Here’s my analysis of K’s Earphone “Bell-LBs” model, which I recently personally purchased for € 59,00

At-a-glance Card

Full Device Card

Test setup

Apogee Groove / Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman / Questyle QP1R / Ifi HipDac / Cowon Plenue 2 – full foam and donut foam covers – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC tracks.

Signature analysis

Technicalities

Physicals

Specifications (declared)

Comparisons

vs Rose Mojito (was $ 259,00 – now discountinued)

Both are designed for with a neutral presentation in mind, but when directly compared Bell-LBs comes out “flatter-neutral” while Mojito sounds a bit more “balanced”.

Mojito delivers more sub-bass and a modest rumble vs just a hint of that on Bell-LBs. Midbass are similar in note body, Mojito offering a bit more elevation. Mids and vocals are equivalently refined and organic, very difficult to tell which is better. On both, male are “just good”, female are “wonderful”.

Neither driver ever scants into sibilance, but Bell-LBs do occasionally concede to shoutyness, which Mojito is totally free of. Stage casting is similar, Bell-LBs being just a bit deeper.

Imaging and separation are surely better on Mojito mainly thanks to the absence of treble shoutiness. Bell-LBs are way easier to drive and pair.

vs Rose Masya (was $ 129,00 – now discountinued)

Masya offer a bright-accented presentation vs a virtually pure-neutral coming out of Bell-LBs. Both buds deliver a just hinted sub-bass, with barely audible rumble. Midbass are similar, with Masya showing a bit more elevation.

Mids are better tuned on Bell_LBs which deliver thicker tone body and higher organicity. Vocals are hands-down better on Bell-LBs, female even more than male. Both drivers present a tendence to (occasional) shoutyness on trebles on some tracks, Masya more than Bell-LBs.

Technicalities are also very similar, with Bell-LBs showing just a bit more stage depth in comparison. Bell-LBs are much easier to drive and pair.

vs K’s Earphone K300 (€58,14 list, € 29,10 street price)

By design K300 indeed offer a different tuning compared to Bell-LBs: warm and V-shaped vs neutral. K300’s sub bass is very audible and delivers nice rumble, on par with quite a few IEMs actually, and unlike Bell-LBs where it is just hinted.

Mid bass is more elevated, bloomier, denser on K300 vs Bell-LBs’ leaner, faster, punchier one. Mids are obviously recessed and also leaner on K300, vs unrecessed bodied and organic on Bell-LBs.

High mids and trebles are similarly elevated on both, but obvsiouly cleaner, sparklier, airier on Bell-LBs, and brushed, warmed and inoffensive on K300.

Soundstage casting is very similar, in both cases absolutely holographic, a further bit more extended on K300. Imaging and separation are evidently much better on Bell-LBs as a direct consequence of much faster transiets all over the spectrum.

K300 is somewhat harder to drive due to its 300 ohm impedance, and less expensive.

vs VE Monk SM (Slim Metal) (€ 22,39)

Monk SM tonality is bright-neutral vs Bell-LBs being almost pure neutral. Both have just hinted sub-bass. Mid-bass is similar on both, a bit more elevated and organic on Bell-LBs.

Mids and especially vocals are monumentally better on Bell-LBs, whereas Monk SM sound deeply artificial, in addition to lean and untextured.

High mids and trebles are also arguably much more organic on Bell-LBs, shouty and fatiguing on Monk SM. Monk SM cast a deeper but narrower stage.

Detail retrieval on Monk SM is not as bad as their high mids and treble lack of refinement might imply, but Bell-LBs keep the lead with good margin. Microdynamics are also evidently better on Bell-LBs.

Both drivers are quite easy to bias power-wise, but Monk SM is way more capricious in terms of pairing (some sources excite their highmids making them sound like a portable transistor radio from the ’70ies).

Considerations & conclusions

K’s Earphone BELL-LBs are a pair a earbuds that acoustic and vocal music lovers may easily fall in love with.

They tick so many boxes at once: neutral tonality, spot-on timbre, comfortable fit, high resolving power, holographic stage casting and good technicalities, all paired with decent driveability and an affordable price.

Sure there is better at higher budget levels, but I couldn’t find anything remotely close in terms of sound quality on an almost purely neutral tonality at such a modest cost.

Our generic standard disclaimer.

The post K’s Earphone Bell-LBs Review – Budget Neutral Reference appeared first on Audio Reviews.

Subsequently followed by other models named Masya and Maria, all of these including the original Mojito are now discountinued to leave the field to the latest iteration called Maria II, which is the sole Rose Technics earbud model currently available.

I’ve had a chance to extensively audition both Mojito (originally priced at $259,00) and Masya, both being privately owned samples, and this article is about my experience with the former, with some comparison notes to add hints about the latter at the end.

At-a-glance Card

Full Device Card

Test setup

Sources: Apogee Groove + Burson FUN + IEMatch / Questyle QP1R – stock full foams – Stock cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC tracks.

Signature analysis

Technicalities

Physicals

Specifications (declared)

Comparisons

vs Rose Masya ($ 129,00 – discontinued)

Masya is the model released by Rose Technics just after Mojito, and can be considered its economical (50% lower priced) version in a sense.

Unlike Mojito, Masya offers a bright-accented presentation to begin with, with a tint of warmth added to the lowmids to counterbalance a bit. Sub bass is almost entirely absent, while it’s very present and generating nice rumble on Mojito. Midbass are similar on Masya and Mojito, with Masya showing a somewhat less note body there.

Mids are more forward on Masya, I would say equivalently detailed and organic as on Mojito, and still free from any sibilance of sort, but Masya’s high mids do have a tendence to get shouty, and trebles are sometimes even slightly splashy on Masya, which does not happen at all on Mojito. Technicalities are also similar: Masya presents just a bit less of stage depth, and its instrument separation capabilities, especially on trebles, are limited on the upside when the driver goes shouty.

vs K’s Earphone BELL-LBS (€ 59,00 street price)

Bell-LBs are the sole example of almost purely neutral tuned earbuds which come at least somewhat close to Mojito’s refinement that I could find (at a fraction of Mojito’s asking price).

Sub-bass rumble is indeed present on Bell-LBs, but at an evidently lesser elevation compared to Mojito. Midbass on Bell-LBs and shares the same speed and punchyness with Mojito, but notes are a bit leaner and less textured (on Bell-LBs). Mids and vocals behave very similarly – ob both drivers females are better than males, which sound leaner and somewhat hollower. Female vocals and highmids some rare time get somewhat close to sibilance on Bell-LBs, which never happens on Mojito.

Trebles are well refined on Bell-LBs, there’s no shoutyness that I can assess much like it happens on Mojito. Treble balance in the general presentation economy is more prominent on Bell-LBs, which sound airier nonetheless. Technicalities are very similar, with the sole notable difference being that Bell-LBs cast a less deep stage.

Considerations & conclusions

Rose Mojito are no doubt, and by far, the most refined sounding earbuds I have ever auditioned. So much so that it’s not even appropriate to “compare” them with the overwhelming majority of the “most popular” earbuds, with which the sole real common part is frankly just the form factor category itself.

Oddly enough, if I had to define and introduce Rose Mojito to someone never having heard them I would say: consider them as a pair of openback headphones… in miniature size. Mojito deliver a spectacularly extended holographic sound field, high-end resolving power and superb instrument separation on a virtually pure-neutral presentation, and a 100% organic acoustic timbre. Listening to acoustic music on Mojito is nothing short of pure pleasure.

I wish I had the opportunity to audition their currently marketed evolution: Rose Maria II. You never know what may happen…

Our generic standard disclaimer.

The post Rose Mojito – Honorable Progenitor appeared first on Audio Reviews.

This model has been released almost 4 years ago if I am not mistaken but it still holds the test of time as a very good mid-tier IEM pair, with some added uniqueness for extra measure.

At-a-glance Card

Full Device Card

Test setup

Sources: Apogee Groove + Burson FUN + IEMatch / Apogee Groove + iBasso T3 / Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman / Questyle QP1R – Acoustune ET07 tips – Stock iBasso CB12s cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC tracks.

Signature analysis

Technicalities

Physicals

Specifications (declared)

Some possibly significant quick comparisons

Tanchjim Oxygen ($ 259) is an obviously unfair comparison insofar as the Tanchjim IEM carries just 1 single DD driver for all frequencies, and is sold at a 50% lower price. That being said, Oxygen’s timbre memory has been pretty much the first to come up in my brain upon my first IT04 audition, and that’s why I jotted down some notes on the differences.

The tonality, first of all, is not the same. Both strive for neutrality but Oxygen ends up with a slight bright accented balanced tonality, IT04 with a warm-ish one. Bass is where the two IEM are extremely similar. From the mids up the situation changes pretty dramatically insofar as IT04 deliver better articulation, better accuracy, and more air while (and that’s the real point) never adding too much BA timbre on top of (or underneath if you wish) it all. IT04 is a 1+3 multidriver showing a tonal coherence pretty much equivalent to that of a good lower-tier single-DD driver, e.g. the Oxygen, while being able to extract as much BA-personality as possible from those 3 units up there.

Oriveti OH500 ($ 499). The comparison this time is between quite homogeneous alternatives: OH500 features 1 DD 4 BA while IT04 1 and 3, both drivers are sold at the very same list price. Both IEMs can be categories as “warm-balanced”, too. And, technical prowess on all the various singular aspects of the products look like just about a tie too, small differences excluded: technicalities are in both cases extremely good, and tuning shows srious competence being applied.

Simply put, their difference can be summarised as OH500 being tuned to deliver more energy, IT04 to deliver more smoothness. OH500 lets bass hit harder (if you want, maybe a little tad too loosely, depending on personal preferences), and highmids come out hotter and stronger, while IT04 pays all possible attention to keep everything as nice as possible, but as homogeneous as possible. Another not-secondary difference is driveability: OH500 is much source-pickier.

Conclusions

I liked IT04 on two different counts.

One is the more direct one: they sound very well They carry a wonderful timbre and deliver a very pleasing, slightly warm, balanced tonality which is perfectly applicable to the acoustic music I like best.

The other is on a more abstract level: IT04 is a multidriver which is kept coherent not by trying at all cost to tune a DD as fast as possible not to sound sloppy compared to its BA companions, rather by tuning the BAs in a way as to stand their position on mutual ground vis-à-vis their companion DD’s naturally thicker body. An uncommon choice, really, and a successful one!

On the flip side I would say I’d have preferred to hear something “more” in terms of vividness and energy, and some extra effort in terms of treble detail retrieval. Perfection is not of this world, I guess.

As mentioned above, this sample was loaned to me by its private owner who paid for its out of his own pocket – this is not a review on a loaner/free unit provided by the manufacturer nor by a distributor.

Our generic standard disclaimer.

