Campfire Vega 2020

Hey All,

Building on the original Vega we have done a re spin and improvement. Vega 2020.

Please check it out here

https://campfireaudio.com/shop/vega-2020/

I will post some pick shortly.

Thanks

Ken

 

Of course, yes. I think we have been sending things to Van or Marv but happy to send loaners to SBAF for sure.

More eye candy.

 

Had an OG Vega since it came out. Was a bassy but great fun headphone. That being said, sold it after I got the Andromeda SS. Campfire is competing against itself!

Looking forward to impressions!

 

Asked you to be on the loaner that @Bloom is doing for us.

 

I probably wouldn’t have gotten these had it not been for government stimulus. But as much as I love my Andro S still to this day, they are just too picky sometimes. It’s always a question of will I hear buzzing if I plug into this or that let alone how they will sound.

I think these deserve to be heard/evaluated, especially from people that have JVC FDX1s to compare it to. Glad we have a loaner circulating currently, and I look forward to hearing others’ opinions on the Vega 2020.

I think the question that is on everyone’s mind is how this 900 dollar IEM compares to the 200-250 dollar JVC FDX1, which has thus far pretty much been the go to rec for DD IEMs. Is it 4 times better? No, it’s not. But let’s discuss.

These come in the box with the foam tips on by default, and it’s immediately clear that these are intentionally meant to be bass cannons. The tuning is a mild V that is skewed towards the bass. Honestly more of a checkmark than a V. Beyond the slightly elevated upper mids-treble, there is a roll off that gives the sense of a slight veil over the sound. This makes the Vega 2020 fairly forgiving especially on music that has aggressively mastered treble, such as most modern rap music. For example, I don’t feel the need to turn down the volume to reduce the harshness when I listen to Third Eye Blind’s album Blue or Pusha T’s Daytona. There is enough there to make music fun, but it pulls back on the frequencies that can make music sound harsh. The mids being a little bit recessed and the top end being a bit rolled off does hurt the Vega with vocal focused music. A lot of the texture and sharpness of Norah Jones’ voice on “The Nearness of You” is just not there in the amount that I would like. It kind of removes the intimate vocal sound that can be achieved on other IEMs. However, it is not so bad that it inhibits my enjoyment of vocal music. I would imagine that people who are not too particular about this how voices/speech sound would not even notice. This slight V FR that doesn’t compromise vocals too much is kind of what I was hoping the OG Solaris would sound like back when I got to spend some time with the loaner.

As for the bass, it’s big and beefy. This is clearly the point of this IEM’s existence. What is quite nice about it is that it is still within the realm of reason and doesn’t intrude much into mids. Mid-bass kicks feel substantial and the bass speed is not bad compared to other CA IEMs. And there is definitely plenty of sub-bass that extends quite low with song’s like Nipsey Hussle’s “Blue Laces 2” really showcasing it. This sub-bass on an IEM is something special in my opinion. The Vega 2020 reaches deeper and manages to maintain the magnitude of the subbass better than the Andro S (which is no slouch btw).

Tip Rolling (recommended that you try it): There were moments when I was listening to the Vega 2020 that I got hints another sound signature was possible. I would hear moments of the slight veil disappearing for a moment or songs where it was clear more vocal detail was possible. So I tried a few things. The SednaEarFitLight and spin fits made the upper mid elevation a bit too much (they worsened the V). But I did find some winners. The foam tips that came stock with the Andro S and Sony Hybrid Silicone tips. The tips that came with the andro S are similar to the foam tips that come on the Vega 2020 but they have a bit less “memory”, maybe akin to something like what dekoni makes where it’s foam but it rebounds quickly. The Andro S’ foam tips kept the bass intact, but added just a little bit more to the top end to make the veil less apparent. The Sony hybrids remove the veil at the top end and bring up the mids. I would recommend people try out different tips; they make more of a difference than I thought they would for the Vega. One thing to note though is that the nozzle is quite long, so you’ll want to keep that in mind for shallower tips that might slide down the nozzle when you put the Vega in your ear. This is why the CA stock silicone tips are not a good choice for this one.

