Campfire Audio Andromeda Review: Holy Cow, This is a Dream, Awesomesauce!

Discussion in 'IEMs and Portable Gear' started by purr1n, May 13, 2016.

  1. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    There is no test track. It does this with any piece of decently engineered recording I throw at it.

    EDIT: Rostropovich Bach Cello Suites.

    YMMV. Some people can't hear what I am talking about.
     
  2. bazelio

    bazelio Friend

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    These looks to be great IEMs. Congrats to all who get a great deal through Velvetx's hard word here.

    I'd go in on this too, but IEMs make me sea sick. Don't know why that is, but they always have.
     
  3. Mrip

    Mrip Friend

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    For me they seem to amplify nausea but won't cause it alone. Strange.
     
  4. The Life

    The Life Facebook Friend

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    This is the one case where succumbing to the early hype and preordering at the preorder price paid off.
     
  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    May your next purchase be along the lines of the iBasso DX100. :D
    What was the pre-order price?
     
  6. imackler

    imackler Key Lime Pie Infected Aberdeen Wings Spy

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    This may work quite well: "I can't tell you, dear. I'd be breaking the law."
     
  7. vtrinidad87

    vtrinidad87 New

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    Seriously. What's the point of bragging about a price you got when it just screws everything else up for everyone else? Shouldn't you just be enjoying the IEM anyway?
     
  8. Drifterxny

    Drifterxny Friend

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    was just looking at the Andrometa thread on HF, intro price was 999
     
  9. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I have nothing to say other than neener, neener, neener.
     
  10. The Life

    The Life Facebook Friend

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    Hahahaha. The preorder price was $999.

    I had been looking for a universal iem to compliment my K10 customs and my calculation was pretty simple: either it lived up to the hype, in which case, yeah! for me, or it turned out to be not worth it, in which case, once the price went up to the normal price, I would resell it on HF to another sucke...I mean another audiophile...for about the same as the preorder price and I'm back at square one. I'm happy to say it has lived up to the hype for me.
     
  11. moosecraft

    moosecraft New

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    Has anyone heard the nova? The andromeda looks very tempting but is out of budget atm
     
  12. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    GOOD NEWS

    An anonymous donor has given us the means to acquire several more IEMs from the Campfire Audio line. I will order Nova, Orion, etc. a few days before I get back to the USA. I'm sure you guys have noticed I'm putting in a lot more effort into IEM measurements. The heptagon charts for CA gear that @OJneg suggested may become reality.

    FIELD TEST

    The Andromeda passed with flying colors during a field test with me on a plane for 16-17 hours. Again, not being customs, they didn't have that nice snug feeling. On the other hand, I didn't have a problem wearing them for practically the entire flight. The customs start to get uncomfortable for me after two to three hours (it's just how certain folds in my ear end up getting compressed). Seal was as good as my customs with me using the Comply tips. The Bose noise cancellation stuff does do a bit better with attenuating sub and low bass, but IEMs such as this do reasonable well, at much higher sound quality than Bose. It was good enough where I didn't have to increase the bass to compensate. I love the fact that I could just use my Sony X Walkman without an external brick. With UERMs, I need to attach my Leckerton UHA-6 to maximize sound quality. Andromeda doesn't need it. In fact, amps get in the way of transparency.

    The most important thing is that even though I consider the Andromeda a neutral sounding slightly mid-forward IEM, I had absolutely no problems with long term listening fatigue. I basically when through most of Tom Waits' material up through Bone Machine, early Erasure, and top pop hits (Kylie Minogue, Natalie Imbruglia, Sia, etc.) Sorry no Iggy Azalea.

    OFF TOPIC

    BTW, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a really nice plane. It's the BEST airliner out there right now. Very quiet inside, huge windows, comfortable nice cabin pressure, and excellent air quality and circulation without it feeling forced. In other words, no headaches, no crusty boogers. The wings are beautiful, particularly when in flight where they bend upwards (the co-pilot told me that they bend up nine feet going at max speed and that we weren't anywhere near that.) Looks like a wing of a bird! I love it when science and engineering mimic nature. You've got to hand it to evolution or intelligent design - whatever you believe in (and no I'm not mocking people who are religious and believe in a divine force.)

    787wing.jpg

    Yeah, the engines are BIG. They probably have to be because there are two of them. The carbon fiber airframe resonants differently from aluminum frames - in a good way. It's funny when you realize that you didn't see aluminum plates with rivets to secure them to the frame. The 787s are obviously the pride of the United Airlines fleet. The pulled out all the stops with a top notch crew.

