not like this headphone is just all about bass either. It is beautifully dynamic with some of the best punch and contrast that I have heard. The overall tonality here is also generally good with but some spikes in the upper-treble being the main issue. I’m not really in the market for a headphone (and clearly, I don’t really care too much about them in general), but at $700, this is the first one on my list.

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More thoughts on the DUNU Falcon Pro (aka this is probably my review, I just haven’t taken the photos yet)…

The Falcon Pro has three nozzles (Reference, Transparency, and Atmospheric Immersion) with which you can use to adjust the sound signature. In all cases, the Falcon Pro sports a mid-bass oriented curve and a mostly smooth treble response; the nozzles mainly affect the amount of midrange presence in the order of Atmospheric Immersion (least), Reference (middle), and Transparency (most). Personally, I found myself flip-flopping between the Reference and Transparency nozzles. I didn’t really care for the Atmospheric Immersion nozzle. The overall sound here is a warm, colored one that will appeal to listeners after a more musical presentation and that are willing to sacrifice sheer clarity.

Bass: If there’s one thing I could change about the Falcon Pro, it would definitely be the bass response: I simply do not jive with the mid-bass emphasis. Aside from the Falcon Pro failing to dig into the deepest of frequencies adequately, and bass notes coming off somewhat hollow, my critiques follow in the name of intangible performance. I feel that the Falcon Pro’s ability to render textural nuance on Dreamcatcher’s “Silent Night” is somewhat lacking, perhaps due to a conjunction between the poor bass extension and slightly quicker bass decay. I’ve actually talked to Tom of DUNU about how most of their IEMs follow this type of bass shelf. While I’ve come to respect that it’s a deliberate tuning decision on DUNU’s part, the bass response here is not my cup of tea both tonally and intangibly. Listeners desiring a more “fun” or “mainstream” bass response and that are willing to sacrifice rumble and clean bass lines, though, will probably find the Falcon Pro more up their alley.

Midrange: The midrange of the Falcon Pro is pretty alright. Again, I’ll focus on it within the context of the Reference and Transparency nozzles. The Reference nozzle is generally warmer and more subdued with a gentle pinna compensation and upper-midrange; the Transparency nozzle brings back up the upper-midrange for more note definition and, overall, a slightly leaner midrange presentation. I think the biggest concern here would be something of a recession at 1kHz. Admittedly, I probably wouldn’t have called it without a graph. But for instance, I do feel like some of the presence - perhaps the overtones - to Lee Brice’s voice on “Love Like Crazy” is missing, and this has the effect of making him sound somewhat husky. I have to wonder if this recession was intentional, as it does have the perceived effect of lending more “space” around vocals and mitigating congestion like on the venerable Sennheiser HD800S.

Treble: That aside, the treble of the Falcon Pro is the most mature part of its tuning. When you’re dealing with IEMs in this price range, I’ve found that - quite frankly - most of them suck at treble. And not even on a technical level; it’s rare to find IEMs at this price with good treble tuning alone! With the Reference nozzle, though, the Falcon Pro is impressively smooth, devoid of any egregious peaks or valleys, and perhaps only a tad less impressive in terms of sheer extension. Of course, it’s not perfect. It’s almost too smooth - perhaps “sweet” if I’m being kind - with this nozzle which makes me gravitate toward the Transparency. Treble is more defined on the Transparency nozzle; however, the percussive hits on SNSD’s “Into the New World” come across as noticeably more compressed due to a subsequent emphasis at roughly 5kHz. But I digress - this is a commendable treble response all things considered.

Technicalities: For technical performance, “Uh-oh, this isn’t very resolving," was the first comment I made to myself when I heard the Falcon Pro. And yeah - more listening hasn’t really changed that opinion. I suspect that this is largely attributable to the warmer, mid-bassy tuning; furthermore, a limitation of the dynamic driver being used. The Falcon Pro simply isn’t going to trade blows against the likes of established single-DD heavy-hitters for clarity, and it’s a point of contention that some listeners will likely refuse to settle for.

Looking past this, however, I do find the Falcon Pro to be surprisingly competent for what I affectionately refer to as more “latent” intangibles. To start with, the Falcon Pro’s imaging is above average despite being far from pinpoint precise. By this, I am referring to the structural definition of the Falcon Pro’s staging. Notes actually sound big and the Falcon Pro has some semblance of soundstage height with the Reference nozzle. With the Transparency nozzle, I find the Falcon Pro’s layering improves slightly at the expense of some of this note size. In both instances, the Falcon Pro has commendable ambiance to its staging; in fact, I would say it beats out even much more expensive IEMs like DUNU’s own Zen and the Sennheiser IE900 for this metric!

The other instance with which the Falcon Pro makes its mark is dynamics. I don’t think its dynamic contrast is great - loud moments generally don’t come off as loud as they should and quiet moments don’t come off as quiet as they should - but for a general sense of physicality, the Falcon Pro is a very punchy IEM (at its price point, of course). On Taeyeon’s “Make Me Love You”, the bassline has that characteristic with which it feels like I’m being smacked by a wave at 0:52 and 2:01. Part of this feeling is ostensibly baked into the large amounts of mid-bass the Falcon Pro exhibits, and the Falcon Pro clearly falls behind its older brothers the Zen and Luna for dynamics, but the ECLIPSƎ driver technology is no joke.

Conclusion: Okay, so what’s the verdict on the Falcon Pro? Well, I have to admit that I wasn’t super hot on the Falcon Pro when I first heard it. I could tell the tuning was good, don’t get me wrong, but I felt that the general technical performance of the IEM leaned more milquetoast. Further, closer listening, however, has forced me to reevaluate my stance on the Falcon Pro slightly. Generally, I think this is a warm IEM done right, perhaps not unlike the Vision Ears VE7 that I praised recently. The difference? There’s no need to cash out an arm and a leg for the Falcon Pro. Stack on a plethora of great accessories, user-adjustable sound signature via nozzles, consistently good build quality, and I think DUNU has put together a solid package for the warm-heads that I would recommend pending some minor caveats.