The post iBasso IT04 Review – A Different One appeared first on Audio Reviews.

Final Sonorous-II and Sonorous-III are in my opinion the absolute best closed back headphones you can buy for less than 500$ (either costing much less than that actually). You can find them stuck on our Wall of Excellence, and reviewed here.

At-a-glance Card

Why and how

Ear pads – their internal structure, size, thickness, and external fabric – do change headphones sound even more than what eartips do to IEMs. And final Sonorous Earpads are no exceptio.

First and foremost, the distance between the actual sound transducers and the ear modulate low frequency sound pressure, which obviously significantly influences the presentation. Based on this fact, final Sonorous earpads are filled with sponges of different thickness and consistency. Their external material is synthetic leather featuring equal horizontal and vertical flexibility. Finally,

Another important aspect when it comes to closed-back earphones is avoiding sound appearing “muffled” due to lack of backside venting. Final accomodates for this by carving small apertures on the inside and the outside of the pads “donuts”, achieving superb results in terms of sound clarity.

Lastly, final Sonorous Earpads feature a quite ingenious system to facilitate swapping. By direct experience it does work. You may want to take a look at the final’s official quick tutorial video to get an idea.

The range

As I mentioned, final Sonorous Earpads are avaialble in 7 different variations. Here are the lineup specs, directly taken from final’s website.

Model	Surface Material	Sponge	Filter	Stock on	Picture
Type A	synthetic leather	thick, strong standard type sponge	single layer	SONOROUS VI, IV
Type B	synthetic leather	thinner/softer sponge compared to Type A	single layer	SONOROUS VI
Type C	synthetic leather	W-shaped sponge combining Type A and Type B types	3 layer	SONOROUS X, VIII
Type D	synthetic leather	thick, strong sponge	3 layer	SONOROUS III
Type E	synthetic leather	thick, strong sponge	single layer	SONOROUS II
Type F	Polyurethane	expanded foam body with superior breathability and special polyurethane fibers	n/d	D8000
G	Polyurethane + Toray Ultrasuede	expanded foam body with superior breathability and special polyurethane fibers	n/d	D8000 Pro

My direct experience

Final of course issues a number of pairing recommendation for each of such models. You can find the entire story here.

That said, I only directly tested the 4 models which are recommended for my 2 Sonorous headphone models (II and III). Here is a recap of my opinions.

So the aftermath is… I could have saved the money for Type C and B, and just swap stock pads between Sonorous-II and Sonorous-III to reach my preferred configuration on both. But how could I have known it without trying?

Conclusions

final Sonorous Earpads significantly contribute to alter and finetune Sonorous headphones.

They are not inexpensive – retailing from ¥ 5810 / € 44 to ¥ 9300 / € 70 a pair – but their build quality is ace and they are a more than solid recommendation for any Sonorous user.

Disclaimer

All the earpads I tested are my own property, they did not come from the manufacturer or a distributor on review/loan basis.

Our generic standard disclaimer.

The post final Sonorous Earpads Review – Easy Rec appeared first on Audio Reviews.

Now that these babies have been stuck on our Wall of Excellence though… well, it’s time to act.

At-a-glance Card

Full Device Card

Test setup

Sources: Apogee Groove + Burson FUN + IEMatch / Apogee Groove / Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman / Questyle QP1R – Type-D pads on Sonorous-II, Type-E pads on Sonorous-III – Stock OFC cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC tracks.

Signature analysis

Technicalities

Physicals

Specifications (declared)

A glance at the technology

Quite a few by now know final (yes, they write it lowercase) as a group of incredibly proficient audio engineers, and their products, may them encounter the complete appreciation of the single individual or not, based on personal taste, are anyhow always granted to be the fruit of non-trivial investigations, studies and technological achievements. Sonorous headphones make of course no exception.

Ear pads

Ear pads – their internal structure, size, thickness, and external fabric – do change headphones sound even more than what eartips do to IEMs.

First and foremost, the distance between the actual sound transducers and the ear modulate low frequency sound pressure, which obviously significantly influences the presentation. Based on this fact, final Sonorous earpads are filled with sponges of different thickness and consistency. Their external material is synthetic leather featuring equal horizontal and vertical flexibility.

Another important aspect when it comes to closed-back earphones is avoiding sound appearing “muffled” due to lack of backside venting. Final accomodates for this by carving small apertures on the inside and the outside of the pads “donuts”, achieving superb results in terms of sound clarity.

Lastly, final designed a quite ingenious system to facilitate pad swapping. By direct experience it does work. You may want to take a look at this video to get an idea.

BAM

That stands for “Balancing Air Movement”. It’s the marketing name for final’s project focused on obtaining results similar to open-back heaphones even on closed-back ones, especially in terms of clarity, controlled bass delivery and of course soundstage and imaging.

At final, we decided to focus on developing technology for the reproduction of bass tones and three-dimensional space with the full-range reproduction of a theoretically unproblematic single driver unit, rather than taking things in a multiway direction. We went back to the beginning and reviewed the performance of the balanced armature driver, focusing our attention on something we had previously overlooked : airflow inside the housing. We developed BAM (Balancing Air Movement), a mechanism that optimizes airflow inside the housing through the creation of an aperture in the driver unit, which is usually sealed. While achieving bass tones and deep, three-dimensional spatial representation, which proved difficult with single driver full-range reproduction, we achieved a BA type that at the same time made for natural listening the user doesn’t tire of.

https://snext-final.com/en/products/detail/SONOROUSII.html

And boy, that works! Of course I’m not technically competent enough to say wether the trick is that or “just” that, but it’s a fact that Sonorous earphones do deliver an incredibly clear and vast soundstage, and perfectly controlled bass, actually sensibly better than any other closedback headphone I happened to audition equal or below their cost. On the other hand, reading final’s description we get a hint as to why Sonorous HPs are “less isolating” than other models in their same technological category.

Let’s pad-roll a bit… !

Sonorous II and III are good as-is, i.e. with their stock pads. Period. You can skip this chapter, especially if you are on a tight budget.

That said, given my appreciation for the base configuration I wanted to go all the way through on their available options – at least the official ones, those offered by the manufacturer themselves.

Final makes a number of variations available for their Sonorous headphones line, which are all mechanically compatible with every model in the lineup as the housings chassis are identical accross the board. Each model is named with a letter (Type-B, Type-C, etc). Sonorous-II and Sonorous-III come equipped with 2 different earpad variations already, then I ordered 2 more different ones, and I started rolling…

So the aftermath is… I could have saved the money for Type C and B, and just swap stock pads between Sonorous-II and Sonorous-III to reach my preferred configuration on both. But how could I have known it without trying?

Conclusions

Sonorous-II and Sonorous-III are arguably the best closeback headphones on the market in their price class, and in my experience it takes tapping at Shure SRH-1540 to have something significantly competitive to talk about.

While they feature two quite different timbres, tonalities and presentations, neither is a real all-rounder musically wise. I’d recommend Sonorous-II blind-eyed for cool acoustic jazz, and any other clear-timbre musical genres, and Sonorus-III to whomever looks for a warm-neutral, midcentric, incredibly dynamic driver for prog rock, song writers, folk or such.

Finally, they are not “inexpensive” in absolute terms – so they might well not be one’s first take at overear headphones – but rest assured that they are not by any means “cheap”, indeed they are actually worth each single penny in their price for the quality, the comfort and the musical proficiency they deliver to their owner.

Disclaimer

Both samples I’m talking about in this article are my own property, they did not come from the manufacturer or a distributor on review/loan basis.

Our generic standard disclaimer.

The post final Sonorous-II And Sonorous-III Review appeared first on Audio Reviews.

IT07 is iBasso’s flagship featuring 1 DD + 6 BA, costs a pretty penny – $899,00 – and was released some 3 years after IT04 (1 DD+3 BA), which I also will publish a review for in the next days.

I did not get the entire package so I couldn’t properly assess some secondary elements like the black and gold nozzles or the stock tips, but I reckon what I got is more than enough to form a solidly educated opinion on what we are talking about. Here we go.

At-a-glance Card

Full Device Card

Test setup

Sources: Apogee Groove + Burson FUN + IEMatch / Apogee Groove + iBasso T3 / Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman – Sedna Earfit Light Short tips – Stock High Purity Silver Litz cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC tracks.

Signature analysis

Technicalities

Physicals

Specifications (declared)

Some quick comparisons worth mentioning

iBasso IT04 ($499,00)

The key here is not being mislead by model naming: IT07 are not the direct upgrade to IT04, their intendend tuning and presentation being different. IT07 is indeed “technically superior” to IT04 on a few aspects, vis-a-vis an 80% higher price of course, but the tonal profiles are very obviously not the same and make up for two very different musical outputs.

IT04 is a warm-balanced open-V, instead of a dry-neutral W. IT04 has slower, meatier and more flowery bass, vs more elevated, more extended and way faster and punchier bass on IT07. Mids on IT04 are tonally more organic then on IT07, where they are better detailed though. Most of all, IT04’s trebles are combed, relaxed, very carefully finetuned to always come accross perfectly coherent with the DD in charge of the bass part, while oppositely IT07 features livelier, sparklier, way more detailed and airier trebles, indeed presenting a timbral incoherence with their DD for the purists though.

IKKO OH10 ($199,00)

Of course the comparison is totally unfair on the technical proficiency level – and better be, considering a 4.5X price gap! – but I’m mentioning OH10 precisely due to their almost identical tuning compared to IT07.

As a matter of fact, OH10 can easily be called “less expensive IT07” by anyone looking for a powerful, engaging, and most of all unforgivingly dry, ubleeding bass, paired with very lively and well tuned highmids and trebles. Mids are dry and slim on OH10 as on IT07, but they go as far as being “lean” on OH10 in comparison. OH10 are equipped with a single not-TOTL Knowles BA so we can’t reasonably expect the same IT07 proficiency in rendering anything above 1000hz, nor on detail retrieval – it being understood however that, conversely speaking, OH10 does wonders on those registers for the exact same reason! IT07 technicalities are also obviously more refined and downright “better” than OH10, while OH10 comes out a bit better in terms of timbre coherence between their DD and their (sole) BA compared to IT07’s 1+6 scenario.

DUNU ZEN ($699,00)

IT07 extract more highmids and treble thin details; cymbals are crystally adamant when they need to be, unlike on ZEN where they are somewhat “polished”, “matte” in a sense. Midbass are equivalently articulated on either, while perceivably oomphier on IT07, which is not necessarily better depending on taste and track. On ZEN mids are obviously airier, more bodied and totally organic. Piano notes offer the impression of spreading in an infinite space on ZEN. On IT07 mids are defintely slimmer, bringing them to the edge of unrealism, and sort of confined inside a room – a big room at that, but I do perceive the space as “finite”, whereas it is almost not on ZEN. Finally, ZEN offers a totally coherent timbre accross the entire spectrum, unlike IT07 as detailed above. Such very last point is what keeps me personally from granting IT07 360° “Excellent” status, but that’s a millimetric flaw when cast against the full product panorama.

