Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “I have been blessed – Moondrop x Crinacle DUSK IEMs”.
Today is truly a great day because when I woke up, I didn’t have this anime girl, and now I do. Of course that’s just part of the fun inside this beautifully decorated box. Is the dusk IMS, a collaboration between moondrop and chicle of chronical Fame chronicle.com is the brainchild of Corin AO and it’s a website that features a database with hundreds of frequency response graphs for both headphones and IMS, and in recent years he has started working with audio Equipment manufacturers to produce either devices that are tuned by him or, in this case, based on a deeper collaboration, this one’s from moondrop and it uses the same technology as their blessing 3 IMS, but with some pretty significant changes, let’s take a closer look at. What’S included warranty paper, postcard paper? Oh my God yep, I just I I I put this away. I can’t get away from her got a carrying case. It seems like it might even be made of real leather and then opening this up ooh. Ah, the controversial DSP cable, we’ll talk a little bit more about this later, but in a nutshell, it plugs into your phone or other device via USBC uses a standard, two pin interface for the IMs themselves and has a built-in mic with volume, control also included in The case, a standard cable with no microphone and no DSP functionality really and an airline adapter nice also included, is a pack of three sets of silicone ear tip I’ve seen this criticized as a pretty basic package, but it should be good enough for me. I think I’m going to try the small ones to start and see how we go from there now that we’re done with accessories. Let’S take a look at these bad boys. Whichever way you like, oh, my God, they are flipping huge. I guess it makes sense, though, given each of these has a total of six drivers in it uh, let’s start with the Dual Dynamic drivers right here, so these are the technology from the blessing three that give these things outstanding performance in the base and subbase range, Though my hope is that they’re not going to be tuned for too much base cuz. Personally, I prefer a more balanced frequency response. We’Ve got a pair of balanced armatur drivers for the mids and then we’ve got another pair, and this is the big innovation compared to the blessing 3es of tiny planer magnetic drivers to handle the high-end, and you can see they’re using the same 3D printed Construction.
In order to achieve an incredibly complex shape separating the outputs of these drivers, you can see there’s three separate holes that make their way into your ear holes. Let’S start with the basic 3 and2 mm analog cable. This has not received rave reviews and headphones.com Who provided the testing for this video. You guys can check them out at the link down below also wasn’t super impressed by the frequency response, but I want to hear them worst case scenario before I hear them best case scenario, oh before I plug it in, though I do kind of like this material.
Apparently, this is a high temperature high pressure carbon fiber of some sort very durable so like. If someone were to throw something directly at your eardrum, maybe it could act as a shield. I I think it’s more about the look. Oh yeah, this cable’s not very long honestly, I don’t mind that though I’m not the kind of person who typically puts my music player kind of beside me on the desk and needs to have it far away.
I tend to want it within reach, so I would just put it down the shirt and then into my pocket and it’s kind of the perfect length for that, but maybe, if you’re taller it would be a problem for you wow. Those are big. I feel like a man pretty solid, sound isolation. I’Ll say that much now, apparently, I’m going to be using a Walkman for my testing today, but isn’t this thing like $ 1,000 or something yeah hey? I think it’s working.
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Okay, so look, I don’t design in your headphones for a living, but if they’re telling me that dual 10 mm drivers is how they’re getting bass response like that cool outside of that, though they don’t really blow me away, I can’t fault the accuracy of the mids Andis, but as someone who grew up with the Sennheiser Veil, I find them a little bit fatiguing and I’m also getting a fair bit of that that IEM effect right where I’m kind of listening inside my head. The good news, though, is my understanding from looking at headphones.com evaluation. Is that the DSP cable, at least in certain configurations, is supposed to fix every problem that I have with them. So why don’t we switch over to that now? I’M honestly not up on all of the audio file lingo, but I’ll just say that for something that has such rich just gorgeous bass response, the rest is a little disappointing.
