Twilight – A single DD saga! 

Update – Full review has now been published! Check it out here!

Received Softears Twilight a few days back and thought I’ll post some first impressions for everyone in the Softears thread on Head-fi and mirror it here on Tw6 for future reference. 

Manufacturer website –  Softears (Official Website) | Softears AliExpress Store.

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Specifications.

• Impedance:16Ω
• Sensitivity: 116dB/ms@ 1kHz
• Effective frequency response: 20-20kHz (IEC603184)
• Frequency range: 15-40kHz (1/4’freefield, -3dB)
• THD:<1%@1kHz
• Housing: 5-axis finely engraved anodized aluminum alloy
• Driver size: 10mm
• Diaphragm: PU suspension+DLC diamond-like dome

Tech in Twilight.

Extremely light weight metal body – The body is made from high standard Aluminium alloy that is used in the aviation industry, which is tough but light. Softears use a high-precision five-axis CNC carving machine tool for processing and then carry out the post-treatment of anodic oxidation process. Compared to their previous DD flagship – Turii, the weight is reduced by 60% and each shell of Twilight weighs only 6g.

Patented coupling technology of front cavity is inherited from Turii (Patent No: 202010157930) – With more than 100 experiments and calculations, Softears got the volume of the rear cavity to match the unit. This improves the dynamic response, sensitivity and can easily produce the low-frequency efficiently. Viscoelastic damping materials and diffuser patches are embedded in the rear cavity to suppress cavity resonance, which helps make it easier for Twilight to capture the details in music.

Twilight’s Dynamic Driver – As per Softears, it took them 2000 hours to develop a brand-new platform of 10mm ultra-high performance dynamic driver. It has a large diameter DLC dome with FreeEdge PU suspension and 0.035mm Daikoku high tension voice coil.

Sound – Quick First Impressions.

Update – Full review has now been published! Check it out here!

Twilight is the first IEM I’ve heard from the Moondrop and Softears camp that moves away most from the VDSF target, that most of their other IEMs generally follow. But it does so mainly in one region – the lower-midrange. It is north of neutral in the region which results in a fuller presentation and makes it significantly different sounding from their previous IEMs like RS10, RSV, S8, Blessing2 and Kato, which were more neutral there. Luckily, it works fairly well along with the forward upper-midrange that has 9dB of pinna gain and comes across as a fun take on the more neutral VDSF target and not too muddy. It has a 5-6dB bass boost that not only boosts the sub-bass but also the mid-bass. So, it has rumble as well as punch, which make for quite a fun listen with bass-dominant tracks, without them coming across too boomy/in your face. It has well balanced, neutral sounding lower-treble tuning and a warmer upper-treble downward slope that follows the Harman IE Target’s slope, with it extending till 20kHz fairly well.

Frankly, as an audio engineer/musician, I’m not really a fan of fuller midrange style of tuning and like my lower-midrange till 1kHz to be extremely neutral/linear – a straight horizontal line on the graph because it otherwise makes instruments sound muddy, boomy and tonally wonky. But Softears has managed to balance the fullness with refinement that I’ve seldom seen done properly otherwise. What I like is that it has a fuller presentation without sounding muddy or loosing out on the crunch, bite and definition that is absolutely necessary to keep vocals, guitars, piano and orchestral instruments sounding tonally correct. So, instruments in Twilight do have a bit more warmth, body and fullness than neutral but also the forwardness that presents them in the soundstage really well. This balance actually also makes it fairly easy to boost volume for some enthusiastic listening.

Graphs are measured using an IEC60318-4 (IEC711) setup. You can compare all the graphs on my IEM Graph Database here – Animagus Squiglink.

Conclusion.

Twilight definitely targets a fun presentation more than reference. It’ll attract and impress people who thought IEMs like RS10, S8, Kato were a bit too neutral or had a leaner presentation than they like, but still want the crunch and definition that proper pinna gain brings in. Basically people who like fuller sounding IEMs like Andromeda and Solaris but wish that they had proper pinna gain.

Update – Full review has now been published! Check it out here!