Earphone Review

Vision Ears Elysium

Cable.

Ely comes with a nice-looking premium silver-plated copper custom cable. The cable has 8 SPC 28awg thick conductors with a clear soft shielding. The main part of the cable has a tight square braid, yet the cable is still soft and flexible. Above the split, you have each side with a looser 4 wire braid going to a 2pin connector with a pre-shaped clear heat-shrink earhook.

The cable comes standard with gold-plated 2.5mm OYAIDE balanced connector plug with a nice diamond cut grip. The y-split is small and round, with a matching silver finish like in a plug, and with VE logo and “Made in Germany” printed on the back. Chin-slider is a tight clear rubbery piece. The housing of 2pin connectors is like two small silver bullets with an indent id ring on the left side and the actual 2pin connector designed specifically for non-recessed socket of Ely.

The cable connected to Ely shells was very tight out of the box and it took me a little bit of force to separate it, until a few reconnects later it loosened up when I started my cable rolling which I’m going to cover later after the sound analysis section.

It’s a nice lightweight non-microphonic cable, and my only wish here would have been for a matching 3.5mm and 4.4mm adapters, perhaps something similar to DDHiFi adapters.

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Design.

Since I’m reviewing universal version of Ely, I didn’t have to go through VE on-line Configurator tool for CIEM models where you can customize the shell color, logo, etc. With universal Ely you get instant gratification of their signature design with a clear transparent shell and a special unique faceplate with a weaving blue line pattern. Ely’s acrylic shell with its lacquer layer finish doesn’t look like a typical generic universal design, and instead looks more like custom model.

The shape of the shell is flat and fits comfortably in the concha area of the ear. Depending on eartips selection which going to control the insertion depth among other things, you can get the shell to sit nearly flush in your concha area. While I never tested Ely demo before, a number of people mentioned that universal Ely shell is nearly identical to their demo of custom model. And that makes sense because the ergonomics of the demo design was intended to give you the sound and the experience of the custom version. And just like with a demo, universal design has a thicker nozzle to use with eartips. Plus, at the tip of the nozzle you will find a replaceable ear-wax mesh screen with extra spares included with accessories.

The clear shell gives you inside look of the driver arrangement where you will find a 3-way tri-hybrid system with 4 drivers on each side: BA (lows), DD (mids), and dual EST (highs). The dual EST driver with a common separate voltage transformer is most likely by Sonion, but in my opinion the most interesting part of the design was the switch between BA and DD. Hybrid models typically have Dynamic driver bass and Balanced Armature mids/highs. Here, VE decided to use BA drivers for lows and DD for mids.

The selection and the tuning of BA bass driver felt almost like listening to a dynamic driver with a speed of BA driver. The natural tonality of dynamic driver mids was shaped with a help of VE’s exclusively designed HALC (high-precision acoustic leveling chamber) which you can see surrounding the DD inside the clear shell. And for course, the vivid presentation of highs was courtesy of dual EST drivers.

I will dive into more intimate sound description details in the next section of the review.

The fit.

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Page 3 – Sound Analysis, Eartips Selection.
Page 4 – Comparison, Pair up, Cable rolling, Conclusion.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4

32 thoughts on “Vision Ears Elysium”

    1. It’s a good, but I do hear Ely to sound more v-shaped in this pair up, not as balanced as with LPGT. With PAW6k mids are smoother and pushed a little back, bringing forward more bass and treble, making the sound more v-shaped as a result.

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  4. Can you please compare this to iems such as campfire andromeda,solaris and final audio a8000 if possible thanks.

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    1. A8k bass is too neutral and the signature is too mid-forward and bright/analytical. Andro/Solaris mids are smoother and more organic in comparison to Ely which is more layered and a little more revealing. Ely’s treble is more vivid and brighter, even in comparison to Solaris treble. With bass, Ely is somewhere between Andro and Solaris. Solaris has more impact and Ely bass is more articulate and tighter than Andro. Overall, Ely sounds more refined and brighter due to its more vivid treble.

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  5. Thanks for the reply Mr Twister , but I had few other questions , out of the ones I have stated which would you consider your favourite, which would you consider the best value for money and which would you consider to be best for mid-range. I am huge mid-head and I like a good amount of bass and a little treble. My current iem is fitear togo 334 and the etymotic er2xr. I used to have ie80s, ie60s, campfire andromeda, earsonics velvet, earsonics sm64, hifiman re2000, phonak audeo pfe 232 . Each of them had something unique but never let me get lost in the music apart from andromeda which was good but I had a really bad fit. Thank-you for your reviews and answers they are really amazing. *Would you also put worth any other iems that you think would fit my listening style from the iems I have listed (I listen to mostly jazz, rnb, trip-hop, old school hippop, rock)

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  6. Hi Twister

    Quick question if you had the money to buy either the u18 or this, which one would you get?