Comparison to FDX1: The FDX1 is whole lot of IEM for 200 dollars. Vocals are great, details are captured well, DD timbre. But it does have some flaws. The bass is neutral (but it can be unsatisfying) and the IEM can be a bit “rough sounding” in the high end. If you were trying to compare the Vega and the FDX1, you would really have to think about how much those flaws bother you. The Vega 2020 does outclass the FDX1 by a healthy margin, but the two definitely go toe to toe (yes I'm saying that something 700 dollars cheaper competes). I’m not really sure the bass and improved smoothness in the high end really justify the Vega costing as much as it does compared to the FDX1.

The Vega 2020 is what it is. It’s a bass cannon. That’s not going to be for everyone. But it does this with very few compromises. To return to my opening statement, I probably wouldn’t have bought these had it not been subsidized by stimulus. But here we are.

-Honestly, wouldn't recommend without trying first. You have to actually just straight up like bass and only bass.

 

Update - Simple Modding Attempts:

Credit to @Crinacle . What I did here was inspired by his mod of the Periodic Audio Be (linked here).

For those that are unfamiliar with the Periodic Audio Be mod, basically it was a set of mods that Crinacle developed to lower the bass and tame the treble on a DD IEM driver that showed some promise. Similar to what I believe we have here with the Vega.

It occurred to me that the reversible "quick and dirty" portions of that mod might be worth trying here to try to at least push the Vega 2020 to something a little bit more neutral. While the bass is reasonably well controlled for being as boosted as it is, it isn't anywhere near neutral and the upper mids can get a tad rough when you use silicone tips to remove some of the veil produced by the stock foam tips. My target was to get the Vega to have a FR closer to the Moondrop Starfield (a little bass, warm neutral), which is my default IEM for most things on the go.

What I landed on was:

1. Sony Hybrid Silicone Tips (Or Comply Foam Tips)
2. Taping over the bass port with scotch tape (The most important)
3. Two layers of tea bag material in front of the grill (I tried kimwipes too, which were ok)

Blocking the bass port definitely helps. It gives the bass a "bouncier" sounding albeit less expansive impact, way better for music that isn't rap or electronic. It also makes the bass response seem faster. I can see why someone who really liked the original bass might hate this, but sometimes the fun has to end. This is still boosted above neutral, which should give you an idea of how enormous the bass is on the stock tuning.

As I mentioned up top, the sony silicone tips remove the veil that occurs due to the foam tips. I imagine the exact tips would vary based on people's individual tastes, but I found the sony hybrids to be a good option for getting rid of the veil without making the Vega sound too harsh. Spinfits may be a reasonable option. YMMV.

In terms of the tea bag material, I am using a material that is more fibrous and cloth-like from some random brand of chinese teabags that you fill with your own loose-leaf tea. I tried out another material and definitely got different results. Paper teabag material gave a darker sound with the mids being more forward. I tried to get a single layer of paper teabag material in front of the grill but it kept ripping. I only have two kinds of teabag material at the moment, but this is definitely worth further attempts. The tea bag material I used still left most of the brightness intact, but lowered it down a tad and made things from the upper mids and up sound a bit more even.

Another option that people might like is taping over the bass port and using foam tips. I personally tried this with Comply Tx-400s, which actually have a small bit of foam in the canal that acts as a "wax guard". Not sure if this foam in the canal had that much of an effect, but you definitely get a veiled dark sounding IEM with this (no painful peaks essentially). I could see this appealing to someone, though it sounded a bit too "thick"(?).

(Honestly, though, if it wasn't apparent from me saying that you should mod something that costs 900 bucks...well I mean...this thing is not the best tbh. Unless this is what you were after)

 

Loaner Impressions of the Vega 2020

My thanks to SBAF for the opportunity to hear these bass cannons on the loaner tour. I’d also like to thank @Bloom for making the tour possible.

Introduction
I’m not sure there’s much to say about these IEMs. If you like bass and don’t care much about the rest of the frequency range, these might be for you. I have a soft spot for bassy headphones but I like them with a corresponding treble emphasis, as with my Fostex TH-X00 Ebony. These IEMs don’t have that v-shaped sound: the second half of the v is missing.

