Intro / Preamble.

While continuing to search for new flagship IEM releases which we haven’t seen as many lately, I just had a chance to spend a few days with Vision Ears x Astell & Kern Aura IEMs, a demo pair borrowed from Musicteck.  As I already mentioned in one of my other Snapshot reviews, a number of today’s DAP manufacturers offer IEMs under their own brand name, but not everybody shares who is the original equipment manufacturer (OEM).  Astell & Kern always made sure to give full credit to companies they collaborate with, and they have a long history of IEM and full-size headphone collabs with some of the biggest names in the industry.  This new 11-driver hybrid Aura IEMs is their latest joint release with Vision Ears (VE).

At the same time, you never know if such collab going to be a brand-new design or a retuned version of the existing IEM from the OEM manufacturer.  Thus, when I borrowed Aura, I didn’t know what to expect and didn’t even make a commitment to write a review.  But after just a few hours with these gems in my ears, I decided they definitely deserve a write up to share with you what I found.  So, here we go!

Design and Accessories.

Since I only received a pair of Aura IEMs with a new EA cable by itself, there is not much to say about the unboxing experience except that manufacturer mentions about a complete set of the included handcrafted leather accessories.  For those who are familiar with VE products, you will know they always feature original custom accessories, and here you should find a leather carrying case, a leather earphone pocket storage, and a leather cable clip, all from a smooth calfskin leather PABLO material.  Also, in the provided accessories picture, I noticed a set of stick-on filters for the tip of the nozzle.  Those usually protect drivers from earwax build-up and can function as a sound filter too.

Another included accessory was a pair of new custom Effect Audio brand name cables.  Both cables use the same wire material, selected premium UP-OCC Pure Silver litz and UP-OCC Pure Copper litz hybrid.  With an ultra flexi insulation and 24 awg 4 wires design, the cable is very soft and flexible and there is no microphonics.  The headphone plug uses Rhodium-plated Brass, one terminated with 3.5mm SE and the other one with 4.4mm BAL.  I was surprised they (EA) decided not to use a modular TermX plug and instead offered 2 separate cables with same wires and only different termination.  I guess, you are getting a bonus cable here.

When it comes to the design, under the hood of Aura you will find 11 drivers: 2x8mm DDs in isobaric configuration to cover sub-low and low frequencies, 4xBAs for low mids, 4xBAs for mids and mid highs, and 1xBA super tweeter covering high and super high frequencies.  The drivers are partitioned with 5-way crossover using handpicked low tolerance components and internal silver-plated copper alloy wiring.  From the technical spec, Aura has an average 115dB sensitivity and 10.5ohm impedance making them very easy to drive from any portable source.

The exterior design features precision-milled aluminum shell from high grade lightweight Swill 6061-T6 material known for its high strength, sturdiness, and resistance to corrosion.  The shells are truly lightweight, only 6g each.  The faceplate features micro-groove design with a complex milling process which starts by digging the grooves around the grain of the raw material and continues with a precision-tailored laser engraving.  Then, oil is used to prevent the oxidation, surface is anodized, and finally a custom dark bronze color is applied.  Another eye-candy part of the faceplate design is a vacuum metal mesh venting port implemented to circulate the air from the DD driver.

Sound Analysis.

I analyzed Aura sound performance paired up with LPGT and DX320Max Ti while playing a variety of my 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”, Bob Marley “Jamming”, David Elias “Vision of her”, and Michael Jackson “Dirty Diana”.  I didn’t know if this was a fresh pair out of the box, so I let them play overnight for a quick burn-in to make sure DD bass drivers are properly conditioned.

To understand the new tuning of Aura, I’m going back to revisit my analysis of the original (OG) vs the limited-edition (LE) Phoenix.  The biggest change between PHX OG and LE was in mids, being less colored, more revealing, with better layering and separation and more air between the layers.  LE was not necessarily brighter, just more revealing and more forward in sound presentation, all this due to lower mids being more neutral in LE while warmer and thicker in OG.  As a result of that difference, the perception of the bass in LE has also changed, being tighter, more articulate, having better control, though also losing some of the weight.

I’m not saying that LE version was an “improvement” because in reality the change just brings out a different flavor in tuning.  Some might consider it as an improvement toward a more reference direction, while others might prefer the original (warmer, smoother, lusher) sound of mids in PHX.  To me personally, I enjoyed changes in LE version, and with more clarity and higher resolution in mids the soundstage also felt wider and the imaging improved with instruments and vocals spreading further apart, unlike PHX OG having them closer to the center which created more intimacy in sound.  Neither PHX nor Aura have a huge soundstage with holographic imaging, but PHX LE and Aura do expand wider than PHX OG.

But I was still on the fence when it comes to the bass in LE version.  I appreciated the control, the articulation, and the layering, but at the same time it skewed the bass sound toward a more neutral-ish BA performance.  Nothing is wrong with that, many flagship IEMs have low end covered by BA drivers, just like the original and limited-edition PHX or VE’s legendary Erl.  But in OG version the low end had more weight due to a fuller body lower mids and longer decay of notes.

And that is exactly where Aura has the upper hand in tuning when compared to LE version of PHX.  The replacement of BA bass drivers with dual 8mm isobaric Dynamic drivers scaled up LE performance to the next level.  I hear the upper mids and the treble to be nearly the same between PHX OG, PHX LE, and Aura.  The lower mids of Aura are very similar to PHX LE, being more neutral, less colored, making upper mids more revealing, with better layering and separation and more air between the layers.  And despite having 2xDD drivers, the bass is still tight, articulate, well controlled, but scales up with deeper, more textured sub-bass rumble and the boost in the perception of mid-bass punch.

I usually say, trust your ears first when analyzing the sound, rather than your eyes while looking at the FR graph.  But in this case a picture (FR comparison of OG, LE, and Aura) is worth a thousand words because it visually reinforces the changes I’m hearing.

Conclusion.

In the intro of this review, I mentioned that you never know if the collab going to yield a new design or a retuned version of the existing IEM from the OEM manufacturer.  When it comes to the latest VE x AK Aura IEM release, I think it is both.  It is an updated design of PHX since VE replaced BA bass drivers with DD drivers.  But they also tuned Aura to keep the core tuning of PHX LE, only updating the bass performance.  It’s not an easy task to replace the key ingredient of the design without affecting the rest of the tuning.  Yet, VE team managed this change while keeping PHX LE mids and treble the same.  Also, while going from all BA to hybrid DD/BA design, VE still maintained a perfect coherency with all drivers “singing” in unison harmony of a balanced tuning with a natural detailed tonality.