Campfire Audio - NEW - Atlas and Comet

@Vansen Loaner news update?

 

Atlas is on tour? Can you fit one more in on tour?

 

Got a chance to try my friend's Atlas today. I've never heard the Vega, but I own a pair of Andromedas that I used to compare with. Overall the Atlas sound was very large, boomy, and bass heavy. It is smoother and more cohesive than the Andromedas (dynamic driver vs balanced armature plays a role here). However, the bass overshadows the midrange and makes vocals feel distant, which is why I still prefer the Andromedas so far. I'll see if I can get some more time with the Atlas. I feel like it shines in certain genres that call for a big sound while the Andros work well in most if not all contexts.

 

Had a bit more time last night to give the Atlas a listen. I followed what marv suggested in an older Vega thread and used a lighter seal to reduce the bass. The Atlas sounded much better for me after that. It's great for energetic music like EDM and pop. However, with a lighter seal the Atlas tended to sag downwards and become uncomfortable over time since it would put pressure on the lower part of my ear. The Atlas's body isn't as wide as the Andromeda, but it's longer, denser, and feels heftier. The Andros are a bit more comfortable in my ear since I can rely on a tighter seal and the wire's built in ear hooks to spread the weight a bit.

TLDR: lighter seal helps lower bass but can cause discomfort due to the Atlas's weight distribution.

 

Lower bass... Sacrilege!!

 

Alternatively, you can use a tighter and deeper seal to get both the benefits of head shattering bass while keeping the earphone in more snuggly

 

Spoiler: WARRIOR KEEP OUT! ;-)

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...discussion-impressions.3111/page-4#post-94113

 

https://m.facebook.com/ECTHK/posts/1931456010237830
Campfire audio Customs in the pipeline eh?, can't say i'm not excited to see what Ken cooks up.

 

If you look very closely at the faceplate you might see something interesting...

Hint: @Warrior won't like it, most others will!

Mr. Ball always has new tricks up his sleeve!

 

We shall see. Atlas is coming to me via loaner. I do love the Vegas, of course they could use more bass...

 

I thought I liked bass then got the Vega and I found out what too much bass is like and sold it to a friend. I want to give Atlas a try even though I am leaning towards getting the N8 as my next IEM purchase.

 

N8 seems to be a good piece of kit. On my short list of iems to try.

 

Are there any frequency response graphs comparing the Vega and Atlas?

 

https://imgur.com/IeSZyRh
https://imgur.com/V4PeTE0

 

I had a chance to listen to these at a local meet this weekend. My source was a Shanling M0 and I used Symbio wide bore tips.

I was unfortunately underwhelmed by my experience. Sub-bass was excellent, but mid-bass was just too much for me. It constantly reminds you that it is there and wants you to listen to it. Everything else was actually quite fine, but at that point it would basically be an Andromeda with equal or lesser technical ability minus the excellent sub-bass of the Atlas.

I really wanted to love these, but I just couldn't get past that mid to upper bass accentuation.

 

for those who doesnt mind sacrificing some isolation, a cheap but effective way to control excessive bass is to use the shure orange foamies which are made from low density pourous foam, i have had success with them on my bravados, sony z5, tg334 and the vega (when i auditioned them), they fit onto the vega with elbow grease, was thinking they might fit the atlas as well, upper and mid bass become less overblown

 

Okay, the infamous coffee gang, the Vansen Blade Grindaz (aka Da French Prezz Killaz) in co-ordination with the National Librarians Foundation and viewers like you have asked for some brief thoughts on the CFA Atlas.

First of all, these are not good at all with the stock silicon tips. @KenBall needs to find a solution, it might be off his radar because he monitors with foam tips, iirc. There are enough tips out there that this is a solvable issue. In any case, use complys, you might want to order some if you're on the tour, since the included ones will be sketchy by then. (Edit: I don't know the comply size, let's find out). Treble and bass both do better with that extra dampening.

I used my old ipod 5.5 amped by apex glacier to make sure these had enough power.

Listening was focused on an acoustic ensemble, Al-Andaluz Project with 3 female voices and a male, lots of plucked, bowed and blown acoustic instruments plus a range of bass and treble percussion. It gives a good challenge to an iem throughout the frequency range while giving me a chance to hear the timbre of a wide range of instruments. I also played various classical (symphonic, chorales, with 4-voice motets and string quartets to listen for balance) and some folk metal and pop, just to see if any flaws came out.

Overall, these are a pretty good higher end DD. They are tuned like a less intensely V-shaped Vega. It's a full, bassy sound, with the bass bumps matched well by treble and the vocal ranges didn't fall behind overmuch.

One thing to note: The new driver has better, more natural sounding transients than the Vega. I'm not sure how to more accurately define this except that the Vega had a kind of brittle quality to it, which is absent from the Atlas.

Timbre is overall good, I think metal and adlc coated drivers are a small bit behind other DDs yet still better than multi-BAs. Detail is good, too, not the final word but quite good no complaints at all.

Treble is CFA treble, peaks but doesn't reach into peakiness for me; good. Bass has a bit of that moving-air, visceral feel that adds to realism particularly for longer listening sessions versus a closed shell multi-BA iem. You can turn this one down and still feel the bass, saving your hearing. This is something that audio engineers who favor dynamic drivers talk a lot about and I've also gone on about, so I won't here, but I think it's an important effect.

Build and cables seem like the A+ CFA standard.

Bottom line, for a lot of people, this would be a fun, yet capable iem to get and then no need to buy anything else for a couple of years.

 

You know what size they use?