Quirky shells with a romantic signature!

PROS: Excellent craftsmanship, build and finish, extremely light shells that have a quirky but very comfortable fit, warm fun take on VDSF target, good warm and organic DD tonality and timbre, wide soundstage with very good instrument definition, excellent 4.4mm balanced cable with 3.5mm pigtail adapter, nice case and good quality variety of ear tips.

CONS: I would’ve liked more mid-treble and air up top, quirky unorthodox fit might not be as easy or comfortable for everyone.

---

About Softears.

Softears is Moondrop’s sister company. They share a lot of R&D and manufacturing assets while remaining companies that run their business independent of each other. As per what I’m told, Softears’ CEO was an automobile engineer by education who joined Moondrop after completing his studies. Moondrop’s founder, Herbert invested in him to create a no boundaries, no budget restrictions R&D brand, Softears, to see what could be achieved if money was no object. If you haven’t noticed, Moondrop’s IEMs like Blessing2 and S8 use Softears developed drivers for the reference quality midrange they are particularly known for. We previously reviewed their flagships RS10 and Cerberus in a dual review here, their 5BA reference IEM – Softears RSV here and their entry level 1DD+2BA hybrid Volume here.

Links – Softears (Official AliExpress). Also available for sale via authorised retailers like Musicteck. 

---

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

Included in the Box.

• Twilight IEMs
• 2-pin 4 core, 6N OFC cable with 4.4mm balanced jack
• 4.4mm female to 3.5mm male pigtail adapter
• Leather case
• Ear tips – Silicone SML, Ultra Clear SML & Foam SML
• Replacement nozzle filter – 2 sets
• Cleaning cloth and brush
• User Manual

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.

Build, Fit and Comfort.

Twilight has excellently built, extremely light (6 grams only) aviation grade Aluminium alloy shells. I actually quite dig its unorthodox shell design too. Vents are a common sight on dynamic driver IEMs but you’ll be surprised to see that Twilight has 6 vents in total, one on the opposite side of the 2-pin socket and 5 parallel slits near the nozzle. It’s fit is quite quirky and unorthodox too but very comfortable for me, where I stop feeling them in my ears after a while and they remain comfortable for hours on the end. But I can imagine it not being the case for everyone because of its unorthodox design. Softears have included 3 excellent sets of different types of ear tips to customise the fit to your liking and I highly recommend tip rolling to get the best fit, not just with the stock tips but all tips from your collection. I bet some tips will make for a way better fit than others.

Cable – I quite dig the stock cable as it pairs really well with the Twilight aesthetically. It’s a 4 core, 6N OFC cable with a 4.4mm balanced termination and 2-pin connectors. The y-split is quite cool and looks like a Kryptonian alien pod out of a Man of Steel movie.

Case – It’s the same case that comes with the RSV and RS10 – a very nice hockey puck style leather case that is quite roomy on the inside and comfortably fits the IEMs with the cable.

Sound Analysis, Comparisons and Conclusion.