Conclusions

IT07 impressed me a lot. I guess it comes from me liking OH10 tuning so much that my ear and brain really rejoyced in hearing that presentation’s direct evolution and sustantial refinement on the IT07.

IT07 offer a literally spectacular, energetic and at the same time very refined musical experience. While one may count their slight internal timbral mismatch as a coloration, which it is, the practical result is nothing short of lovable, and I’m up to strongly recommending it as a high-end driver ideal for a wide extension of different genres.

As mentioned above the sample I auditioned was loaned to me by a private owner, who paid for it off his own pocket.

Our generic standard disclaimer.

The post iBasso IT07 Review – Lovable Incoherence appeared first on Audio Reviews.

Intrigued by the question I recently conceded myself a go at a couple of other Made-in-Japan models, one of which is what I’m talking about today: Intime Sora 2.

Intime Acoustic, a.k.a. Ozeid Co., a.k.a O2aid.com…

Intime Acoustic is a brand owned by Ozeid Co., Ltd., a quite young (2016-founded) Takasaki City (JPN) based company. Its main business is actually not manufacturing, but consulting.

The owner and key developer mr Yoshiyuki Watanabe has 35+ years of experience on devices and applications that use piezoelectric materials.

Rotate his company name “ozeid” (or even better its web domain name “o2aid”) by 180°. What do you read ?

That said, mr Watanabe also decided to deliver some of his competence in form of earphones, targeting young users – young like his children – aiming to convey (in his own words) “the good sound of Japan“.

Well I’m more the age of mr Watanabe than of his children, but this all is anyhow more and more intriguing, isn’t it ?

Key technologies

The model I got is called “Sora 2”, quite evidently the second generation of the model previously released under the name of “Sora”.

Similarly to other models in Intime lineup, Sora 2 is based on a dual-driver system including a 10mm dynamic driver, and a somewhat special ceramic tweeter taking care of the upper treble / top octave end.

A number of very interesting details are available regarding the technology inside Sora 2, let me summarise what the main claims are.

1 – “Vertical Super Tweeter”

Adopted on Intime’s TOTL Ti3 model – VST is made of some sort of special laminated ceramics, instead of the most commonly adopted titanium oxide.

Fundamentally, laminated ceramics is supposed to offer more controllable vibrations.

Conventional “super tweeters” are so-called as they reproduce sounds outside the audible range, but this Intime’s variation, thanks to the uncommon material selection in addition to their calibrations, has a different behaviour and reproduces overtones, effectively contributing to the highest-end part of the audible spectrum.

2 – Graphene coating

A graphene coating has been applied to the Dynamic Driver unit, which – always according to Intime – improves mid-high range frequencies reproduction power and definition.

3 – Stainless steel housings

Stainless steel has been adopted for the housings. Besides obvious robustness, the choice reportedly offers a significant impact on sound.

In general, the more solid & heavy a material is used, the better is unwanted extra vibrations suppression obtained on the housings, but at the expense of equally unwanted extra weight.

On Intime Sora 2 the adoption of stainless steel, the application of a heat treatment and a careful internal cavity shaping – according to Intime – turned into higher material rigidity, excellent vibration control, better sound transmission speed and – why not – scratch resistance too, all within a limited weight.

Well, weight is not feather-level in my books to be honest. I don’t have a subjective comfort problem with that, YMMV.

4 – HDSS

Another unique (patented, actually) technology adopted inside Sora 2, as much as inside Ti3 too, is called “HDSS” as in High Definition Sound Standard.

Its purpose is to suppress sound reflections inside the housing, resulting in cleaner output.

Some sound waves are commonly uncontrolledly reflected inside the housing, impacting onto the dynamic driver diaphragm, causing dissonance from the intended purpose. With HDSS technology, the sound inside the housings is more controlled and does not invest the diaphragm, allowing the dynamic driver to move only as a consequence to the signal source.

This – according to Intime – increases sound realism and decreases fatigue. It has a down side though: it tends to purge too much of the high frequencies off the dynamic driver vibration.

This is where a careful calibration between the resolution of the ceramic VST mentioned above and the mid-high range tuning of the graphene coated DD becomes vital, resulting in a bass with a solid outline, harmonious mid-high range and wide spatial expression – as in facts Insime Sora 2 does deliver, big time !

At-a-glance Card

Full Device Card

Test setup

Sony NW-A55 / Apogee Groove / Questyle QP1R – final E ML-size tips – Lossless 16/44.1 – 24/96 – 24/192 FLAC tracks.

Signature analysis

Technicalities

Physicals

Specifications (declared)

Comments and conclusions

Intime Sora 2 represent a very good piece of japanese audio engineering and craftmanship.

Although not partaking to the ultra-budget price segment, I find them inexpensive enough to make for a no-brainer recommendation for whoever is in search of a clean, natural-timbred, energetic and musical IEM which I find particularly well paired to jazz and acoustic genres alike.

Very simplistically put, I might position them as a less expensive alternative to final A3000, or as a similar-priced, similar-quality, clearer-presentation complement to final E3000, which is the quite obvious driver-to-beat on that price level for pop, rock, songwriters etc.

Disclaimers

My Intime Sora 2 unit is not a loaner for review purposes, but was indeed a direct purchase. You can find them here.

Our generic standard disclaimer.

This article also appeared on my personal audio blog, here.

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You find an INDEX of our most relevant technical articles HERE.

The post Intime Sora 2 – Clean Energetic Musicality appeared first on Audio Reviews.

At-a-glance Card

Full Device Card

Test setup

Sources: Apogee Groove / Questyle QP1R / Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman – Radius DeepMount or Tanchjim T-APB wide bore tips – Nicehck 16core High Purity Copper cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC tracks.

Signature analysis

Technicalities

Physicals

Specifications (declared)

Other notes and conclusions

Those who follow my articles know my musical preferences are quite sided – I’m not at all a generalist, I actually very much prefer listening to cool jazz for most of my time, with some secondary interest into classical, and some prog rock.

That’s why I cast a special eye on drivers tuned to sound particularly well for those genres, which are not at all easy to render, as they require control, calibration and fidelity – not really so easy to find features.

Tanchjim Oxygen get my top appreciation as drivers for cool jazz, bebop, avantgarde and even for vocal jazz – female voices especially, due to their particular proficiency on those.

I can probably name just one other IEM under their price offering a similarly neutral and non excessively bright timbre paired with sound quality refinement which is at least in the league of Tanchjim Oxygen, and that’s final A3000. Other less neutral i.e. more “accented” tuning alternatives I use for the same musical genres are the cheaper (and less refined) Shouer Tape, or the similar-priced and equally sophisticated Ikko OH10. End of my jazz-specialised sub-€300 list, really.

While not the most capricious IEM I ever tried, Tanchjim Oxygen do significantly benefit from an at least decent quality amping source. Apart for that, as for the vast majority of IEMs best to stay away from high-voltage amps e.g. desktop ones, or those multi-W-powered daps, or if you really must use one of those at least plug an iFi iEMatch at in the middle (do it!).

As I mentioned above, Oxygens oddly feature opposite cable polarity compared to what most other 2pin-connector drivers usually adopt. I personally checked both stock cables with a multimeter and they do have that. I also asked Tanchjim tech support for verification and they acknowledged the situation. Remember to take care of that when plugging a third party cable, which due to the low quality of both bundled cables is more than a rec to be honest. Swapping polarity won’t harm your drivers, but will produce some fancy imaging oddities on some tracks.

Disclaimers

The Tanchjim Oxygen pair I am discussing have been personally purchased, not offered as a review loaner. You can find them on mutiple online outlets like here, and here.

This article also appears on my personal audio blog, here.

Our standard disclaimer

Our generic standard disclaimer.

The post Tanchjim Oxygen Review – Just Like A Glove appeared first on Audio Reviews.

At-a-glance Card

Do I need a DAP?

Audio life after owning an Apogee Groove becomes a bit more complicated in a sense. Do I want to go back to lower quality output, even in exchange for better portability, or more collateral features?

The question actually admits more answers than it might seem at first tought, in consideration of what one really wants or needs.

In my specific case I don’t commute on my way to/from work for one. Also, I currently suspended all business travel due the pandemic and it will take quite longtime before I resume that. My job doesn’t allow me to listen to music while working. For all these reasons I’m sharply inclined to get the real best audio quality out of the always-too-short-time I can dedicate to music listening, which most frequently happens in a quite, controlled space such as at home, in the evenings, or at work, during lunchbreak, or few other instances.

So in short: while at home Apogee Groove it is. What else? If something, I might need to add a desktop amp to that but that’s another story. But no need for a DAP at home, really.

How about on the go?

Well… Apogee Groove is a relatively power-demanding battery-less dac-amp, a “fat dongle” I might call it, and as such a still quite compact and lightweight thing. So option #1 for mobile use is… still the Groove! Wherever my laptop can follow me, that’s a very viable option, the main one really.

How about something actually pocketable? Like a DAP, in facts.

I used to own an Hiby R5 but that’s not an option anymore. Don’t take me wrong, I still believe R5 is worth its money as a complete device – mostly due to its huge feature set, connectivity, etc, all at a reasonably moderate price. It’s just me: simply put, I grew past it. Sound quality off the Groove is just so uncomparably better I just can’t listen to something so obviously less clean, resolved, detailed, and musical anymore.

So I sold the R5. The guy who grabbed it from ebay scored a good deal, I tell ya.

And before you ask: no, I still do prefer not to use my phone as an all-in-one device. I use the smartphone as a phone and an internet device and I prefer to keep it as is. Also, I don’t really care about Tidal or other subscription based music streaming service, as most of the music I like is not there anyway, which takes away a very solid reason to a smartphone being directly or indirectly involved in the game. I’m not there, no.

It needs to be a(nother) DAP.

Not the tinyest, I don’t care about ultra-pocketablity – I’m a couch potato, I don’t go jogging or gymming anyway.

Not the widest connected either – see above.

It “just” needs to sound superbly well while playing lossless hires “stuff” from local TF cards. For as little as it seems, this is not easy – if the minimum reference is a Groove. As a matter of facts I auditioned quite a few mainstream brand (Hiby, Shanling, Fiio) models in the sub-€1000 arena. Nothing good for my “new” tastes there.

Then I followed a friend’s rec, and I eyed a recently discontinued model by a chinese manufacturer of higher-end equipment: Questyle. After some watching around I eventually landed a good deal on a pre-loved QP1R unit, a model originally released back in 2015. A very well cared-of sample in spite of its 4 years of age… and here I am.