While I get this set up and oh deal with this popup on my screen here, it seems like as good a time as any to talk about what the DSP cable does as advertised. It has a digital, sound processor on board and it allows you to select one of up to. I believe it’s five different, essentially EQ profiles. Now I can’t find anyone who really likes any of the profiles other than the default one. So I want to start there, but my team has already pre-loaded the somewhat sketchy app onto my Walkman, so I do want to give that a try as well. Why sketchy you might ask? Well let me put it this way: it’s not in the Google Play Store. It requires access to all the files on your phone, which is like what so you’re downloading this random APK, giving it these sweeping permissions and then all for what so your headphones sound a little different. I don’t know guys before I press play, though one more thing: let’s take a look at the kind of before frequency response curve from headphones.com with the 3 half mm cable.
You can see that strong emphasis in the Basse and subbase, though I can’t stress enough. This is not like your late 2000th Beats by Dre, where it’s really muddy and ugly. It sounds really good and then in the mid-range. You can see some of that inconsistency where sometimes it’s overas ized compared to our lmg Target curve.
Sometimes underemphasized, then, beyond that we’ve got a big bump here at around 15,000 Herz. That looks like a catastrophe, but realistically is at about the edge of human hearing and shouldn’t bother you under most circumstances. That is unless you’re younger or you have a particularly Discerning ear, in which case it may add a bit of shrillness to the audio. Now before I look at the DSP cable version, let’s continue.
I don’t stare at these all day, so I would be really curious to look at the difference in frequency response, because whatever it is about the 3 and 1/2 mm cable is definitely more fatiguing for me than the DSP cable. It’S a little early to say. If I think, there’s a huge Improvement in the inside your head effect, let’s get off of fantasies and into hypnosis man. It’S amazing! What we’ve given up switching to airpods, collectively, the audio files, might be on to something hey, so what I just have to run this cable, even lower notes on the piano feel like they’re, like reverberating in my neck, like if you are all about bass, guitar solos Man, these things flipping Rock and I’d, say everything else is good enough.
Yeah $ 360 is a lot of money, but when you compare this to what we used to have to pay for this kind of performance, good good, lord, it’s no wonder people are so excited about chaii like man, it’s not like. I don’t own products that will perform on par or above this, but, like you would have had to pay so much more for this in the past. I still don’t think these would be my choice. Let’S have a look at the differences here and there it is yeah when we compare this to a population average Anatomy Target. It’S like pretty much bang on, except for that extra emphasis on the low end and other than me being incredibly boring and preferring a really flat frequency response. Things are kind of awesome.
I mean yeah, it’s a lot of money to spend on an audio product, but now that apple is kind of normalized spending, 2300 bucks, I mean when I was in high school. Nobody had headphones that were more than like you know, $ 30, even correcting for inflation. That’S like spending 50 bucks today, but now that it’s normal I’d say this is a pretty damn good normal. Of course, I haven’t tried any of the different DSP settings yet apparently they’re just awful, which maybe doesn’t matter to you, because you don’t have to use them at all. In fact, you don’t even have to install the app if you just want to use the default settings for the DSP cable, can’t say the Comfort super great for me by the way, even with the small tips they’re a little on the big side. So your mileage may vary there, obviously, but I don’t find them as heavy as I expected them to be, which is good all right. Let’S try the Harmon Harmon tuning interesting. It’S like everything, that’s kind of okay about these headphones with none of the really great about these headphones.
Looking at the frequency response, it’s a funny thing how much of a difference just a decel or two here and there can make. I think what I’m missing is just that couple DCB in the 100 to 200 Hertz, like it’s just kind of boring and flat sounding now, which I guess emphasizes the importance of tuning. I mean that’s realistically, where chicles collaboration comes into play for Moon drop right. They do the physical engineering he comes in and is like yeah, but this sounds good yeah.
I just don’t think I would install the app funnily enough. That seems to be the general Consensus. These Things Are outstanding great for the price.
Just don’t use this cable and don’t install the app 360 bucks yeah, it’s a lot of money, but if you care about sound quality, I can’t say that it’s a bad value. It’S a complicated thing, someone whose entire business is testing getting into the production of headphones, but in this case I would say, the expertise has resulted in a better product than we otherwise would have ended up with subscribe to Short Circuit. .