I heard an interview with Ken Ball recently in which he made the point that he doesn’t want CA IEMs to have a house sound; rather, he intends for each IEM to have its own character so that the company reaches a wider range of customers even if some of them love only a few and not all CA releases. The Vega 2020, I should think, will cater to a specific crowd; they’re just not for me, unfortunately.

Sound
The bass is glorious, though, if you can disregard most other things about the Vega 2020. The bass is thick, rich, and weighty without being overly flabby or uncontrolled. It’s not tight, exactly, nor is it very fast. But it’s well textured and covers a decent spectrum of the bassier frequencies, having plenty of mid-bass heft but also excellent sub-bass extension. I can imagine the dynamic driver is one of the better ones on the market for bass response.

It’s in the mids and treble that issues of tonal balance become problematic: there’s a superabundance of bass, a bit of a lift for male vocals, and not much of anything else. Some parts of the frequency spectrum are missing and the treble rolls off pretty severely. Making matters worse, the bass bleeds into the mids. As a result of all this, higher-pitched percussion instruments, like snares, are too muted. Cymbals don’t zing; they make more of a “ssh” or, worse, a “thh” sound instead of a nice, crisp “tsk.” Female vocals are also off. Electric guitars are decent when it comes to bite but have no crunch or proper texture. Power chords work insofar as they have a lot of heft but they’re too boomy.

Obviously, there’s no point listening to classical music or jazz with the Vega 2020. But, disappointingly, much rock music doesn’t work well, either. More problematic for me is that the Vega 2020 IEMs suit only some electronic music. The only genre left that could really enjoy music with the Vega 2020 was hip hop, and while I don’t mean to imply that hip hop is only about the bass and the vocals, I did have a lot of fun listening to the Wu-Tang Clan, Mos Def, Eric B. and Rakim, and others. Then again, hip hop sounded way better with the Dorado 2020, which I’ve also heard on its own SBAF loaner tour - I’ll post impressions of the Dorado 2020, with comparisons to the Vega 2020, soon (the quick and the dirty is that the Dorado 2020 itself suffers its own tuning issues but that its treble response, with the BA driver, brings back much of the top end to the sound signature, making it more, if not perfectly, v-shaped.)

The Vega 2020’s lack of resolution only exacerbates the problems with the wonky mids and rolled off highs, thereby contributing to the overall sound being woolly and muffled. All this combines with the thickness of the bass to make the sound come across as a bit slow and ponderous. Since the tuning is pretty dark, a lot of music, especially electronic music, simply isn’t exciting enough. Macrodynamics are decent without being impressive which further limits the appeal of the Vega 2020.

Conclusion
I’m not shy about enjoying bass. But I’ve not come across an IEM or headphone tuned quite like this before. It’s basically a downward sloping, very bassy, dark IEM, one that lacks in resolution and sounds a bit muffled. I assume Campfire Audio has a target audience for his IEM. And I realize that value for money is a subjective matter but [edit: I̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶’̶t̶ ̶i̶m̶a̶g̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶y̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶$̶9̶0̶0̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶s̶e̶ ̶I̶E̶M̶s̶ my apologies, that's poorly phrased; what I meant to write is that I'm not sure how much an improvement there can be to the sound, given the tuning, over a more affordable IEM). Do cheaper DD IEMs not have enough bass? To each their own, I suppose; I hope Campfire Audio has lots of happy customers for the Vega 2020, it does its one bass-cannon thing very well.

 

I spent nearly a week with the Vega 2020 loaner, including many hours of casual listening (mostly while walking) as well as more focused sessions. My main points of comparison were the Drop JVC FDX1 with the most damped nozzles (green in my case) and an older pair of Brainwavz B400 BA IEMs. Sources were primarily a Sony A55 (MrWalkman A50Z FE firmware) and Sony WM1A (MrWalkman Dawn firmware) as I primarily use IEMs for portable use, though I did also do some listening on a Lyr 3 and Liquid Platinum. Most of my focused listening was on the WM1A, both single ended and balanced.