What the … !

It takes 10 seconds listen to determine that sound-wise QP1R runs circles around all other “chifi” DAPs I ever tried. Double-circles, actually, around my previous R5.

For almost everything else – usability, connectivity, features – instead, the exact opposite is the case. But let’s keep this for later.

Sound reconstruction superiority vs low and mid-tier chifi DAPs is so huge that comparing QP1R to them seems by and large inappropriate, useless and misleading. The difference in terms of clarity, detail, stage, imaging is gigantic. QP1R’s DAC belongs to a totally different quality league, period.

From the DAC performance standpoint, the cheapest DAP device I auditioned which I can honestly call comparable to QP1R is Lotoo Paw 6000. A much cheaper one – Sony NW-A55, upgraded with Mr Walkman’s firmware – is not playing in the same ballpark with QP1R, yet solidly in the one just below. All other “usual suspects” fall instead into the just-forget-about-this category, in comparison.

Taking DAC-AMP devices in considerations, I’d say QP1R comes accross almost as clean and similarly musical compared to Apogee Groove, which still has the lead in terms of spatial drawing though.

QP1R is also detailing approximately at Chord Mojo level. Another similarity vs Mojo is on tonality, which is warm-ish.

QP1R sound is clean, impactful, detailed but most of all unbelievably dynamic. Amongst all its numerous positive sound features micro dynamism is no doubt QP1R’s most stunning and possibly unique point. After auditioning devices 5 times its historical list price I still have to find something “really” superior on that aspect.

“Musicality” is also a very evident feature of QP1R voicing, and that’s an effect that comes out even a tad more evident than from the Groove, and that’s saying something.

QP1R reconstruction filter’s ringing envelope is quite elongated after the pulse. That’s the origin for its mellow timbre.

Someone labelled that “analogue”, which in lack of more precise wordage I feel can give a good hint into what I’m trying to convey. Going back to Mojo, that is by comparison edgier – not sharply and offensive overall, it never is, I’m just saying relative to QP1R or Groove – thus offering a “higher detailing sensation”.

Also, Mojo’s very special ability on closing the sound level gap between front and back sound lines by comparison makes the latter on QP1R come through as less loud and therefore detailed. This is Mojo’s kinda unique specialty though, not the other way around.

In terms of spatiality QP1R is I’d say on par with the Mojo, which is good, miles better than more ordinary devices,  although still quite a pretty step south of Groove’s totally special capacity to render the impalpable sensation of the actual stage size. I’ll have to live with that I’m afraid.

Current Mode Amplification

What I described until now is mainly QP1R’s capabilities as a DAC.

Oh by the way: a very nice feat is also QP1R’s line out option. By just connecting a 3.5mm cable into it the device automatically switches into Line Out mode (1.9V RMS), no need to click/tap any options in the GUI – very handy! Also, the port itself is a multi-mode port: it accepts both copper and optical connections, depending on the adapter which is being used.

Coming to the headphone output option, QP1R only offers single-ended connectivity. Its superior quality nudges me to give justice to those more expert than me who noted “you’ll find balanced output better than single ended only until you’ll start attaining higher-tier devices, where single ended output is implemented competently enough in the first place”.  Balanced topology, in other words, is often adopted on mobile and/or budget-tier devices to partially overcome some structural limitations, so to say, and it becomes way less important once you build the foundation better from day one.

Fact is: QP1R 3.5mm phone out sounds lovely. Clean and transparent in respect to what its internal DAC module is offering, and superbly competent in coping even with the most capricious IEMs on the opposite end.

Of course by sound cleanness I’m not referring to lack of audible background noise, which is kind of obvious and after all quite common, even on lower tier devices. Clean sound decodes into QP1R’s ability to pass the whopping soundstage expansion and spectacular separation and imaging which the DAC module is capable of along to the drivers, unharmed. 

This is certainly due to its well engineered class-A amp module, adopting Questyle’s own proprietary (and patented) technology called Current Mode Amplification. A description can be found here: https://www.questyle.com/en/technology. It’s an interesting read, I do recommend you take it.

These are the official specs:

Output Impedance: 0.15 Ω

Apart for the very low Output Impedance, which is of course a major plus when dealing with IEMs, these output power figures appear nothing less than “ridiculous” (8,8mW on a 32Ω load??) compared to those of many low end daps, and of some phones too.

Nothing could be more misleading. I frequently rotate a total of 7 different IEMs on QP1R and the sole one which hints me to choose Mid gain is – you guessed it – final E5000. All the others are perfectly & fully dynamically driven by Low gain.

As too few people still know, an amp’s cability is not even remotely completely described by its “(milli) Watts” power figure. I won’t write a treaty here. Long story short: headphones (all of them) require current to make their transducers vibrate and produce sound. High impedance drivers require relatively little current, but higher voltages to work best. Low (sub 32 Ohm) impedance drivers – like those inside IEMs – require more current in comparison and they must be applied very low voltages to work best (or at all!). QP1R’s Continuous Current Drive technology is designed to deliver the right “form” of amplification to the various different drivers, with particular regards to low impedance ones.

While I’m at it, High Gain is the least desireable option on QP1R: dynamic range is perceivably contracted there, so it’s good that it turns out not to be vital to exploit it, at least for my selected drivers’ range. Luckily, I encountered no IEM (yes, planars included) really requiring High Gain from QP1R.

Everything else

All of the above said about sound, QP1R is – simply put – the antithesis of modernity and convenience in terms of connectivity, features and ergonomics. On all these counts, it’s actually a fossil if there’s one, let’s say it clearly.

Connectivity:

• No Wifi: so forget OTA upgrades, DLNA access to servers, Tidal, Qobuz etc
• Outdated BT, and exclusively dedicated to TWS driver connectivity
• USB DAC-IN available: QP1R can be connected to a USB host and be used as an external DAC-AMP
• No digital output (not even USB DAC-OUT) available
• No analog input available
• 3.5mm single ended phone output
• 3.5mm multi-mode (Coax/Toslink) line out

Storage

• Internal memory. Capacity depends on model release. My unit has 32GB available. USB connection to a PC is required to read/write files on that partition, at an incredibly sluggish, turtle-level speed, too.
• Dual TF card. Officially supporting 128GB cards, I could successfully use 512GB cards though. Database reconstruction after card swap is quite fast, at least that.

UI / UX and sw features

• Calling it primitive is making a big and honeestly undeserved compliment.
• No touch screen
• An infuriatingly badly engineered scrollwheel (where’s my iPod1?)
• A totally buggy visual battery charge indicator (even on latest firmware)
• Very limited Graphical EQ capabilities, and not well working either
• No Parametric EQ nor any other sound shaping features

Battery

• Dramatically undersized
• No more than 8 hours autonomy (with a brand-new battery…)
• A short sleep timeout setting is recommended, as the Class-A amp will equally consume juice while playing or not…

Conclusions

QP1R sounds unbelievably good. I extended the most sincere thanks to the friend who recommended it to me. He anticipated I would find it good, indeed I found it much more than good.

QP1R sound is nothing short than gorgeous. It’s clean, detailed, extended, musical. It also features a quite unique “analogue” timbre. In terms of amping it supports all low or moderate impedance loads I tried on it with the sole exception of my Shure SRH1540 – which are a bad client per se honestly.

Stunning sound quality apart, as I mentioned above pretty much all the rest … requires a lot of patience! QP1R is a sort of dinosaur, pretty much that.

I was looking for a no-compromise, higher-end-sounding DAP at a still reasonably affordable price, and that’s what I got. QP1R delivers that, only that, and I’m totally fine with it.

Disclaimer

Bought it myself.

Our generic standard disclaimer.

You find an INDEX of our most relevant technical articles HERE.

The post Questyle QP1R – Welcome In! appeared first on Audio Reviews.

At-a-glance Card

Full Device Card

Test setup

Sources: Questyle QP1R / Apogee Groove – Final E Clear M-size tips – Linsoul LSC09 cable – Lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC tracks

Signature analysis

Technicalities

Physicals

Specifications (declared)

Opinions & considerations

Ikko OH10 gets the job done right as I like it. All my sound priorities for this application are indeed there, and very competently carried out:

• significant extention both on low and high end;
• elevated, very fast and strictly unbleeding yet bodied, textured and detailed bass;
• airy, sparkly, detailed but unoffensive trebles;
• high mids “as good as possible”, within all that precedes.

These are the ingredients to cool jazz and bebop for me, Ikko chose high quality ones, and hired a good chef to cook them into the OH10.

Compared to my other preferred driver for the same job – being Shouer Tape – a choice is quite arduous. At the end of the day I am lucky enough not to be forced into that, as I own both.

Shuoer Tape is sharply dryer, “nasty” in the positive sense of the word for once, and right due to that it can scant into getting fatiguing depending on tracks or authors. Ikko OH10 is a wide bit more “elegant”, less naughty definitely, chiseled actually.

Much like Shuoer Tape, Ikko OH10 is also cable-sensitive, especially once paired to some higher end, revealing source like QP1R. Its stock cable (silver plated oxygen free copper) while not horrible makes them sound too thin for my taste. Alternatives I tried based on single crystal copper or high purity copper do add a decisive little bit of fat around mids and highmids, much like adding milk to some teas.

Both OH10 and Tape feature a sensibly elevated bass line, with particular regards to sub-bass. Depending on the jazz performer or sub-genre I might actually prefer a leaner one – in which case I rather choose Tanchjim Oxygen or final A3000.

Ikko OH10 is also somewhat source sensitive: QP1R for one comes out very musical, almost analogue by itself; even more so does Sony NW-A55; Mojo on the opposite stays more on the dry side, which doesn’t “merry well” with Ikko OH10 for my tastes. With Apogee Groove we are in lucky territory as it can properly directly bias Ikko OH10 (Groove/multidrivers direct compatibility is by design not granted), and the pair is wonderful.

A special mention deserves Ikko OH10’s so uncommon weight. When I first took them in my hand I went “oh my… these will be unbearable”. But it ended up not to be so. Their shape helps incredibly well on that respect: their inverted-drop, almost triangular shape fits so well inside my concha that my outer ear sustains their weight in a totally surprising yet firmly comfortable way.

All well considered, a problem will stay on Ikko OH10 and that’s inertial mass: I would not recommend wearing them while running or working out. Luckily I’m a die-hard couch potato so I can totally disregard the issue.

Disclaimers

The Ikko OH10 unit I talked about is my own property, I did not receive them for free nor on loaner basis. You can find them here.

This article also appears on my personal audio blog, here.

Our generic standard disclaimer.

The post Ikko OH10 Review (1) – Masterfully Jazzy appeared first on Audio Reviews.

