Periodic Audio BE - Beryllium Foil Diaphragm IEM

http://periodicaudio.com/Be.html

So this one seems interesting as it uses Beryllium diaphragm (like Utopia?) instead of many other so called Beryllium coated mylar drivers.

I heard this at CanJam and thought that it sounded pretty good for what it was priced at.. ($299).

Little warm but pretty clear sounding with fast bass. I did ended up purchasing one.

I am hoping someone here can measure it and add your thoughts of it.

CSD plot on their website looks pretty good. Not sure about the frequency response they posted, which I heard is raw graph without compensation.

 

These aren't your typical beryllium drivers, also known as Vapor Deposited Beryllium, which is what you find in loudspeakers like the Yamaha NS series, Focal Utopia, Paradigm Signature, Revel Ultima, Magico, etc, but they use beryllium foil for the diaphragm--this is according to the company reps at Canjam themselves. No other audio company I know of uses beryllium foil as it increases the moving mass significantly versus vapor depositing (due to much thicker diaphragms), and the metal is not as strong, uniform or resist oxidation as well when in foil form. Also beryllium foil is not expensive at all, it's the vapor depositing process which makes beryllium drivers so expensive, so this might be an underhanded attempt at "me too!" advertising.

Although when I heard them at the show I thought they were pretty good, probably competitive with many $500-600 IEMs.

 

I also had the chance to demo them during canjam, but the low-end was much too warm and thick for my tastes. Similar to the old Nighthawk or CA Vega's low-end, but more-so.

 

Are you sure about that? My understanding is that only the old Yamahas, TAD, and TAD's discontinued step-down line (Pioneer EX) use vapor-deposited beryllium. The rest use stamped beryllium foil from Truextent (nee Brush Weller and Materion).

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/66ivp4/more_qc_problems_from_periodic_audio/
I have my apprehensions about this company, even though I want companies to make IEMs dynamic again™.

 

Nothing is 100% certain in this world I guess, unless you are able to measure by hand the material thickness, hah. I've seen references to vapor deposition in all of their marketing material (I actually have Revel speakers and have a brochure of theirs referring to vapor deposition of beryllium), but you are right, it could be the marketing department is selling hype and actually trafficking in beryllium foil.

 

I think this is the line from the Revel Ultima brochure that confused you:
"The evolution of tweeter domes over the decades is a story of increasingly more exotic materials–and wider performance envelopes. The latest examples are chemical vapor deposition diamond and beryllium."

Revel uses stamped beryllium foil just like every other non-TAD or Pioneer EX speaker with a beryllium driver diaphragm made this century. Here's an article by a loudspeaker engineer about beryllium diaphragms, with the caveat that I believe he has some business relationship with Truextent: http://www.s-m-audio.com/truth.zip

 

I just got a set of the Periodic Beryllium IEMs. I purchased them mainly on Dan Wiggins' reputation of making a lot of great stuff over the years, and a desire to try a dynamic driver IEM to compliment my Etymotic ER-4XR.

I think they sound pretty good. Bassy, but I like a lot of bass. There is a bit more bass impact from the upper midbass all the way to the sub bass compared to the ER-4. I think overall they sound more "right" to me than the eytmoic. Much less midranage sparkle than an eytmotic, but that's what leads to the ER-4 being fatiguing after an hour or so with rock music. I haven't flown with BE yet though, and I don't think the isolation will be as good for air travel. On the other hand, I'd probably rather listen to the BE when sitting around a hotel for a night. I tried the comply tips but the silicons work better for me, and they're definitely more comfortable. It's a game of trade-offs.

 

I tried to A/B the Beryllium on a flight tonight against the ER-4XR playing out of an LH labs GO2 pro infinity.

I actually preferred the BE, but I was in row 3 of an MD80, which is one of the quietest spots on a "modern" airliner. The timber of the BE sounds much more natural, and surprisngly this overcame the superior isolation of the ER-4 to be the preferable IEM for me in this environment. The upper treble on the BE is a bit bright in flight (some bite to to cymbals when playing loud, maybe the mids getting washed out by wind noise). However, the ER-4 sounded compressed....the timbre of vocals and guitars is just radically different in an unnatural way. Listening to Edie Brickell on "Green" it almost seems like you're hearing the vocals through a telephone speaker or megaphone. Maybe I just need to change the filters on my ER-4.

I could hear low level details much more easily on the ER-4, because as expected, the perceived isolation was less than half (probably about 1/3) with the BE.

Did some more listening in a quiet hotel room at the destination. Preferred the BE. Didn't notice the upper treble brightness in the quiet environment. Tried some more female vocals since that seems to be a big area of differentiation. Alanis Morisette sounded a bit nasaly on "Head Over Feet" with the ER-4. Again, a more natural timbre to both her vocal and the guitar with the BE. Tried some Allson Krauss "It wouldn't have made a difference". What I noticed here, is that the vocal sounds OK on the ER-4 in the quieter verses, but during the chorus it seems like the BE allows the sound to bloom in a more realistic way.

I was surprised that bass wasn't the main difference, it was this vocal issue.

I have 3 more flights and about 18 hours of time to do more comparos between these two $300 poor man's IEM before I start work in Taipei. It will be a fair bit noisier on the upper deck of a 747, where I'll be spending about 16 hours starting tomorrow night. I'll try to avoid getting an Ety foamy stuck in my ear again.