Earphone Review

Vision Ears Elysium

Sound Analysis.

I analyzed Ely sound performance paired up with LPGT while playing a variety of test tracks, such as Agnes Obel “The curse”, Sandro Cavazza “So much better” (Avicii remix), C-Bool “Never go away”, Ed Sheeran “Shape of you”, Alan Walker “Darkside”, Galantis “Hunter”, Iggy Azalea “Black widow”, Indila “Boite en argent”, Dua Lipa “Love again”, Counting Crows “Big yellow taxi”, David Elias “Vision of her”, and Michael Jackson “Dirty Diana”. I had about 150hrs of burn in before I started with a critical sound analysis.

I find Ely to have a natural revealing tonality with a balanced w-shaped signature and impressive timbre accuracy when it comes to both natural and synthesized instruments as well as male/female vocals. I have used “natural revealing” in sound description before, but my experience with Elysium gave it a whole new meaning. Typically, I would consider tonality to be natural when it is more organic, smoother, not too thin or too thick. But it also means that smoother tonality will have to compromise retrieval of details and the level of clarity. Revealing, on the other hand, often refers to bright, micro-detailed colder sound which shifts its focus toward a more analytical performance.

Natural revealing is a combination of both where manufacturer tries to find a perfect balance between two extremes. In my opinion and based on how I’m hearing it, VE hit the jackpot with Ely tuning. Using three distinct building blocks of BA bass, DD mids, and dual EST treble, they managed to establish a perfect Yin and Yang balance of both, natural and revealing tunings.

Due to a nature of universal design, bass quantity will seriously dependent on the selection of eartips size and type which also happens to be quite subjective due to individual ear anatomy. My large earcanals got lucky with the included stock SpinFit CP145 large tips that enable me to hear a deep textured sub-bass rumble, and we are talking about not just sub-bass quality by also quantity. Mid-bass is fast and its decay is shorter and well controlled, typical of BA driver performance, but the level of sub-bass rumble was a pleasant surprise, definitely not what I would expect from BA driver since its sub-bass performance reminded me of DD. The bass is not too elevated, though I do hear it to be boosted, nicely extended, and well controlled.

And speaking of DD, that’s where mids come into play. It was a very bold decision to switch BA and DD in the driver config of Ely, and it paid off. Mids here is what gives Ely’s tuning its natural tonality. And it is not just the quality of mids tuning, but also its presentation, without being pushed too forward or too back. Lower mids are a little above neutral, giving just enough body for instruments and vocals to sound full and natural. Upper mids are clear, detailed, layered, but without too much “air” between the layers. It has just enough for a perfect layering and separation of the sounds.

Treble is vivid, vibrant, detailed, with a well-controlled level of clarity and definition which despite its more revealing nature still keeps it natural and airy. That was another interesting phenomenon where you almost expect treble to be bright and harsh, but instead it is very detailed and vivid and still well controlled. Again, have to pay close attention to eartips selection where I found eartips with wider bore opening or softer cap to make treble sound harsher and even sibilant to my ears.

Despite tri-hybrid design with BA/DD/dual-EST drivers, overall tuning is surprisingly coherent, with all drivers working in a nearly perfect unison.

Soundstage is wide and deep, approaching holographic level. But I also found an interesting phenomenon with imagining and positioning of instruments and vocals. Imaging has a good placement of instruments and vocals with a very accurate and convincing positioning allowing to pin-point every element in the song. The imaging is nearly 3D, putting you as a listener right in the middle, surrounded by the sounds. But, in a number of tracks I found vocals to be closer to me, giving them a little more intimacy. It wasn’t like that in every track, but some had vocals placed closer to me while the rest of instruments where spreading further out. Part of it was also related to eartips selection.

Of course, isolation will be eartips depended as well, but in general Ely felt like a custom CIEM in my ears with a very secure fit and excellent sound isolation.

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Eartips selection.

As I already mentioned, eartips selection plays a very important role in Ely’s sound-shaping.

SpinFit – fast elevated bass, transparent natural mids, vivid controlled treble.

EPros Horn-shaped – while these included eartips might work with some other IEMs, here it was clearly a wrong choice since the diameter of inner core was too small and required some effort to stretch these over the nozzle, and even with Large size pair, the soft rubber cap killed the seal and attenuated the bass. Personally, I would not recommend these with Ely.

AZLA Sedna – fast elevated bass, transparent natural mids, vivid controlled treble.

JVC Spiral Dots – fast neutral bass, more transparent mids, extra vivid bright treble.

Final Type-E – neutral lean bass, more transparent brighter mids, very vivid treble.

Symbio F – more elevated balanced bass, transparent natural mids, clear natural treble.

I was going back and forth between AZLA Sedna, SpinFit CP145, and Symbio F. I love isolation and grip of Sedna, but after a while my ears got a little sore since I preferred to use larger eartips and the nozzle of Ely is also quite thick. CP145 spent more time in my ears since its olive-shaped tip wedged more comfortably into ear canal, but treble was a little brighter. With Symbio F (foam) tips I had to step down to Medium due to larger size of Ely’s nozzle, but it also gave me the most natural and less aggressive treble response, while still keeping natural organic mids and deep sub-bass rumble. Symbio F losses a little bit of air in sound, but having more natural less harsh treble was a big plus. But I still continue to switch between these three.

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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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