I did take my sweet time on this one as I’m particularly sensible to the topic. If one thing I learnt of this hobby is that source quality comes ages before drivers quality. I won’t anticipate the conclusions but in a nutshell Micro iDSD Signature is a remarkable player, sporting some great and even some unique features.

At-a-glance card

Physical endowment

Infrastructure

The device is easily transportable, but nowhere near to pocketable. Not really eligible if you are looking for a walker. Good as a sitter though.

Battery

Micro iDSD Signature exclusively works from its internal battery, it never gets power from the USB VBUS bit.

This is good from the sound performances standpoint as while playing it relies solely on local battery generated power which is apriori less electrically dirty compared to the power coming from an uncontrolled host, or from a budget power supply unit.

On the other hand this means Micro iDSD Signature needs to be charged, and this happens from a separate USB port, a USB-C one.

The battery charging circuit is compatible with quick chargers and protected vs excessive voltage. Based on a direct interview I had with iFi tech people the maximum exploited charging amperage is 1.5A – whatever above that will not harm the unit, but will be wasted.

Next to the USB-C port dedicated to battery charging there is a tiny color-phased led: that is the sole visual indication informing us about the battery charge level.

Battery capacity is above decent. iFi declares circa 12h on Eco mode, 9h on Normal mode depending on load and volume of course. My experience matches such values, give or take.

Lastly, micro iDSD Signature has no “sleep” feature: if you leave it on while not playing batteries will go on discharging.

Inputs

Micro iDSD Signature has no analog input. So unlike its predecessor Micro iDSD Black Label it can not be used as a standalone amplifier. Which is a pity, as the amp section is not bad at all as you’ll read later.

Two digital input are available: USB and S/PDIF.

The S/PDIF port accepts either 3.5mm coax or Tosink optical connections (a Toslink mini-plug adapter is supplied), but exclusively supports PCM only up to 192KHz sample rates.

The USB port is iFi’s “usual” recessed-USB-A-male connector (same as on Nano iDSD BL, Hip Dac, etc). Depending on firmware, up to PCM 768KHz / DSD512, in addition to MQA, are supported through this channel.

As mentioned above, the USB-A port is for data only and no power charging happens from this end. Which is good, as VBUS is usually a major source of electrical noise and therefore distortion.

The bad news though is that Micro iDSD Signature includes only limited, anyhow insufficient, “USB filtering” features. And it shows.

Ifi’s description talks about an “intelligent memory buffer” relying on a high precision internal clock. The presence of a (legacy) iPurifier circuitry inside is also in the specs. That said, I tested Micro iDSD Signature both natively plugged onto my PC and plugged through my Nano iUSB3.0 conditioner – and the output quality difference is significant. USB dejitter inside Micro iDSD Signature is sadly not something to write home about and this is bad when looking at its DAC module quality (more on this later) which does deserve a much better effort on this front.

My assessment has been conducted using Nano iUSB3.0 upstream. For your curiosity, here you can find some info on Nano iUSB3.0 and the general digital stream conditioning topic.

Outputs

Micro iDSD Signature offers both 6.3mm and 4.4mm phone analog output, and 2xRCA line output.

The Line output works on fixed parameters: > 2V voltage, < 240 Ohm impedance, > 117dB (A) are the key declared values.

Phone outputs come with some very interesting modulation features such as the option to select 3 different amplification power levels (labelled Eco, Normal and Turbo mode), and engaging a built-in iEMatch circuit. Much more on these down below, in the Amp module section.

Very appealing is also the adoption of a full-analog volume control, technologically offering better quality compared to a (cheaper) digital volume modulation option.

Finally, Micro iDSD Signature offers 2 switchable sound shaping options called XBass+ and 3D+, which I again I will cover in better detail later below.

Power mode selection, iEMatch circuit, Xbass+ and 3D+ only apply to headphone outputs. All of these are totally uneffective on Line output.

Differently to what happens on most similar devices, Micro iDSD Signature provide exactly the same power levels either on its 6.3mm or on its 4.4mm phone out ports.

This is evidently not unrelated to the fact that both ports are actually linked to the same “S-Balanced” internal circuit.

I’m a strong supporter of the S-Balanced concept. So much so that I think iFi should dedicate more attention to it and better “close the loop” in terms of offering their users all the tools needed to fully exploit their technology. Let me explain.

For how hard I tried, I never found a 6.3 TRRS M connector available for purchase. Nor I would know where to buy a 4.4mm TRRS M to 3.5mm TRS F adapter, for that matter. iFi themselves do not offer any of such adapters on their options catalogue – and this is really odd to say the least.

Long story short, while and right because I understand the value of the S-Balanced option included on iFi Nano iDSD Black Label much better – where no 4.4mm nor 2.5mm native-balanced port is available – in the Micro iDSD Signature case I think no user possibly can take advantage of the connectivity flexibility opportunity, which will rest as an unexploited value.

So in daily practice the user will expoit Micro iDSD Signature’s balanced-ended and single-ended phone outputs “the old way”, “as if” they were a single-ended-only port (6.3) and a balanced-ended-only port (4.4).

Unlike what happens on most competition the user will get equal power from either port, and very similar cleannes too (the S-Balanced circuit behind Micro iDSD Signature’s 6.3 port will deliver uncommonly low crosstalk to single-ended loads as per design – you did read the whitepaper didnt you?).

The DAC module

Firmware options

Like most if not all other iFi DAC devices, Micro iDSD Signature can run a range of firmware variants, each offering specific features or optimisations. I find iFi’s approach of leaving the user free to choose amongst such different options a very welcome added value.

Firmware packages and the apps required to flash them are freely available on iFi’s web site, here.  The flashing process is really easy and straightforward, at least on Windows platform (did not try on Mac).

The 3 significant versions to choose from for Micro iDSD Signature are:

I’m not much into DSD (I’ll explain why in a later article maybe) and I don’t de facto currently own nor plan to own music files sampled above 192KHz, so the two options which get my attention are 7.0 and 7.0c.

Their fundamental difference is one only but a significant one at that: with 7.0c iFi’s own GTO (Gibbs Transient Optimised) filter replaces Burr Brown’s native reconstruction filters.

I strongly recommend you read iFi’s whitepaper about why and how this may be technically desireable, or not.

Did you read the paper? C’mon do it! Seriously…

As you’ve seen the paper focuses on throughly illustrating GTO’s output features while leaving another important aspect in the background: with 7.0c Micro iDSD Signature will systematically upsample all digital input coming from the USB port up to 32 bit / 384KHz resolution prior to feeding the DAC chips. For what I seem to have understood this is fundamentally required for the GTO filter itself to work as intended.

It’s at this point worth noting (or remembering, for those who follow my articles) that I already experienced iFi’s GTO implementation in conjunction with Micro iDSD Signature’s smaller sibling, the Nano iDSD Black Label.

My full take on that is here, but in short: on Nano iDSD BL the GTO option “sounds worse” than the native ones – for my tastes at least. My suspect is in that case the upsampling effort ended up not adequately turned into higher sound quality delivery due to inherent dac bandwidth limitations.

DAC performances

Micro iDSD Signature on firmware 7.0 offers very nice DAC performances.

Range is superbly extended, sub-bass is fully and correctly rendered, bass is bodied and especially phenomenally controlled, mids are present without exaggerations and trebles are powerful and vivid.

Particularly significant are cleanness, note separation, imaging and layering.

Directly compared to my reference DAC which is Apogee Groove (my take here), Micro iDSD Signature on firmware 7.0 has a deeper lowend extension on one side, a less extended treble span on the opposite side. Tonally it comes accross even more controlled than Groove on the bass (up to delivering a “leaner” flavour there), very similar on the mids and trebles. Draws on 3D space very, very well, although still not precisely at Groove level. On space rendering alone, Micro iDSD Signature is the single DAC that comes closer to Groove that I heard as of yet, and that’s saying quite something.

A very evident feature of Micro iDSD Signature DAC which is worth underlining is tight transients.

The “Bit Perfect” option is very tight. All notes are snappy, razor cut. Switching onto Minimum Phase or Standard transients get a tad more relaxed, less “dry”, yet the general impact stays way into “analythical” territory, especially when compared to a more “musical” alternative e.g. Apogee Groove.

In terms of transients rendering Micro iDSD Signature is actually more on Chord Mojo ballpark – for those who have experience with that. Mojo stays a bit ahead of Micro iDSD Signature on its unique capacity to close the gap between front and back instruments, however Micro iDSD Signature provides quite evidently better results in terms of extension, lack of coloration, and detail, and seriously beats Mojo on space rendering (which never was Mojo’s specialty, there’s that…).

With firmware 7.0c Micro iDSD Signature will upsample all digital traffic incoming from the USB line prior to passing it to its DAC chips.

While this does not produce any “dramatic” difference when the original samples come at an already high resolution (96, 176 or 192 KHz), an evident improvement is audible when 44.1 or 48KHz material is being supplied, and especially so of course if the track mastering is good.

The improvement is of course mainly on spatial reconstruction, size shaping and imaging.

Pulling back the comparison vs Apogee Groove, firmware 7.0c comes out as a major point of advantage for Micro iDSD Signature. Both DACs show great mastery beyond the 40KHz mark (where most of the information on space, reverberations etc come from) but that only is applicable if there actually is some digital data in that region to be decoded. On native 96KHz++ material the two DACs compete head-to-head. On lower sample rate material Micro iDSD Signature offers a built-in, automatic and very well implemented (!) upsampling option, while Groove has to rely on the same happening on the host (if ever.

Another interesting note: Micro iDSD Signature is very much able to exploit the GTO upsampling and convert it into a tangible benefit to the user when busy with sub-hires music at the very least, while the same does not happen on Nano iDSD Black Label. Why? I don’t know. I suspect this is either because the GTO algorithm is better implemented on fw 7.0c (usable on Micro iDSD Signature) vs fw 5.3c (usable on Nano iDSD BL), or because Nano’s lower-tier DAC section is unable to exploit the opportunity. Or both.

Another very important note to make about GTO is that it renders transients even tighter compared to the already tight Bit Perfect option on non-GTO 7.0 package. And, there’s no escape: when 7.0c is installed only one filter is available – no Minimum Phase or Standard alternatives are attainable. You better like it as is…

And simply put, I don’t. I find it excessive. I do appreciate of course clarity and cleanness, and precise rendering of each note – it’s a matter of “levels”. This is of course totally subjective. I have friends considering GTO’s reconstruction “supremely natural”. I’m afraid I can’t anticipate which one you will prefer.

One dufitul last note: I don’t use MQA, so I did not try / test Micro iDSD Signature’s proficiency on that. Not big loss for you as due to what I just wrote I honestly haven’t got any decent experience / opinion to offer on this topic, other than the trivial comments you can easily find everywhere and don’t certainly need me to paste here.

