A lot of folks have been interested in the Thieaudio Monarch MKII as of late, and I’ve finally had the chance to give them a listen, so I’ll start this thread off and give my impressions here.
Fit & Aesthetics
Realllly nice for comfort. The original Monarch was huge, with these two end pieces protruding forwards that would sometimes make the fit a bit tricky, and the Monarch MKII is slightly smaller, not having those edges. So for me, that’s a big plus. I find the faceplate with the molten lava burnt crisp styling to be eye-catching but also not my kind of thing, I generally prefer the more subdued look, and these aren’t that. But of course it still looks nice, especially in connection with the braided cable, which is a solid upgrade in terms of look, feel and ergonomics over the original Monarch. Also, look at the snazzy termination and y splitter!
Sound Quality
Here are the measurements of the Monarch MKII done on the GRAS RA0402 coupler. I don’t want to show it relative to our original Monarch because I don’t know if our demo is representative, as they may have changed things with that version slightly after we got it (and they made it so the tips didn’t fall off the nozzle… hurray).
Also keep in mind that this coupler doesn’t have the resonance at around 8khz, and has some damping there instead.
Notes on the tuning:
It’s very good. I mean, the original was good but I like this better. The whole thing sounds a bit more balanced than the original Monarch and then it still has a solid bass boost. This leans slightly analytic with maybe a bit more energy in the upper mids than I’d like for certain genres, and so it’s slightly unforgiving there, but this also lends itself to exceptional instrument clarity and presence for certain tones like female vocals and pianos. Great for my jazz tracks. As much as it’s one of the closest tunings to what I look for in an IEM, it’s also not without a few things to highlight.
The first is that there’s definitely a slight 5khz emphasis, and this is something I remarked to @taronlissimore upon first listen. Now, this isn’t much of an issue because the overall gain for the upper mids is quite strong in general, so it doesn’t sound all that harmonically imbalanced, rather more of just a forwardness to that region, causing percussive hits to take on a somewhat unique timbral characteristic. The second quirk is that for whatever reason I hear a 10-11khz bump as well, giving it a bit of extra shimmer up top, which may or may not be to everyone’s preference.
The Monarch MKII is going to be a strong recommendation around its price this year, especially for anyone wanting something along the lines of ‘analytic with a bass boost’, and it fits quite well with the type of music I generally listen to, but for those listening primarily to more aggressive genres (like say… heavy metal), I’d recommend something a bit more forgiving in the upper mids like the Dunu SA6.
I think the next question is… how does it stack up against the Symphonium Helios. I’ll let @Precogvision take on that question, but for the moment here are the graphs comparing the two - at least with the tips that I had on each of them at the time.
Subjective aspects:
- Detail - It sounds slightly more detailed than the original Monarch to me, but how much this is due to the improved tuning and how much of it is potentially due to other aspects is difficult to tell, but in general… yeah this is really solid.
- Stage - Great separation and control during busy passages, even if not quite as enveloping as the Helios.
- Dynamics - Also excellent, bass slams when called upon, very satisfying.
- Timbre - apart from that slight 5khz forward character, I have no major issues here.