    Thanks
    Peter

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    1. not an easy question to answer (and this is not a cop out reply). I like both of their bass, so it’s a draw. With mids, I like Ely better, more natural, with treble I probably prefer U18t more since it is not as vivid, a bit more relaxing. So, honestly, I don’t know what to say 😦

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  7. Thanks for your reply Mr Twister, this is my final question haha i am not sure if you have heard fitear togo 334 thats what I have as my current mid high end iem do you think the ely can beat it and is ely the best mids you have heard. I basically want the best iem with the best midrange. Thanks for all your reviews they mean a lot to up and coming audiophiles.

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    1. Sorry, I heard of them, but not them actually. They don’t attend Canjam shows, don’t have distributors in US (not that I’m aware of), and typically don’t send out review samples outside of Japan.

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  8. I just got my Ely a few days ago and compared with the Tia Trio (with EA Leo II 4wire) which is the IEM I used most.

    I like the mids and upper present of Ely (stock cable, SpinFit eartips) but I found the bass is punchier and little deeper with Tia Trio. Maybe it’s because Ely goes with a BA for the lower part?

    Since the stock cable of Ely is silver, do you think the bass of Ely can be changed towards “Trio taste” by paring with an after market cable? Any suggestions? Maybe I will give Leo II a try first. 😀

    Thanks.

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      1. Thanks! I will try the eartips. Many of my previous eartips for trio is hard to put on Ely because of the size .

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    1. I only had v3+ on loan, don’t have it anymore, but still have v3 and took good analysis notes 🙂 In general, Ely’s sub-bass goes deeper and their BA driver bass sounds more like DD drivers, while v3/v3+ has quality of BA bass. Both have a nice natural mids, but the tonality of Ely is just more realistic and the presentation is more forward. With treble, both are on a brighter side, but Ely can be fine-tuned better by switching eartips, while in case of Mason v3/3+ I had to switch to Phanes cable. Personally, I prefer Ely because of their mids tonality, very natural and resolving at the same time, great move by VE to use DD driver for mids.

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  11. Hi Twister6, I was at NYC Canjam 2020 when i was traveling in the States, and i believe you was sitting next to me at Dunu booth, with a dignis bag full of gears!

    I had my VE Erlkonig with me and i was about to ask if you were Twister6, but before i reached out, you left. I was about to share with you my Erlkonig and PW/EA/OC studio cable collections. (Ten of them!)

    To my surprise, everyone seemed to be curious about Erlkonig and i had to wait there until all of them gave it a try!

    Vision Ears is so popular in China and other asian countries, and i was surprised to know it is not here in the States. Glad that you enjoy Elysium! I still use my VE6 Silver Limited Edition and it sounded just unbelievably good back to 2017, and still is competitive at its price.

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    1. Hahaha, it’s a small world. Yes, i was talking to Tom at DUNU table and did have my dignis HAKO organizer with daps, cables, iems and other goodies 🙂 That is my kit I bring to Canjam shows, always prepared to listen and to take notes 🙂 Sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet you in person and I would have loved to hear Erl. VE products will be sold by Musicteck soon, but I’m not sure about Erl since it is discontinued and LE is sold out. Let’s hope for something new?

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      1. Erlkonig LE looks and feels good as usual. I bought LE as well because i love the combo of rose gold faceplate and the black shell. Who doesn’t like a limited edition!
        Thanks for all your reviews posted here. Although I’ve returned to China, i still keep following your posts here and on headfi. They’re of great help! I really wish that US could get reopened soon. Canjam is something unique and I will definitely attend Canjam Shanghai 2020:)

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  13. Thank you so much for your help, I ordered Elysium Universal. I owe you one lunch, let me know if you pass by Qatar. One final question , I need one totl cable for Elysium and Odin, almost pulled the trigger on code 51 but still not sure, please help me with this one as well.

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    1. For Odin, it already comes with a totl PWA 1960 cable which has the best pair up and ergonomics with Odin. For Ely, stock cable is not that great (in terms of the sound), and if you are looking for totl best pair up, I haven’t found anything to surpass C51.

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      1. Hello Twister6
        thank you for your reviews as always.
        I am also wondering which cable to choose between C51 and Horus X.
        I mainly listen to female vocal songs,
        could you please recommend? cheers 🙂

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  15. Nice and comprehensive review. Glad that u mentioned the impact of tip selection on IEMs. That’s probably the reason why there are a lot of positive and negative reviews of the Elysium. I personally listen my cm Elysium with my sp2000. And I love it.

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    1. and not just with Ely, but other IEMs as well. I get pinged by people telling me they don’t hear the bass or the treble is too shrill, just to find out later they still use default eartips when their received their IEMs and never bothered to try one size bigger to improve the seal.

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