My prime impression is these are Bass Cannons. Bass is heavily emphasized, though well controlled enough to not sound flabby or sloppy. Bass was affected by tip, selection; it was less emphasized (though still emphasized) with Comply foam tips, more so with large bore spiral dot tips, and the most with the generic narrow bore silicone tips I eventually settled on for fit reasons. I enjoyed the sound more with some recordings than others, and had the most fun with it during casual listening when it sounded mostly fun and engaging.

Comfort was excellent. I was worried that the ceramic material would feel cold but they warmed up quickly.

My enjoyment was less in critical listening, and varied a lot by genre. With older rock from the 60s and 70s like Supertramp, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jethro Tull, or Pink Floyd, the bass emphasis ended up sounded unbalanced and overdone to me, somewhat overwhelming the rest of the track. With more driving 80s rock like Rush’s Moving Pictures it was a lot more fun, bringing some extra boom, but I still know Rush recordings were leaner than I was hearing.

Really resonant instrumental guitar like Kaki King was really good, with the bass emphasis of Vega 2020 contributing to the warm and rich feeling, with good snap on the strings and nice rendition of all the little guitar harmonics, resonances, and other noises. Maybe a little artificial but really enjoyable. Same with some other warmer music like The National or Iron & Wine.

Dance music was great fun. Drums for the most part sounded punchy and realistic with great impact.

Without looking at a frequency chart I would guess a lot of emphasis below 200 Hz, a mid dip, and slight boost at higher frequencies, but lower than the bass. While fun, these really aren't for me, and I really appreciate the opportunity to try this loaner.

The FDX1, by comparison, had much less bass emphasis, and can even seem a little thin by comparison. It had slightly less edge on the top of some of the guitar tracks, but seemingly (and in contradiction) sharper and better guitar string attacks on others. Most tracks felt more balanced and natural, especially older rock and tracks with piano. The FDX1 was less physical, which can be less fun. In almost all cases I preferred the FDX1 sound. I use the FDX1 with wide bore spiral dot tips. I could imitate most of the overdone bass feeling of the Vega 2020 with a little un-careful EQ, but that’s foolish.

The B400 is my main set for walking around as it is so light. It’s a pretty decent cheap BA based IEM. Overall tonality was more like the FDX1, but slightly cooler. Piano and horns sounded less natural, with horns sounding almost synth-like on some tracks. More glare than either DD IEM. Huge space and air on some tracks compared to either the Vega 2020 or FDX1. Percussion was also less natural.

 

Thank you for the measurements. The reviews I have come across are pretty lukewarm and yet it remains a tempting purchase. Even at the current discount of $599, which is expiring today, it’s hard to determine the value of this IEM compared to others that are even less expensive, such as the FDX1. They seem to serve different preferences really.

 

Thank you SBAF, @KenBall, maybe @Bloom or whoever else made this loaner happen. I listened to the Vega 2020 through an Shanling M6 Pro, comparing to CA Ara & FDX1:

• Holy Bass Balls Batman. Novelty wears out quickly, and I was EQing it 5,6,7 db down pretty quickly. Bass quality, detail, texture, however however is pretty nice
• Even with EQ I could never find a tonality I liked or felt even enough, and I think it is a combination of bass bleed into mids that can't be EQed out and that always leaves voices and mid instruments recessed.
• Mids suffer from a smoothing in addition to the recession, even though they are technically superior in detail/clarity/timbre than the FDX1 (but not the CA Ara).
• Sibilance is a problem, despite the warmth and tilt, even a bit more than the BA Ara.

In the end I found myself asking if this was an upgrade over the FDX1 (independent of price). I think the technicalities are there, they are just too far buried under tonality issues for me to get at them. I spent some time at it as well, because I wanted to like these. With a different tune perhaps this could be the DD upgrade over the FDX1 everyone who's anyone is looking for

 

Here's confusion:

https://drop.com/buy/campfire-audio-vega-iem

The description fits with the original Vega (metal alloy shells, 8.2 mm driver, 17.5 Ohm impedance) - but the photos look like Vega 2020 (white ceramic shells with the vent on the outside face).

Wrong photos? Any clarification, @KenBall or whoever still works for Drop these days?

 

Answering my own question: it's the 2020, and the description at Drop has now been rewritten to clarify that.

$599, not bad vs the original $800.