    787cardfront.jpg
    787cardback.jpg
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2016
  13. Kunlun

    Kunlun cat-alyzes cat-aclysmic cat-erwauling - Friend

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    Thanks for putting more into iem measurements. It's definitely noticed and appreciated!
     
  14. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    Should one expect hiss with the Geekout 450?
     
  15. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I've gone either speaker or IEM now. Headphones don't have much of a place in my listening habits anymore. I'll still do headphone measurements; but we have been in really good hands with @sorrodje, @Hands, @ultrabike with headphones.

    It took a lot of time for me to get comfortable with IEM measurements. I still think some work needs to be done, but at least I feel somewhat comfortable now presenting them more publicly. I have been working on getting proper frequency response compensations and tweaking my coupler in past year. As you, know, I don't rely on high-dollar IEC approved couplers, AES papers, "authority" approved compensations, etc. because I don't believe their results were necessarily reflecting what I was hearing. I like how my current setup shows the low bass roll-off and the 2-3 bump in the UERM, the downward tilt and the slight 2-3 bump of the Andromeda, the laid back upper mids of the Jupiter, the Audeze'd nature of the UERR universal (measurements pending), etc.

    And BTW, @Christian (and @Will) sent me a bunch of their personal IEMs and portable to measure while I am here in Australia. Yes, I brought my IEM measurement kit with me.

    IEMs.jpg

    That's a good question and Ravi will let you know in few weeks when I get back. Unless someone else can answer that before then.
     
  16. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    Time to find the old geek out SE. That's the only original I have left.
     
  17. Dr. Higgs

    Dr. Higgs Boson - Member

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    I think I have mine somewhere around here too, I'll try to dig it out.

    To confirm Marv's field test, I listened to my Andromeda on a 9hr flight yesterday with no listening fatigue or discomfort with comply mediums. The output on my Moto X (2015) is extremely noisy (especially on the right channel), so I've preferred listening through my Leckerton so far (via USB OTG). I just got an Ak. Jr. in today to play around with, and although I'm not too impressed with the SQ so far (with all headphones, not just Andromeda) I'm going to let it burn in a bit before passing judgment.

    I've been traveling around the globe with the Andromeda for the past two weeks and was expecting to discover some concerns/complaints about them, but honestly nothing has come up so far. I find that they're most comfortable with a pretty shallow insertion, but the included comply medium tips sealed great for me. Tonality does seem to shift a bit based on what they're plugged into as Marv noted, but they've been supremely enjoyable through everything I've listened to them on so far (even my noisy Moto X). I was really shocked at how resolving the Andromeda is even with mediocre sources/amps, and the soundstage is probably the best I've heard from an IEM. I didn't spend much time with the Jupiter and the Tinsel cable, but the new Litz cable for the Andromeda is pretty great and I've had no issues with microphonics.

    It took a while to adjust to the Andromeda coming from the UERM, but when I got home last night I decided to listen to my UERMs to compare and they really didn't seem as clear, resolving, or engaging as the Andromeda. As a devout UERM lover it's a tough pill to swallow, but I think since I've gotten used to the SQ of the Andromeda they're likely going to be my new daily drivers.
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2016
  18. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

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    OU MIE GAWD. Marv certified UERR measurements.
    I also agree that the common IEM measurements with megabuck couplers metal tubes and diffuse field (or similar) compensation don't reflect what I hear. Kind of a shame that so many IEMs were designed to those targets, but that's really a discussion for another time. I noticed a similar thing with measurements with the mic in my ear. Flat usually means flat, which sounds similar to the B&K target in most ways. The same thing can be seen with @Hands' measurements.
    I actually measured how my ears (and body) shape the response with speakers. I basically came up with my own Serious-Field-Compensation™. This is actually a discussion that I want to see on here in the future. Actually part of the AudioQuest target curve was reflected in those measurements too.

    Can we get a pic of your IEM coupler at some point? I want to improve upon my own IEM measurements to maybe make them worth publishing sometime. I think mine has an inner diameter of 9mm and length is easily adjustable with my setup.
     
  19. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    My coupler is a yellow rubber tube from the hardware store. You know, the kind you make slingshots with.

    [​IMG]

    We should have measurement methodology discussions in a dedicated part of the forum with restricted access. I'll set this up later after I get back to the USA. Too many Internet know-it-alls if you know what I mean. I don't like talking about measurement methodology for the sake of measurement methodology. I'd prefer the discussion be with people with trained ears, not wanna be scientists. Yup no Internet scientists, and no untrained ears. Not too tight and not too loose.
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2016
  20. M3NTAL

    M3NTAL Friend

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    There is a very slight hiss with them when no audio signal is going to it.
     

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