Summarising: Micro iDSD Signature offers very, very good DAC performances. Imaging and spatial drawing in particular are nothing short of spectacular. GTO firmware offers automatic well-executed upscaling to sub-hires audio tracks. Transients are rendered from quite to very tightly, which more musical-sounding presentation lovers might not like.

The AMP module

As I quickly pointed out up above, Micro iDSD Signature offers some very interesting features when it comes to its internal amp section.

Firstly, its internal S-balanced architecture is equally available on both the 6.3 and 4.4 port, although for the reasons explained above in the real world scenario you can bet the two ports will be used as if the former was single-ended only, and the latter balanced-ended only. Too bad.

Secondly, and obviously related to the previous point, both ports provide the same output power levels – so choosing either is not a matter of power delivery, rather of convenience, and of a little cleaner output (better xtalk value) when a balanced connection is established on either port – so de facto on the 4.4 one for lack of avaialble 6.3 trrs connectivity options.

Finally,  it allows for power level reconfiguration at the click of a switch to optimally supply high impedance cans – requiring as high voltage swings as possible – or low impedance and low sensitivity ones, like planars – requiring little voltage and very intense currents – or even IEMs. Three different “powering levels” are available, selectable with a switch on the device side, and a built-in IEMatch module is also available for added measure.

At the Normal power level – the intermediate one of the three total – Micro iDSD Signature outputs something short of 2W max power (a bit less than 1W RMS @ 32 Ohm) and 5,5V max swing. That’s already great power.

My Shure SRH1540 (46 Ohm 99dB, but much more current hungry than spec facevalues tell) are biased very satisfactorily on Normal level: bass is full while also staying very controlled, trebles are nicely sparkly – within the limits of a treble-polished driver like 1540 of course.

Indeed, switching iEMatch on makes the situation even better as it tames a further bit of the unneeded voltage swing, making bass come out futher controlled and cleaner. A real pleasure to hear. IEMatch High setting is already sufficient in this case, which is consistent with SRH1540 impedance being still significantly higher than IEMatch-H’s 2.5 Ohm output impedance.

Switching Micro iDSD Signature to Turbo is not a good choice for SRH1540 – and that’s perfectly in line with logic too. The effect of excessive voltage swing on a low impedance load like that is similar to a taxing “Super High Gain” option: dynamics get closed-in, range is compressed, highmids get glary and expecially midbass goes too bloomy.

Same situation takes place with Koss KPH30i (60 Ohm 101 dB). Best biasing is obtained from Normal power + IEMatch-High. Eco power makes them sound muddy(er). Turbo power is totally excessive, KPH30i presentation gets unnatural.

As those who follow my articles probably already know, I’m not into high impedance cans, nor into extremely power hungry planars so I won’t comment on how the Turbo option does in those cases. Suffice here to say that Turbo setting promises 10V max and a tad more than 4W max power (1.5W RMS @ 64 Ohm), not peanuts at all for a portable device and many budget desktop ones either!

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I must stand and vigorously clap hands at how iFi solved the IEM equation instead: the combined benefits of the Eco power option and the built-in IEMatch module are nothing short of spectacular.

As all technically aware audiophiles know, IEMs despise high voltage and most times high power altogether. Impedances below 32 ohms – sometimes as low as 8 Ohm or less – like those on IEMs require (require, not simply prefer) low voltage swings, which is the exact opposite of what a voltage modulation amp powerful enough to drive higher impedance headphones is designed for.

When up to driving IEMs the very first thing to do on Micro iDSD Signature is to set the power switch to Eco setting. This makes sure the maximum delivered voltage is limited to 2V, and the maximum power is 500mW on an 8 Ohm load, which is way more than 99.9% of IEMs out there requires.

All of my IEMs are in facts perfectly driven by Micro iDSD Signature, on Eco mode and – on a case by case basis – with IEMatch set to Ultra or High. Same for my final Sonorous-II (16 Ohm 105 dB) which are closedback overears electrically behaving very much like IEMs: the best setup for them is Eco, with IEMatch turned off, although Normal + IEMatch Ultra is also a strong contender.

Micro iDSD Signature already comes with a number of features making some of its IEMatch built-in circuitry redundant, read useless: I’m talking about very low output impedance, support for loads as low as 8 Ohm and a volume pot in the analog-domain. That said, the IEMatch module stays beneficial to 2 main purposes: further reduce output voltage swing, and eliminate sibilance on hyper-sensitive IEMs.

The former of the two benefits is especially intriguing: on a case by case basis some drivers do sound better under Eco power other sound better under Normal power with IEMatch Ultra switched on on top. And for some others… it’s hard to tell – e.g. final Sonorous-II, Tanchjim Darling, final E5000.

Mind you: from a purely technological standpoint the topic is arguable upon to say the least. Post-attenuation does come with benefits and drawbacks like, I guess, everything else in life. The information I want to convey here is not how exactly I recommend to set Micro iDSD Signature to work best with this or that IEM, rather that the device offers the flexibility to try different ways to that target.

A truly multipurpose amp – finally!

As I mentioned before, to my knowdge at least there’s no single amp implementation out there yet which is capable of feeding different impedance/sentivity drivers with equally optimal results. And to my understanding, there’s a solid technological reason for this : high impedance cans “sound better” when submitted to high voltage swings, low impedance HPs and IEMs distort in the same condition. Simple as that.

Conceptually we have 3 possibilities then:

1. Use different amps for the various cases.
2. Use a high voltage amp, and aposteriori cut its output voltage down. That’s where attenuators e.g. IEMatch may help.
3. Use a sort of “configurable” amp…

Micro iDSD Signature’s amp can be reconfigured to optimally support very high impedance cans (Turbo mode) or low sensitivity cans (Normal mode) or low impedance + high sensitivity IEMs (Eco mode) offering each category its own best welcome powering profile.

When facing low impedance loads, in addition to selecting Eco power mode there may still be need to engage the built-in IEMatch module to furtherly reduce output voltage, which will benefit current delivery to particularly sensitive drivers, and/or cancel some hiss out of the most sensitive of those.

Of course a curious question as this point might be “which of the two features should I preferably use before the other: Eco power mode, apriori limitating voltage swing, or IEMatch, cutting it down aposteriori” ? I had my own opinion on that already but I asked iFi’s designers’ take on this.

With regards to Turbo/Normal/Eco modes vis-a-vis headphone matching, our AMR audio background means that we are of the opinion that while the impedance of a headphone is a factor to consider in matching, the over-arching one is actually power > sensitivity.

This is why we developed the headphone calculator which takes the power output of a headphone amplifier and compares it to the headphones to be used. The resulting volume level will give the customer the best insight into the ‘matching’. Just like a 1,000W Mark Levinson would be a poor match for high-sensitivity horns rated at 110dB sensitivity. Or a 10W 300B SET would not drive 87dB Magicos.

iFi’s headphone calculator is indeed an informative but most of all educative tool. Playing with it we can find out how wrong are common assumptions about this or that driver (IEMs or Headphones alike) requiring “high power”…

I can’t begin to stress how brilliant I find iFi’s choice to equip Micro iDSD Signature with what it takes to allow the user to substantially change its amping behaviour to cope with the dramatically diversified nature of those drivers out there. A really, really welcome idea, and a unique one in the mid-tier segment this device partakes into at the very least, but to my knowledge in the one above too.

Sound shaping addons

Similar to what is also offered on other iFi devices, Micro iDSD Signature’s amp section features two optional circuits providing bass enhancement and imaging improvement at the flick of a switch.

Both features are according to iFi’s documentation entirely implemented in the analog domain. No DSPs are involved which promises the minimal impact on sound quality of course.

“XBass+” behaves like what an EQ expert would call a low shelf positive filter. By ear I would say it pushes lows up by 2dB-ish from 100Hz down. Very personally speaking, I don’t like these types of options in principle – irregardless of their implementation quality that is – my fundamental position being: if I want more bass than the one delivered by the driver I’m using right now… I swap on a different driver. In the special Micro iDSD Signature case, XBass+ may be actually welcome to “compensate” the device super-lean bass presentation, especially as delivered by the GTO filter (fw 7.0c).

“3D+” is a “crossfeed filter”, i.e. a function that puts “some” of the right channel output into the left one and viceversa, simulating on headphones what happens when listening to loudspeakers. Within its limits (it’s not parametric, configurable etc – just a mere on/off) and situationality (effects are totally evident on some tracks, minimal on others) the trick is really nice, and I used it quite often. My main application case are those original jazz masters from the 60ies where mixing tended to be executed by hard panning each instrument on a single channel only: 3D+ sounds almost magical in those cases.

Conclusions and evaluations

Well, I’m certainly not known for generosity when it comes to assign good scores. This time I must say that from the technical standpoint Micro iDSD Signature deserves a very high mark.

DAC reconstruction quality on high-res lossless material is at the absolute top I found below 1K$ and possibly above. The sole other devices who can play an even match with Micro iDSD Signature on this part are Apogee Groove and Questyle QP1R, all the rest being a full class below at the very least.

Not only: adopting firmware 7.0c Micro iDSD Signature automatically upsamples all USB input thereby granting a significant share of the same quality to sub-highres tracks. Upsampling is not black art, it is very possible to implement that on the host, and feed competing DACs with the same improved input, and obtain improved output from those too – but it must be done, and done right, which is an extra burden and cost, while Micro iDSD Signature does it “out of the box”, and does it right too, and this is a major value on my scorebook.

Micro iDSD Signature’s DAC is so good that a no brainer rec is to exploit the Line Out option and interconnect into a serious quality desktop amp any time that’s possible (nothing short of a Jotunheim-2 at the very least will make Micro iDSD Signature’s DAC decent justice), but mobile DAC+AMP standalone operation will not disfigure at all when compared to no matter which top alternative device in its same price class.

Always talking about standalone mobile features, Micro iDSD Signature’s ability to reconfigure its amping section on the fly to optimally cope with IEMs or low impedance cans or high impedance hps or “nasty” planars is totally brilliant, and deserves – that alone – a standing ovation for the idea, and the implementation quality too.

As always where there’s light there’s some shadow too. The DAC section is so good that the lack of adequate built-in USB dejitter is very evident, and frankly I find it almost disappointing. On an even more subjective level, all filters in general and the GTO filter in particular deliver extremely tight transients – some may find them “more natural”, I find the opposite.

Last but not least, the price – and the value. At € 699,00 EU list price Micro iDSD Signature is not an inexpensive device. And please add another € 50 at the very least (iSilencer) or better another € 150 (iPurifier3) to dutifully add some very deserved USB cleansing.

Is it worth it?

Well, evaluating it in terms of a truly mobile (if not pocketable) device, not relying on host batteries, offering top class DAC competence, and truly capable to optimally bias anything, from the “easiest” IEM up to the “nastiest” planar overear well… Micro iDSD Signature is an easy win.

