As we come to the end of another calendar year, I am thankful for the recognition of my quality review from brands and the continual engagement with me. Compared to other professional and business-minded reviewers, I am writing casually without any intention for monetization or profit (except for the Google ads to fund my web hosting partially). There are a lot of us independent reviewers out there who just love to share our views in a conventional way. It’s not for traffic or for revenue, It’s just a passion.
To be honest, I am quite happy with my current pace, reviewing for the existing list of brands with whom I have worked with for years, even decades. But once a while, I will receive unsolicited requests from new brands for collaborations. Since I write review more as a hobby, I curate new requests and choose to review products that I can relate to.
Last month, Kiwi Ears PR contacted me and invited me to review their new audio products. Kiwi Ears is designed and manufactured by Shenzhen Changyun Technology (深圳畅韵科技有限公司), a company who also runs Linsoul, an online retailer store selling China-branded audiophile products.
After accepting their expectations to our maiden collaboration, they sent over the unit to me, I would review and write my article in my words, and I do not need to send the product back to them. You might ask: since I am getting free products, wouldn’t my reviews be biased? Well, I always believe that there are no bad products. Every product is designed with a target consumer group in mind. When a brand comes up with a marketing strategy that wants reviewers like me to share our opinions, it means that they have made a product that they believe will impress and excite consumers. Unlike influencer marketing that glamourises the product to create awareness and hype, proper product reviewers write how they really feel and not what the brand PR wants them to.
Design
The Orchestra II is an in-ear monitor headphones with ten balanced armature drivers encased on each side. Just look at the accessories: detachable copper-silver plated cables with two swappable connectors – 3.5mm and 4.4mm. There are four different ear tips of three sizes each, and the grey casing tops it up. This package delivers so much more value than the retail price of USD 349.
The ten drivers on each ear consists of two low-frequency drivers, four mid-frequency drivers, two high-frequency drivers, and two ultra-high frequency drivers. Whether it is a single driver or 10 drivers, what matters is what I hear and whether it contributes to the audio quality.
Clearly it’s a feat to squeeze so many drivers into a single housing, so the encasement is rather chunky, but the transparent acrylic design offers a nice visual appreciation to the tiny components.
Each set of ear tips offer different sound signatures. I find the white tips offer the best treble sparkle and air, while the black delivers the best bass and more midrange fullness. The yellow-bore tip tilts the sound towards the upper frequencies, cleaner midrange, and reduced bass. The red-bore tip offers more midrange, rounder treble. For my review, I will comment based on the white tip because I like the slightly more refined and prominent air on the treble. Fortunately, I did not develop skin allergies when using these tips, reflecting the higher quality silicone used.
Audio Quality
I audition with my go-to list of reference tracks which you can find out more here. One of my first tracks that I start with is Hiromi “Alive” album, which is available for purchase from Bandcamp at the original 24-bit 96kHz resolution at just USD 7. This album is a great start for me because it is a recording of three instruments – the bass guitar tests the bass, the piano tests the midrange, and the drums test the upper frequencies. The recording demonstrates the great timing performing by the trio and tests the audio system through the driver response, timbre, tonality, balance.
I do not favour multi-BA earphones just by merits because I do not think they add significant audio quality. I do agree that multi-BA drivers allow designers to better control the frequency response. Instead of developing a single versatile driver, they assembled multiple drivers that each have strengths within the frequency range. If they are not satisfied with part of the frequency response, the manufacturers can simply finetune the driver responsible for this section while keeping the other frequencies unaffected.
When auditioning the Kiwi Ears Orchestra II, I can hear that each frequency zone delivers rather different sonic behaviours that each driver covers. The logic is the same when playing on a string instrument: the same musical note will sound different when played on different strings. And because of this, the overall music performance seem to be achieved with less effort, given there are 10 independent driver components producing audio on each ear. And you can see from the close-up image below that there are three separate audio pipes channeling the 10 drivers to the mouth of the nozzle.
Getting 10 individual drivers to perform cohesively is not easy, and Kiwi Ears certainly puts in a big deal of effort to engineer this model, and the resulting sound delivery is rather impressive. For this review, I compared with the following earphones I have:
The Orchestra II delivers the best overall sound balance. The upper frequencies are achieved with clarity and precision while not sounding too excessive, there is no hint of trying too hard to be louder to be heard. On the white eartips, I hear more airiness and room decay enough to feel the effect but does not overtake the sound impression.
The midrange sounds clean and balances with sonic fullness which can be further tweaked with different tips. If you prefer a more generous mids, the the black tips would do great. With the white tips, the midrange does not sound too bloated which means they also lack the grit, which might sound too tame.
Coming to the bass, the buds offer exciting impact and kicks, but lacks the depth and rumble that I expect to hear from tracks like Billie Eilish “Bad Guy”. The positive is that bass sounds musical and clinical that does not obscure the overall instrumentation. For music that does not have heavy mids or treble, the bass punches in the mix. Again, the black tips give me more raw power from the lower frequencies which could add some musical depth.
Comparatively, the Xelento is a single 11mm Tesla driver that is tuned for more midrange and stronger bass rumble. The upper midrange sounds more recessed, while the upper treble is more forward, resulting in a drum performance where the hi-hats are more prominent than the toms and drums. When the tracks get busy with details from the lower range, the Xelento can sound cluttered. I do love the contoured eartips that alleviates ear pressure, and they are lighter, smaller, and prettier to wear. These buds offer better bass feel with balance highs for laid-back music performances.
The Shure AONIC 4 uses a single BA and a single dynamic driver which technically can offer the best of clarity and boom. Compared to the Orchestra II, the AONIC 4 midrange is cleaner, its upper midrange can sound saturated, while the upper treble achieves more sparkle. I would prefer the Orchestra II handling of the midrange.
The Sennheiser IE 200 offers the most transparent treble among the earphones reviewed. It has less vibrant bass and the midrange is not as full-sounding, and the speed of the drivers are comparatively less quick, and fast jazz passages could sound sloppy.
After going through my other earphones, the Orchestra II seems to keep up the musical passages really well and the ability to keep instrumentation really disciplined. It can handle treble-heavy recordings well, delivering the passages with control. The stereo imaging does not deliver convincing frontal stage, mostly contained around the ears.
Verdict
The Kiwi Ears Orchestra II brings a differernt listening experience to my ears compared to my other earphones I have. With the multi-driver design, it delivers excellent tonal control over the four frequency ranges, producing complex dynamics without sounding too pushy. I like that despite with so many drivers covering the treble range, they do not sound too fatiguing. Areas that could be improved are: stereo imaging, more distinct instrumental positioning on the spatial plane, and the bass response.
The Orchestra II is on sale at the Kiwi Ears website https://kiwiears.com/products/kiwi-ears-orchestra-ii
