The Dunu Vulkan
My good buddy @GooberBM was gracious enough to lend me his pair of the ever-elusive Dunu Vulkan. A 6-driver, hybrid IEM that was released what feels like ages ago. It has 2 8mm DDs firing the low end in a coaxial setup with 4 BAs from Knowles handling the mids and the highs in a mostly smooth fashion. Now I’ve made the very adult decision to not work on this write-up over the last 2+ Weeks I’ve had these IEMs in my possession due to other IEMs demanding my attention like the Estrella and the Titans but I digress - I don’t really have time to take, edit and upload the photos as of right now since these will be going back to him tomorrow and it’s now crunch-time… with that being said, whoever took the promotional photos for this set deserves his or her salary, they’re beautiful. I’ll link Dunu’s product page here if you’d like more tech details and sweet photos. These have beautiful faceplates in my opinion, the Damascus steel-like design is wonderfully understated but also really pretty to look at.
https://www.dunu-topsound.com/product-page/vulkan
The shells are a little on the chonky side with a slightly larger nozzle opening and a shorter stem than I’d like. Comfort isn’t really an issue for my ears, but I did have to tip roll quite a bit to find a comfy fitting tip that had nice sonic qualities. I landed on the BGVP W01 after a little while.
The bass of the Vulkan can be described as smooth and sub-bass focused with a very nice thump behind every drumkick and thicker bass lines throughout. This is by no means a bass-head set, but it is a cleaner replay with an emphasis on the rumble rather than the punch, which I tend to enjoy, however, I’d like a lot more rumble here and with that higher emphasis of sub-bass, more texture. For some reason I don’t find the bass to be as textured as I’d like - It could come down to the hardware or the tuning, I’m not quite sure. But that is something to note. Otherwise, it’s perfectly fine for most of my library. A few examples of my gripes with the bass on the Vulkan would be on Daytime by Lunar Vacation. During the song, all throughout, there’s a double kick on the 1 beat that has some extra emphasis and this usually has a seriously satisfying rumble behind it, but it’s missing on the Vulkan. Fruiting Body by Goon is nicely rendered and the bass rumble is there, but it comes across as more of a blob of bass rather than a radiating note of ultra-low frequency. I will say this might be more of a nitpick rather than an outright criticism, but it affects my library to a point where it does stand out.
Where the Vulkan stands out to my ears is the mid-range and vocals and how they interact with the treble tuning. Male vocals have decent clarity but with great body and heft behind them. Female vocals are similar, but they do take a small hit in terms of overall details and texturing. The added lower-mid range does add some extra heft and weight to female vocals as well but this is something I do enjoy. If you’re looking for female vocals that are the epitome of clean, this won’t be for you, but if you’re a person who likes a slightly laid-back tuning approach with some added weight, this is a very good version of that.
The treble is hard to quantify for me. Some parts sound fairly forward to my ears, but then there seem to be some parts that are missing - I think this tuning falls into the category of “unconventional” and once you get your head around what the Vulkan is trying to accomplish here, that’s when you start to appreciate the bigger picture. Although these usually fall into the technicalities, the treble most likely has a lot to do with the imaging and overall stage size because both are a trip. Especially the stage size. For my HRTF at least, the stage feels spacious and intimate at the same time - Female vocals are right in the center, along with guitars. Cymbals, hi-hats, and notes from keyboards however feel farther back truly giving this illusion of stage depth. Vinta by Crumb is a good example, in the intro to that song there are lots of rim shots and open hats being used alongside a female vocalist and if I were to close my eyes it does feel like I’m in a room with the band sitting dead center in front of the vocalist. It’s a cool effect and it indeed works. It’s generally well-detailed and extended as well. Cymbals have proper decay, with a little more of a longer tail that’s incredibly satisfying once your brain starts to pick up on it. The only thing I’m hearing that could be a big turn-off is a small peak somewhere in the consonants area, really splashy cymbals and harsh S sounds can come across as grating to my ears, but then again, I am somewhat sensitive to those types of sounds so of course, YMMV. Overall, the treble is the most interesting part of the Vulkan to my ears, I think Dunu took some risks with the tuning and it mostly works and works really well I might add.
I already touched on the techs a bit in the treble section, but to reinforce the strongest part of the Vulkans, let me repeat myself; The imaging is very strong and so is the overall stage size. Width and depth are both big standouts with height not blowing me away but I don’t feel like IEMs do stage height well anyway. Overall detail retrieval is fine, not mind-blowing, but absolutely adequate for this price range. The tonality is on the warmer side with some extra emphasis on some parts in the treble. The timbre is totally fine across the board, nothing is standing out to me besides that consonant area but that’s more so a product of the tuning rather than the quality of the BAs I think.
Overall, I think the Vulkan falls into the camp of “good sounding, but not special enough” for most folks, but I just feel like more of a chance needed to be given for these things to really shine. If I owned a pair I wouldn’t use them as an EDC due to the lack of bass I need for my library admittedly, but I also wouldn’t choose to sell these if I were to downsize my collection at any point. The last 45 minutes of refreshing my memory with the Vulkans in my ears, rather than skipping through songs in my playlist and hitting those important parts I use to evaluate an IEM, I’m just jamming. My wife is waiting for me in the living room with a movie ready to go but I can’t quite hit pause on my music yet. I just want to keep listening. There’s something addicting to the replay and it lies in that special sauce where the treble lives. They’re special enough to maintain a solid spot within a rotation for most of us here in my opinion and I think Goober has a solid contender for “Stage-king” in the Dunu Vulkan 
Thanks so much for taking the time to read my short, off-the-cuff write-up of the Dunu Vulkan, and thank you to Goober for letting me take them for a spin. Take care and have a great night, everyone!
I had a stupid long day at work.
I was a bit nervous about the treble since it looks so similar to the Crimson, but it’s delightful. Pretty much what I had hoped the Crimson would be. Bass is big and tight, super satisfying. Treble and air is forward but in a way that feels natural and exciting, with good voice timbre. Will post impressions after a few weeks, but off to a very good start.
I didn’t pay anything for it.