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Great write-up! @Precogvision

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I read your " DUNU Zen Pro - First Impressions" and I really like how Dunu reached out to 4 experienced reviewers to get your feedback. If just more companies would try and listen to customers via reviewers, we might get rid of the total blanks among the new IEMs coming out.

But since you didn’t find the Pro to have “the special sauce”, which single DD under $1500 do you think is the best? (For all genres).

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Hey all, I know I haven’t been very active here, which is mainly a combination of being bombarded with school work and not really having access to as much stuff as I did before. Anyways, I’m visiting home this weekend so I swung by MRS to catch up on some of the newer stuff that’s come out this last month. I have units on the way for most of these IEMs, just on the slow boat as usual so I figured I’d get down my thoughts so y’all don’t have to wait haha.

7Hz Timeless: I saw this a while ago and, probably like most people, I didn’t really care about it until Crin gave it a cursory ranking of 5/5 in his unboxing video. The general tonality of the Timeless is neutral with bass boost; however, I can’t say I’m particularly enamored by the tonality here. Yes, the Timeless is better in the tonal department than any planar I’ve heard to date, but that doesn’t mean it’s good tonality either. Noteweight on the Timeless generally skews toward the thinner side, almost like there’s too much upper-midrange, and there’s a similar phenomenon going on in the treble where the Timeless exhibits a strong peak at 7.5kHz. It’s fatiguing to hear despite the perceived detail it lends, and the general timbre of the Timeless is overly dry in tandem with its characteristically planar transients. By this, I mean that notes generally decay a millisecond faster than they should; there’s not sufficient “bloom” to notes. This is probably just a limitation of the driver type; however, timbre-heads really need to look elsewhere. I like the bass on this IEM, though, and it hits hard with remarkable control despite decaying a little quicker than I’d like.

Still, the Timeless’ biggest strength would lie in its technical performance. It definitely sounds like a planar should in a good way. Notes are crisp - hell, more crisp than they have any right to be for $220 - and dynamics on the front of macro-contrast are strong. Imaging is really only the department with which the Timeless lacks. While localization is slightly above average, the general staging and ambiance of the Timeless sit somewhere within the realm of average. It stands that layering suffers as a result. So what are my concluding thoughts after demoing this IEM for about an hour? First, I definitely think it has a place in the $200 bracket, as it is probably the most technical IEM I’ve heard for the price. Second, props to 7Hz for making the world’s first competent planar IEM. But third, I also don’t find myself completely sold on it, and there’s a nagging feeling that it’s a tad unrefined.

Moondrop Kato: Moondrop’s proclaimed successor to the Moondrop KXXS. I haven’t shilled that IEM in a while, but I hope it’s no secret that the Moondrop KXXS is one of my favorite single DDs (my first real IEM at that) so I had high expectations for the Kato. Let’s see. It’s definitely a slight technical improvement all-round while maintaining the general tonality of the KXXS. Slightly better resolution, bass slam, imaging, etc. The Kato’s treble doesn’t sound particularly more extended; however, it’s eschewed the 13kHz peak of its predecessor for a less hazy response. So it’s better than the KXXS; that was to be expected. Now how does the Kato stack up against its closest competitor, the Tanchjim Hana 2021? Well, I’m not a fan of the Kato’s dynamics. They sound sluggish, as is typical of most DD IEMs of this price caliber, but most notably they lack aplomb - they sound slightly soft - in the macro-contrast department relative to the Hana 2021. Generally I get the impression that the Hana 2021 uses a slightly higher-quality driver; outside of this, I could see it going either way even if I prefer the stronger sub-bass focus of the Hana 2021.

Nicehck TopGuy: I got the review unit for this about a month ago and simply couldn’t find the motivation to take it with me back to college. Why? Well, when you look at the FR of this IEM, it actually tracks scarily close to the dreaded Shuoer Tape Pro. I think that about says it all, but to be fair, I don’t think the TopGuy’s that bad. It’s just really mediocre. The mid-bass is trash and the sub-bass rolls-off audibly, it’s got what sounds like a weird, immeasurable dip the upper-midrange that makes everything sound veiled and slightly edgy, and the treble sounds like it has all sorts of tonal imbalances. Now, I feel like the imaging on this set is not bad at least in terms of diffusion; however, notes are blunted and there is nothing else remarkable (scratch that, acceptable for $250) about the TopGuy’s technical performance. This thing needs to go back to the drawing board if it’s being touted as a flagship IEM because it’s not even playing in the $50 category for sound quality to be perfectly frank.

HarmonicDyne Poseidon: LOL. Sorry, these are not good. They sound like they roll-off under 100Hz; there’s no sub-bass at all to this headphone. Seriously, if you think the Sennheiser open-backs are bad for bass extension, this is way worse. This headphone also has an upper-midrange recession right around 3-4kHz which isn’t doing resolution any favors. Now, I think treble would be OK if it weren’t for the contrast of this recession to 5kHz which doesn’t seem to work as well with headphones. The Poseidon’s treble sounds overly sharp in the initial impact of percussive hits whereas, as I alluded to just above, the midrange sounds plain hazy. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still nothing really outright offensive about the Poseidon’s tonality, but it’s sooo far from sounding good. This is basically the textbook example of what mediocrity sounds like.

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Perhaps the Sennheiser IE900. But the upper-midrange tonality on it is not good and the stock tips are very finicky haha.

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Fantastic job @Precogvision… very thorough as always.

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