Such consideration does not make its price tag cheaper of course, but at least for my experience finding another battery driven device with similar output quality at a significantly lower price – at least to my knowledge – is today a hard task.

Totally different is of course the perspective if we plan a mainly static, “desktop” application. In such case Micro iDSD Signature stays a very significant device, but the price of its unexploited portions would make its cost/result score poorer.

Disclaimer

This Micro iDSD Signature device has been provided as a temporary loaner unit by iFi for the sole purpose of my assessment.

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Introduction

As its company cipher, final puts a significant research effort in each product in the first place. A3000 has been conceived and developed as an evolution of their A series, which started last year with flagship model A8000. Also last year, the B range was also introduced by final.

According to final, both A and B IEM lines are different stems off a single base-concept: instead of trying to develop a mythical (read inexistant) “perfect all rounder” earphone, final considered how different types of music call for different presentation features, and went from there.

Sound design for these models has been undertaken with attention to the relationship between spatial impression and dynamic range of music, and the physical characteristics of earphones and headphones.
We have categorized sound creation on music recording onto these two axes: spatial impression and
dynamic range.

One way of thinking regards the distance perception. Classical and jazz recordings are thought to be performed with emphasis on aspects of spaciousness, such as sense of distance, broadness and reverberation. On the other hand, rock, pops and many of the recent animation soundtrack recordings, spaciousness is not as highly emphasized. There is thought to be greater emphasis on clarity, which brings the various instruments and vocals to the front.

Another approach is dynamic range – in other words, changes in loudness over time. If the dynamic range is wide, naturally it is possible to use the change in loudness over time to achieve a more dynamic expression of music. But, there are some types of music for which narrower dynamic range recordings are preferable to allow each of the instruments and vocals to ordinarily appear before the listener’s eyes.

The difference between these two ways of thinking pertains not to which is superior but rather differences in how music is composed and what is demanded of it. With regard to classical music, and that played by orchestra in particular, the spatial orientation of instruments is particularly important. Stringed instruments are positioned nearest to the audience with wind and percussion placed behind them.

Should the balance between the spatial orientation and volume of each group of instruments collapse, the music would disintegrate. For that reason, uniform clarity of sound that allows each instrument to appear before the eyes of the listener is not demanded of this type of music. Even for classical music, a string quartet, for example, would have a narrow dynamic range and the clarity of each instrument would be more prominent. For rock and pops on the other hand, spaciousness is not as necessary as for classical music, and so there is greater emphasis on clarity than spaciousness.

These preconditions are very important, particularly for earphone and headphone listening, and it has become apparent that the implementation of appropriate target curves and driver design result in deeper enjoyment of music.

https://snext-final.com/en/products/detail/B1

TL;DR – for classical and jazz music soundstage and imaging are more important than single sounds definition; the opposite is true for pop & rock.

Moving ahead:

The development of the A series began with the establishment of a new evaluation method by analyzing the relationship between sound quality and physical characteristics, and the result was the A8000. The A3000 has further evolved that evaluation method. We listen to music recorded in different qualities at different volumes.

However, in the conventional evaluation method, it is common to perform subjective evaluation under the condition that the sound pressure that presents the sound is fixed, and it is difficult to judge a good sound that matches the actual product audition. Therefore, as a result of a new research targeting an evaluation method that matches the actual music listening situation, we believe that we were able to produce a product that can be said to be the definitive edition in this price range.

https://snext-final.com/products/detail/A3000

Less elegantly, more vulgarly explained: you like listening to AC/DC? You’ll surely want huge loudness similar to what you experience during one of their concerts. Now tell me: when did you ever encouter deafening high sound volumes (a.k.a. SPL) at a jazz club?

A3000 is not for extraloud, supermeaty, iron-strong AC/DC sound. Hard rock lovers: you can quit now

With A3000 …

Each note is localized so that it emerges with a contour in the low range that spreads slowly, and you can vividly hear the fine touch of the guitar and the delicate vibrato of vocals. Since you can notice the detailed nuances of the music, new impressions will be created from the playlists you are familiar with.

https://snext-final.com/products/detail/A3000

Quite poetic.

Is it exactly like that? Well not “precisely” like that at least for my ungolden ears, or maybe for my unplatinum gear, or both. But one thing is sure for me and is that A3000 is a superb natural-clear-flavoured proposition in the market of classical / jazz / unplugged specialized drivers.

At-a-glance Card

Full Device Card

Test setup

Apogee Groove / Questyle QP1R / Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman – JVS SpiralDot tips – Stock OFC cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC tracks.

Signature analysis

Technicalities

Physicals

Specifications (declared)

Conclusions

By design (!) final A3000 is supposed to be the opposite of an all rounder, and superbly fine-tuned for its intended application – which, in my experience, is a 100% achieved target.

Even beyond that, very simply put I auditioned no other natural/clear-tuned IEM under €150 which didn’t come with at least one or more of the following inconveniences: driver incoherence, lack of balance, excessive brightness, excessive presence trebles, sibilance. Avoiding all of that at the same time, and doing it at the asking price for A3000 must not be so easy, as it evidently takes a company like final – and for now, to my knowledge, no other – to deliver on that.

Applied to unplugged, acoustic tracks A3000 delivers nothing short of stunning clear sound, imaging and layering, which makes each instrument’s voice in the band pop out with unique authority. I just love how they sound.

Clarity and neutrality being their main cyphers, mid bass and sub bass come accross un-enhanced. A3000’s calibrated precision and emotion, detail and musicality nevertheless are by far the best match I ever auditioned until today applied to cool jazz, under € 150 asking price.

If a punchy, razor-sharp and meaty contrabbasso is a priority when listening to hardbop, A3000 won’t deliver on that. It takes however a pretty penny to have that properly executed, without losing too much on the other counts of course – more precisely I got this on Ikko OH10 for almost twice A3000’s price, or final B3 for more than 3 times that.

Disclaimers

Oh before I forget … A3000 like all of the other final IEMs I own and use are a direct purchase. I did not receive those as sample units, I am not a final reviewer, I have no commercial relations with them (other than being a paying customer of course). At the time of this article, they were solely available from final’s direct shop.

Our generic standard disclaimer.

This article already appeared on my personal audio blog, here

P.S. – Just for the record, as any truly affectionated user already knows, spelling final Co., Ltd. lowercase (“final”) is not a typo

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Not only in absolute terms – it is nothing short of an absolutely out-dash-standing device – but in relative ones too: it taught me personally so much for such a low price and effort that even when I outgrow it I will forever stay in debt of a smile and a hug.

And times for back-condescending reminiscence are not even on the horizon at the moment. For the simple reason that I reckon it will take quite some more time for me to have the budget – which I would assess in approximately 1K€ – to invest in a real stack upgrade, vs yet another step in the sidegrade carousel which is what Groove teleported me out of really.

A quick TOC before we start, for those who wouldn’t bother reading “all” my bla-bla (yeah, you’re forgiven):

What’s that?

Apogee Groove is a USB DAC-AMP device.

I’m pretty sure a wide portion of the budget audiophile community have never heard about this, in spite of it being on the market since 2015. Chances are many have never heard of Apogee Electronics Corp. in the first place, indeed.

Apogee is a US-based professional audio equipment designer and manufacturer in business since 1985. They earned their glory (and money) from audio professionals thanks to their patents and products: initially analog filters which would retrofit Sony and other high-end analog devices significantly upgrading their quality, later followed by breakthrough-innovative Digital Audio interfaces. Their target market is musicians, producers, and sound engineers – it’s therefore quite normal their brand is totally off the usual chifi marketing hype circus.

Groove is Apogee’s “entry level” portable DAC-AMP aimed at providing audio pros with an easy-going tool they can carry with them and plug onto their laptops while on the go, delivering a quality which needs to be in-line with Apogee’s higher-end equiment the same customer is supposed to regularly use in their studio. E.g. Apogee Symphony, to name something.

I’m not here for marketing but I find this storytelling video from Apogee’s web site explains superclearly what their intendend positioning is about Groove. (TL;DW: “[Dad, an affirmed musician,] is listening to super-high quality stuff all day every day […] so I bring the Groove, plug it into the laptop, and it feels and sounds as if it was in the studio”)

Getting closer to the actual device: no internal battery, Apogee Groove needs to be connected to a USB host (a PC for example) to even turn on. The USB channel is its only input – both for power and digital data.

“Cmon, cut it. It’s just a dongle!”

Yes and no. Structurally it’s a dongle yes. But it’s bigger, heavier and most of all it absorbs 340mA from the host, which is a lot. It’s therefore technically possible but practically unviable to use a phone, or a tablet, or even a lower end DAP as an easy host / transport. For on-the-go usage a Laptop is reasonably required, or some DIY creativity with a nice battery bank and a tool like iFi iDefender+. But let’s not deviate – for the sake of this article let’s say this is a “hi-power demanding dongle”.

It’s got a single output: 3.5mm single ended phone out. It supports PCM up to 24 bit / 192 KHz, and does not support DSD, nor MQA. Specifications are available here. Some numbers might seem odd at first glance.

“LOL! No MQA, no balanced output. My dongle’s specs are 3 times better, and I can use it for hours on my phone !…”

… Keep reading

As a DAC: just phenomenal

Die-hard measurement freaks may want to take a look here. No, it’s no ASR.

The reconstruction filter is very good, but by far the most important of all those graphs is the frequency response one, which is wonderfuly linear well into the 60KHz range, and that’s why when playing FLACs sampled at 96KHz Apogee Groove delivers clarity and space reconstruction audibly even superior to what it delivers from 44.1KHz data – where performance is nonetheless already a full pair of steps above the usual budget suspects.

Compared to Groove, some other systems (often coming with the not too secondary “feature” of a 10X price tag…) may arguably be even more precisely optimised for 44.1KHz data, but their response drops dramatically rapidly immediately after 20KHz (e.g., Hugo).

Enough graphs. Let’s audition.

Starting from the most evident part: Apogee Groove draws on space in a totally stunning way. Yes, already at 44.1KHz – and even more mesmerisingly at higher sampling rates.

Never heard something like that before, and I yet have to hear anything really similar let alone better. Spatial reconstruction is nothing less than phenomenal out of the box, and that, and imaging, are easily better than what I can hear from Chord Mojo, iFi nano iDSD BL, iFi Micro iDSD Signature, as well as Questyle QP1R, Lotoo Paw 6000 and Gold Touch – when considering their DAC performances. Groove is really one class above. At least one.

Apogee Groove’s DAC also delivers high end detail, texture, openness and intonation. All other DACs I heard as of yet barred none offer a paler representation of instrument textures. Some may have a blacker background (e.g. Micro iDSD Sig), or can offer higher sharpness on high end details (e.g. Mojo), but most if not all the alternatives I heard are fundamentally duller (in comparison) and/or smear on detail and/or miss out on that unique, incredibly well calibrated “suspense factor” Groove puts in transients.

