Really enjoying my time with the VE Elysium
So the Elysium has, in under a day, totally and completely won me over. The presentation was a bit weird at first, especially after days of rapid fire jumps from the MEST to the Andro to the Solaris…but once I upped the gain on my n6ii and just sat back and let the Ely do its thing it wasn’t long before I was swept up in its beautiful textures and gentle nuances.
I was fortunate to receive a Vision Ears Elysium/VE8 tour package yesterday afternoon. The Elysium is Vision Ears’ flagship hybrid and contains arbuably the most unique driver configuration I am aware of— Sonion electrostats for the highs, a DD for the midrange and, perhaps most interstingly, a single BA for the lows.
Up until somewhat recently I was too entrenched in the basshead tendencies of my audiophile youth to seriously consider an IEM with a single BA for the bass. Still, I have always been curious to hear it and am grateful that these IEM tour programs exist as it’s one of the few ways to try new gear without blind-buying in this depressing age of Covid.
I tried the VE8 first and it was basically exactly as I remembered from when I owned one earlier this year—something of a thicker, darker Andromeda. It sits in the upper echelons of my personal favourites alongside the Campfire Andromeda 2020, which I consider to be something of a spiritual sibling to the VE8 in that both IEMs specialize in what I have come to realize is the most important quality of an IEM to me-- emotional engagement ie., the ability of an IEM to draw me in, to stir my heart, to make me feel something when I listen to my music. It is this quality which to me elevates IEMs like the Andromeda and the VE8 above some of their flashier or more technical peers.
While I loved the VE8 the Elysium is decidedly another level to my ears. The bass (or comparative lack thereof) was a bit jarring at first but once I forgot about trying to break things into pieces and isolate and compare and instead focused on the signature as a unity I found myself immersed in a blissful and beautiful world of sound from the Elysium. At first I was quite thrown off by what appears to be an almost homeopathic amount of bass—and I know of at least one other person who did not get on that well with this IEM on account of this. However I found that, listening to the Elysium, the comparative lack of bass frees up my attention to fully engage with the midrange of the music, which is really its heart and soul. This is where the Elysium’s choice of a DD for the mids really comes into play as it helps create a really rich, naturally textured and alluring mid-range. Instruments and voices feel at times to almost break the 4th wall and convince you they are right there with you—and it is on account of this mid-range voodoo that after a short time I don’t even notice the lack of bass anymore and find myself totally captivated with what I’m hearing. I’ve thrown a wide variety of my music at the Elysium-- including a lot of EDM and drum and bass-- and while often a different or more nuanced presentation than what I am used to the Ely brings enough of its charm to the fore that I find myself more often than not feeling as though I’m hearing old favorites for the first time again, or in a way I’ve never heard before.
The greatest strength of the Elysium, to my ears, is that it lays bare the essence of what your are listening to…but not through raw detail and resolution, which can come off as sterile. Instead the Elysium forces you to forsake a some of the spectacle and theatrics of a more robust bass response and instead, through a deft focus on a wonderfully alluring and textured mid-range, facilitates an intimacy with whatever it is you are listening to. Here we have an IEM that sees its role, not to draw attention to itself but to get out of the way, and let you connect directly with your music and to my ears. This connection, above all, is what I am ultimately seeking from the listening experience. The Elysium is the first IEM I’ve heard that is a comprehensive upgrade to the Campfire Andromeda in terms of emotional engagement. It’s shot right to the top of my “want” list and the only reason I haven’t ordered one already is that I haven’t yet figured out which one of my vital organs I can do without.