Headphones

Picked both of these up this past month. Wanted to give my quick impressions, as they are both end-game level but in totally different ways.

FiR Krypton 5: Tubeless 4 BA 1 DD (Back vented for bone conduction)

Dislaimer – this one is a bit of an eccentric tuning, but it also does not graph well because of its back-vented bone conducting DD drivers pushing bass. This leads to some pretty polarizing reviews.

The FiR is what you grab when you want your music to be forward, up front, in your face, and hit with genuine impact. You can feel the bass even with the bass-reducing red atom modules in. But if you put the yellow +bass modules in and turn on XBass on your DAC/AMP…. Hoo boy. The sensation is unreal.

But these aren’t bass-only, and bass doesn’t overrun mids or highs or make everything muddy. I think that’s partially thanks to the bone conduction technology, but also down to the fact that FiR tuned the Kr5 to be the “brightest” of the bunch (between the Neon 4, Krypton 5, and Xenon/Radon 6s). Combined, the effect is that none of the details get lost in the bass no matter how hard you push it. And you can really push it.

You get overwhelming, brain tickling bass (if you want it), and bright, airy highs all at the same time. The consequence is of course that vocals can seem a bit recessed at times, but overall it’s not too noticeable and the “presence” filter on my iFi Gryphon corrects for this pretty well.

These IEMs really make you appreciate percussion in music, and bits like the opening of down with the sickness sound holographic and penetrating in a way I have never heard before.

THIEAUDIO Monarch MK3 – 6 BA 2DD 2 ES

These are the ones you grab when you want your music to sound magical. The details and soundstage are both better than the Krypton to my ears – so proper flagship level. The bass also reaches down with serious authority and punches so, so hard. Despite the punchy bass though, these sound a lot more “airy” than the Kryptons and so aren’t what I reach for when I want my music to be in my face and thumping (hip hop, some rap tracks, EDM). Instead, these are for when I want to be wowed by things like headspace, positioning, and detail.

Also worth noting, the Monarchs take less well to preset EQs like Xbass than the Kryptons. While you can crank the bass on the Kryptons as hard as you want and never get any distortion or muddiness, Xbass will totally overwhelm the Monarchs and make it muddy.

Don’t get me wrong though, the Monarchs sound killer with all genres including hip hop and EDM. The Krypton just eats them for lunch in these genres. But the Monarch sounds magical in a way that the Kryptons don’t on more delicate genres.

Overall:

I’d say I actually like these equally, just different IEMs for different genres/tracks. But liking them equally is extremely high praise to the Monarchs given they are 1/3rd the cost of the FiR.

Also worth noting – although they look similarly sized in the picutres, the Krypton shells are actually about half the size of the Monarchs. Both are comfortable, but the Krypton much more so for those with smaller ears like myself.