Summarising: Apogee Groove delivers a totally unique dimensional feel to the sonic images. It’s technical, but musical. Controlled, but emotional.

Compared to mid-tier competition Apogee Groove’s DAC wins easy, and big. By just casually plugging it in and listening the difference it totally obvious.

Its DAC tuning quality taken per se is actually at an even higher level than its price would suggest when compared to professional tier alternatives, but in that case Apogee Groove’s small physical size starts to represent an issue as it makes it technically impossible to pack high level of power filtering inside, or a separate, cleaner powering line, like it can be found on superior systems (Holo May, Schiit Yggdrasil…).

The little kid can be belped a bit though, and per my experience it’s big time worth doing it, as its performances furtherly improve and significantly so:

• privilege a Linux distro + a technical, lightweight music player, or an Android box + UAPP, over a generic Windows or Mac system;
• filter out and/or divert the VBUS power line into a cleaner source;
• manage grounding issues and rebalance DC;
• reclock / regen the USB signal;
• etc

On my #1 desktop stack Apogee Groove is USB-connected to the laptop host and powered via an iFi Nano iUSB3.0 (my take on that here) + an Uptone USPCB. The difference vs plugging directly onto the host is totally evident: voicing is furtherly open, detailed, imaged. I’ll soon finalise my switch from the laptop onto a Linux based box to furtherly improve the upstream quality (iUSB3 is a nice filter, but it’s always better having less dirt to filter out in the first place isn’t it).

Surely, additional infrastructural elements as a better PS, some competent USB reclocker etc will add to the total cost. Again, if the comparison reference is mainstream chifi DAC or DAC-AMP none of that is needed: Apogee Groove will run circles around those “as-is”. Integrating Apogee Groove with additional infrastructural elements serves the purpose of making it “clinge to” much upper-tier (i.e. way more expensive alternatives).

As an AMP: here’s where it gets tricky

First time I plugged my E4000 into Groove I had a sort of jaw-dropping reaction. That was unlike any other source I ever tried. Most of this was surely coming from Groove’s DAC capacities, but how much did the AMP part contribute on that?

What I did was of course trying to plug all amps I had, or I could get (on loaner for reviews, from friends… I won’t make a list here) downstream and try and find differences. Basically: not a single sub 200$ amplifier I tried on there made Groove’s native output into E4000 better. Most of them (as a matter of facts: all of them except just one) reduced dynamics, made stage smaller or flatter, or compressed the range – read: they are less clean.

My amp sensei taught me that “amps don’t add to dacs – they can only take away, if they are not clean enough”.

The key amp job is leaving a DAC’s voice unmodified while properly feeding the load the odd way it sometimes requires – otherwise it will be the load i.e. the headphone/IEM to ruin the DAC’s work in its turn.

My first E4000-based test was simply telling me that Groove’s built-in amp stage is (sometimes dramatically) cleaner than all external amps I have at hand, while at the same time capable enough to optimally bias its transducers.

Why did this happen? And will this be “always” the case?

Apogee Groove’s amp stage uses a current gain IC in its main circuit and according to Apogee the whole amp shapes the current waveform, aiming at keeping that stable, unlike what traditional amps do, which is shaping the voltage waveform instead.

They call it Constant Current Drive^tm technology, and – to paraphrase Steve Jobs – “boy did they patent it !”. They are not even keen on talking or explaining its details – it’s indeed “not so clear” how exactly Apogee Groove does what it actually does.

Be as it may, Groove’s output promises to sound very coherent in virtually all supported situations, no matter how “restless” the load impedance is.

Another quite surprising feature is Apogee Groove’s uncommonly high output impedance: 20 Ohm.

Such is welcome of course when plugging high impedance cans, while it is in general a serious hurdle when pairing lower impedance earphones or IEMs, which would “sound bad” in such situation. Groove offers you to forget the “8X impedance rule”.

Summarising: Apogee Groove won’t incur into FR-skewing effect when driving low impedance loads, or higher impedance ones featuring wild impedance swings (HD800, anyone?).

“Wow. So… Groove is the ultimate amp, all good, all fantastic?”

No. Groove’s amp stage has two quite significant limitations, and a third partial one.

First: depending on load requirements Apogee Groove may, and will, lack power.

Apogee Groove takes power from the USB2 line (supports USB3 if need be), and more precisely absorbs a maximum of 340mA from there, while on the output side it delivers 40mW and a bit more than 5V (!!) into 600 Ohm.

With that, beasts like HD800 (300 Ohm 102 dB), or HD650 (300 Ohm, 103 dB) will be perfectly supported as they welcome / require as high voltage as possible – and 5V starts to be “a pretty bit” – but absorb very little current, and Apogee Groove’s unique capability to cope with wide load impedance swings does the rest.

On the flip side, Groove falls short when paired with the like of Shure SRH1540. That’s because relatively low impedance & low sensitivity headphones require little voltage but a lot of current, and Groove simply won’t have enough (like all of its direct competitors by the way, but that’s another story).

Second: Apogee Groove won’t support all crossover setups.

In Apogee’s own words: “Apogee does not recommend the Apogee Groove for use with multi-driver balanced armature in-ear monitors. Due to the design of the balanced armature drivers and crossover networks used in this type of headphone, the Groove’s Constant Current Drive amplifier technology may result in uneven frequency response when used with certain models.”

Apogee Groove’s very technology aimed at automatically compensating for impedance mismatches and misalignments is at the origin of this (a crossover filter is working on capacitive components!…).

No harm to the circuits will happen when trying, they will just sound “bad”, not coherent. Shuoer Tape, Oriveti OH500 are examples.

Luckily, not all multidriver IEMs include filters: final B1 and B3 for example do not – and in facts are perfectly supported by Apogee Groove, as the disclaimer does not even apply to them in the first place really.

And even more luckily, to my direct experience a few crossover-equipped multidrivers do nonetheless work properly even on Apogee Groove’s unique amp stage: Ikko OH10, KBear Lark, Intime Sora 2 are all examples of this.

However the main message stands: for multidriver IEMs we can’t rely on Groove’s internal amp stage. Apogee told us crystal clear their technology doesn’t take responsibility for this.

The main way around the issue in employing a separate downstream amplifier of course. Again, be ready to spend some money for it to avoid depleting on other aspects of the output.

What also in some case works is adding an impedance adapter on Groove’s output. I am not 100% sure as to “why” exactly this works but it does. I suspect in such case Groove “sees” a stable full-resistive load, and does not engage in trying to compensate impedance variations.

Third and last: odd limitations on some (few) specific drivers.

Groove’s technology allowing for “8X rule disregard” does work like magic… almost always.

To just toss some examples, I auditioned final E3000, A3000 and E4000, or Tanchjim Oxygen on “quite a few” (!) sources.

If I consider mobile / transportable devices (DAPs, DAC/AMPs), Apogee Groove beats them all on DAC performance grounds, and is the best overall source (i.e., including the AMP stage) with the sole possible exception of Lotoo Paw Gold Touch (but it’s debateable, really). Which is twice as suriprising if I consider Groove’s native output impedance. Virtually impossible is also to find a better alternative looking amongst desktop class devices, but that’s logical as those are primarily designed for overears – typically requiring optimal voltage vs current modulation.

On the other hand, drivers like Koss KPH30i (60 Ohm 101 dB) paired to Apogee Groove present a very modest yet audible mid-bass bump – typical of an impedance mismatch situation. And in facts applying an impedance adapter (e.g. an iFi iEMatch, or equivalent) solves the problem.

Why exactly Apogee Groove can “perfectly manage” even lower impedance drivers, and doesn’t entirely support KPH30i is frankly still obscure to me. May be some specialty on KPH30i tuning? Difficult for me to say.

I might mention another “imperfect support” example, which is final E5000. But my extended experience with those taught me it’s them to be enigmatic. It’s simply not honest to take them as a benchmark for a source “normality” – if something, the other way around indeed!

At-a-glance Card

Conclusion

Besides simply “sounding incredibly better” than anything I had tried before, from the day I got it Apogee Groove has been extremely educational for me as it represented my affordable opportunity to hear and understand superior-tier sound quality.

There’s no going back for me: lower quality reconstruction filters, lack of spatial depth, and fuzzy or at best approximate imaging and layering are something I just don’t have a single reason to bear anymore.

As I tried to describe, there ain’t such thing as a Graal. Apogee Groove, too, has its limits. No direct DSD support is one, and USB2 (24 bit 192 KHz) maximum PCM resolution is another. It also lacks MQA support but that’s never been nor will be any of my concern. Also, the need to “help out” its built-in amp stage to cope with some specific loads turned out to be less of an issue for me than it appeared initially (ymmv).

Anyhow, Groove is so good that not only I adopted it as my core infrastructure on both my home stacks (yes, I bought a second unit after the first) but I even started modulating the rest of my gear relative to it, instead of the other way around. This is fundamentally due to budget restrictions: an headphone amplifier which is “clean enough” to hold true to Groove’s output, while offering appropriate power modulation for this or that driver which is not perfectly biased by Groove directly is no toy.

So I started to reason as follows: does a driver I like work perfectly on Groove? Does it even scale up with Groove? It’s a keeper! Does it not? Better be a really outstanding piece of gear! E.g.: SRH1540 – those are so good as to justify an adequate amp stage just for them, even if it’ll end up costing no way less than 350$ (eyeing a Jotunheim 2 as a minimum acceptable quality stadard at the moment).

That’s what I mean for “game change”: Apogee Groove flipped my perspective.

This is actually a general concept indeed, and a general recommendation. Who is keen on getting the best sound quality into his ears often gives priority to drivers (headphones / IEMs – it seems logical as they are the bits producing the actual sound, right?), then AMPs (as they are those supposed to “feed” the drivers well), keeping DACs last, and not even considering where does digital music come from (the player, a.k.a. “transport”).

The above paradigm is totally wrong. DAC first. Always. The DAC is the voice. Amping me as I sing totally off-key is pointless believe me. Same with a crappy DAC. Get a good DAC. The best your budget can buy. At the same time, make sure the DAC isn’t sent too much crap (i.e. spend money on the transport). Only then you are ready to define your budget for an AMP, and finally you will know which drivers you can choose.

I didn’t mention Groove’s price. Guess. Then open the last spoiler.

Even factoring the extra cost in for an iEMatch to keep at hand and use for this or that odd-behaving IEM – which I learnt is needed with just about any desktop-class amp anyway – I solidly put Groove’s price in no-brainer territory for the quality it delivers.

Final disclaimer: My Groove devices are my own property since day one, have not been supplied as loaners or any other sampling form.

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