Sound Analysis.

I analyzed Emperor and Empress sound performance paired up with L&P P6 Pro and A&K SP3000T sound sources while playing a variety of test tracks, such as Agnes Obel’s “The Curse”, Sandro Cavazza’s “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”.  By force of habit and considering its use of a DD driver, both IEMs had about 100 hours of burn-in before I started to collect my impressions.  I was using a stock cable and SpinFit W1 eartips.

I hear the Emperor and Empress having a neutral tuning with a clear natural tonality.  The sound is very clean, transparent, and quite resolving with a focus on a mid-forward presentation.  But their individual tuning is not exactly the same.  Emperor stands out with a punchier mid-bass which gives its tuning a more neutral balanced characteristic.  In contrast, Empress has a flatter mid-bass which brings more focus to the sub-bass extension and gives mids a more forward reference quality.

However, despite their bass tuning difference, both still have a close to neutral bass quantity that tilts the sound presentation toward being more mid-forward.  Mids quality and quantity are nearly identical in both IEMs, having neutral flat lower mids and more forward clear natural upper mids.  Mids are transparent with zero coloring, still quite detailed but in a neutral and natural way.  The treble is clear, detailed, and natural as well, though I find it to be a touch smoother in Empress while having a bit more energy in Emperor due to its slightly more emphasized mid-treble.

When it comes to a technical performance, starting with a soundstage both have more out-of-your-head expansion with deeper and taller staging in comparison to the width, though the width is still above the average and without any exaggeration.  But I do hear the Empress spread the sound a little wider in comparison to the Emperor.  The sound is very clean and clear, very resolving, with no congestion, no muddiness, and good separation of instruments and vocals, though just an average layering and sound dynamics.  Also, despite its 15-driver tribrid design, the overall multi-driver tuning was surprisingly coherent.

As I was going back and forth between Emperor and Empress, I realized that extra mid-bass kick and a touch more sparkle in mid-treble gave Emperor’s tuning more energy and made it better suitable for EDM, Top40, and Pop tracks.  But a flatter bass with a deeper sub-bass rumble and a bit smoother treble made Empress more suitable for classical, instrumental, vocal (especially vocal!), acoustic, and other tracks with natural non-synthesized instruments.  Just keep in mind, that if you are seeking a sound with a stronger bass impact, neither Emperor nor Empress will satisfy your bass craving.  I don’t have access to VX and V14 IEMs and can only go by memory, but due to their switch-based tuning system, I remember being able to add more punch to the bass, especially in V14.

I think both IEMs will appeal more to those who like to monitor and analyze the sound and want to hear more natural resolving details without any exaggeration or coloring, and also don’t mind the neutral bass quantity.

Eartips Selection.

The selection of eartips is crucial to any universal in-ear monitor and will affect the sound, especially the bass impact depending on the seal.  Due to a large opening of my ear canals, I usually go for the largest size eartips to get a better seal.  Also, please keep in mind, that eartips impressions are subjective and will be based on the anatomy of your ears.  My suggestion is to build up your eartips collection and try each one with every new IEM you get to find the pair which yields a perfect sound for your ears.

Emperor

• w/SpinFit W1 – neutral sound sig with a punchy mid-bass, clear natural mids, and treble
• w/Azla Crystal – gains a little more sub-bass rumble
• w/Eletech Baroque – a bit wider soundstage and more organic weight in mids
• w/Final Type-e – deeper sub-bass rumble, mids become a bit more shouty, and treble has some sibilance peaks
• w/Symbio W – more mid-forward sound sig with a punchy mid-bass, and clear and more revealing mids and treble

Empress

• w/SpinFit W1 – neutral sound sig with a bit more sub-bass, neutral mid-bass, clear natural mids, and treble.
• w/Azla Crystal – gains more sub-bass rumble and mids have a little more texture
• w/Eletech Baroque – a bit wider soundstage, a bit more sub-bass rumble, and smoother mids
• w/Final Type-e – flatter bass and peaky treble
• w/Symbio W – more mid-forward sound sig with neutral bass, and clear and more revealing mids and treble

Page 3 – Cable pair up, Source pair up, and Conclusion.