Posted by Roseselesa x AAV CJ20
Pros
Comfort!
Nicely implemented low end and mids – vocal and guitar forward presentation
Separation, resolution and details are superb esp on busy tracks
Cons
The cable is tangle and microphonics prone
Lacklustre unboxing and accessories experience
Treble is spicy, to put it mildly
Tech details
Driver Unit: 14.2mm Planar Magnetic Driver
Impedance: 24 Ω ± 10% @ 1kHz
Sensitivity: 102 ± 3dB
When Andy announced he was bringing out a collab IEM, I joined the many others excited in anticipation. An IEM tuned to Rock! Not EDM/bollywood/easy listening. Just good old rock and metal. So I waited till GoldenJoe, Roseselesa and the Audio Geek India Group sent it over for a listen and a review. And this too was a pleasant surprise, so thank you guys, this would have not been possible without your help.
A little about me – I like well recorded and well mastered music, balanced to warm sound signatures, and sibilance breaks me. Lately I’ve been listening to jazz-fusion but when this little baby turned up I had to dust off the PRS and Marshall and dive right into every genre of classic rock, metal, and progressive I used to listen to.
The CJ20 comes in a larger than life box with the IEMs displayed proudly. A box adjacent to them has a lacklustre pouch, Roseselesa’s black and white tips in 3 sizes, a cleaning brush and cloth. The cable is a nice, soft, textile covered, modular, and occasionally a tangle monster at that. Beware the occasional microphonics.
The IEM itself is differently shaped than most and oh so comfortable. I also like small IEMs, it turns out. An all metal build and light enough to wear for long sessions, but more on that later. The colours are nice gun-metal grey with a little bit of gold with AAV branding. And have I mentioned that they are super comfortable if you have small ears? No? They are up there in comfort with the IE600.
Sources
Fiio M33 R2R
Snowsky Disc
Musehifi M3 Ultra
Devastator Pro Max
Fosi Zh3
Apos Gremlin
Local flac and Tidal and Apple music lossless.
The dacs were run either via the phone or the mac mini.
Tips – Final type e, ddHifi ST35
The first thing that hits you when you play a song on this is how energetic the presentation is. The tuning is V-shaped and how! The bass thumps and decays rapidly and the highs sparkle. Sometimes a bit more than what I can handle. Vocals are beautifully presented front and centre.
The separation of instruments is very clean and at times I heard notes in guitar, piano and backing vocals that I honestly had never heard before. The stage is wide and holographic and you can feel like you have ringside seats, the band playing on a vast stage in front of you when Hotel California kicks off and the applause comes from all around.
Breaking the sound down, the bass is tight with a good sub-bass rumble and the lows come through clean. It’s a good planar implementation. I felt the mid bass was a little recessed and sacrificed for its siblings to shine through.
The drone in Massive Attack’s Angel bores into one’s skull as the sub and lower bass rumbles kick in. And Doing it Right by Daft Punk is done right. I felt the bass line in Wanna be Startin’ Something wasn’t as clear as I would have liked and to be honest, the treble in the last 2 songs limited my ability to listen to them for too long.
The mids is where I feel this IEM truly shines. Vocals and guitar and synths shine through. I was able to listen to vocal harmony parts in “High Enough” by the Damn Yankees that I honestly had never heard before. Both male and female come through beautifully without being shouty. Tracy Chapman’s voice in both Fast Car and Subcity are smooth and sublime. Guitars are clear and pushed to the front of the presentation. As, I suppose Andy intended. But… Modern Rock! Listening to Linkin Park took me back to my angsty phase. The brilliant guitar production and Chester, Mike and Emily’s voices are pushed to the front. In the End, Somewhere I Belong and Heavy is the Crown come through as the engineers intended. Angry, full of energy and thoroughly enjoyable.
The treble is where I have a grouse with the CJ20. At times the over-energetic V tuning can make snares, open hi-hats and every ‘S’ in the song strike that treble sensitive raw nerve that sits between my eardrum and my brain. My acid test for sibilance is actually Don Henley’s vocals in the aforementioned Hell Freezes Over rendition of Hotel California. And to me the treble needed a little taming. EQ definitely helps but since I’m exceedingly lazy to keep twiddling with eq, the M3Ultra came to the rescue where the tubes managed to take the edge off and make this IEM very, very nice to listen to. Andy’s favorite dongle, the Devastator Pro Max, only boosted everything, so I had to get back to the tube DAC. The Fosi ZH3 has filters that can help, and the Gremlin is overkill. The M33’s r2r is maybe a tad better than the devastator but still is treble forward in most of the rock I listened to (Bon Jovi, Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Dave Matthews Band (I know, I know it’s not strictly rock)). But the CJ20 can get fatiguing for long sessions and it’s brutally unforgiving to tracks which have been mastered to be treble forward. Interestingly Toto’s Rosanna and Africa were surreal with both their presentation and stage despite being from the age of treble.
Comparisons –
Letshuoer Astralis – After a phase of planars I settled on the Astralis as a daily driver. It sorts the low end like no other planar driver. But the CJ20 scores over this one in the energy, resolution and clarity departments. Comfortwise they are more or less the same for me. But if I had to spend a day with a single pair of earphones I’d go with the more forgiving Astralis. And it’s blue.
Kefine Arnar – I didn’t have the courage to try the gold nozzles or the silver ones so I’ll have a go with comparing with the black ones. I think it is everything that the CJ20 isn’t. Treble controlled enough to listen to all of Wanna Be Startin’ Something. But the instrument separation and resolution of the CJ20 is superior. It would likely change with the nozzle rolling that the Arnar allows. The Kefine IEM, while being comfortable enough, loses to the CJ20 by a length in comfort.
IE600 – Is the only really bright-ish IEM I own currently and also because it’s also the most comfortable one to spend a lifetime. The CJ20 is brighter for sure and the tracks come through with note-perfect clarity. The Sennheiser scores in the bass department and low mids with the dynamic driver. The ie600 also doesn’t differentiate genres and almost anything sounds good on it. It would still rate higher than the CJ20 for me.
This, to me, is an energetic aggressively tuned IEM that shines with warmer sources. It maintains its resolution and separation on these sources without that edge of spice, which some listeners would be wary of. It surprisingly does well on some subgenres of jazz that it was never intended to do – Jazz fusion and newer well mastered recordings (Snarky Puppy, Chick Corea Elektric band). Overall, for me the comfort of an IEM is incredibly important and this scores a 9/10. If only it was a little less treble forward this would be a 100% recommendation.