Full Disclosure; This pair of DaVincis was provided by HiFiGo at a discount from full retail in exchange for some photos and an impression write-up. No one from HiFiGo nor Timmy from Gizaudio has asked me to say anything in particular regarding the DaVinci. All of these thoughts and opinions are my own.
Test tracks
- Give Life Back to Music - daft punk - Overall clarity
- Infinity Repeating - daft punk - Lower mids control
- Voyager - daft punk - Bass line clarity/busy track layering
- Overnight - Parcels - mid bass punch
- Tieduprightnow - Parcels - bass line/sibilance test
- Everyroad -Parcels - Imaging/Sub bass @ 7 minute mark
- Daytime - Lunar Vacation - Staging/female vocals w/ heavy bass
- Days - No Vacation - Vibe test/treble energy
- Fruiting Body - Goon - Sub bass
- Wavy Maze - Goon - Mid bass
- Together - Maggie Rodgers - Female Vocals
- Slide Tackle - Japanese Breakfast - Sibilance test/consonants harshness
- Decode - Paramore - Vibe test/stage depth
- Vinta - Crumb - Stage depth/layering
- Kim’s Caravan - Courtney Barnett - Female Vocals/resolution test
- Small Poppies - Courtney Barnett - Distorted Guitar
- Lifelong Song - Men I Trust - Sub/mid bass texture
- One and Only - Adele - Female Vocals/consonants harshness test
- Waves - Wild Painting - Overall Enjoyment and stage depth/width/Bass guitar speed
- Not the One - Highnoon - Female Vocals
- Cowboy Killer - Varsity - Layering
- Alone in My Principles - Varsity - Distorted female vocals
- Summer Madness - Kool & The Gang - Treble Harshness
- They Are Growing - Renata Zeiguer - Mid bass impact
Sources
- Apple Music Streaming Hi-Res Lossless when available
- Topping D10s/Earmen ST-Amp or Topping L30 stack
- Muse HiFi M4
- Fosi DS2
- FiiO BTR7 BT
I’ll be doing most of my impressions written below using the Topping L30 & D10s stack considering that is the most neutral source I own currently.
TLDR;
I was very excited to get the Dunu X Gizaudio DaVinci in for review considering all of the hype built up surrounding the release, admittedly, I have just come off of the high that was the Elysian Pilgrim and the short but lovey time I had with them, so my expectations and excitement were through the roof. I can safely say that while the DaVinci is a fine set of IEMs, these are not for me. However, that might mean they’re for you! On one hand, I can find my self enjoying these quite a bit, from the thumping bass and lovely thick warmth in the mids to the stunning faceplates I see every time I take them out of my ears and set them down on a table. But alas, there are a few major issues I find with these that ultimately bog down an otherwise good pair of earphones. Probably the biggest issue comes down to the treble tuning; it’s very safe. Just like the Pilgrims before them, the DaVincis have treble that most will find very inoffensive but it takes it up a notch, it comes off as an almost dark treble presentation allowing for a very smooth and almost melancholy presentation that’s good for hours and hours of listening. For me, though, I’m looking for a bit more excitement here. If you’re a person who prefers to have a more laid-back treble, these would certainly be right up your alley. To my ears at least, these lack the very last bit of extension for things like cymbals to really shine. Even worse though, there’s somewhere in the tuning or possibly in the hardware that just isn’t meshing well with my HRTF, causing harsh consonants at slightly higher volumes and a grainy-like timbre always present, regardless of volume. Not to mention I perceive the stage to be quite small. Now it’s not claustrophobic by any means, but it is more on the intimate side which is something I do not prefer. On the more positive side, the bass is very healthy and thick on the DaVinci and I would say rather than having a clean and snappy bass like the Pilgrims, here you’ll find a thicker and warmer overall presentation that I know lots of folks do enjoy and prefer.
Here are the specs for the DaVinci - Price $299.00
Six-Driver Hybrid Configuration.
2DD+4BA Driver Setup Per Side.
Premium finish with Solid-Stabilized Wooden Face Panels.
Independent Dual-Chamber Dynamic Drivers.
Enhanced Five-Way Frequency Crossover.
Five Separate Acoustic Tubes.
Impedance: 35Ω@1kHz.
Sensitivity: 109dB/mW.
THD+N: <0.5%@1kHz.
Frequency Response: 5Hz-40kHz.
If you’d like to purchase the Dunu x Gizaudio DaVinci, please follow this unaffiliated link
Fitment note; for my ears, the DaVincis fit just fine, not super secure but also not loose at all. I never felt the shells were going to fall out of my ears, but I also didn’t have 100% confidence that they would stay in if I had to spontaneously sprint away from… something. They were never uncomfortable either. I’d say these shells would be considered medium to medium large and the nozzle is the same. I don’t have a pair of calipers on hand but they are probably around 6.5mm give or take so definitely a little chonky, but nothing these canals haven’t seen before.
Bass
The bass is the strongest part of the DaVinci in my opinion. It comes across as strong, thick, and never lacking on any of the tracks within my library. Give Life Back to Music by the French Robot Gods has a siiiiiilky smooth presentation with a thick mid-bass punch and nasty bass lines, same goes for Voyager. The intro to Infinity Repeating by the same two androids can maybe come across as a little too syrupy for my liking - That song has such a thick opening and I know it’s intentional, but certain IEMs handle this section a bit better by pulling back on the lower mids a bit - the Pilgrims, Ziigaat Cincotres and to some degree at least, the Hype 2s come to mind here. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just a matter of preference. I just happen to prefer the cleaner lower mids presentation because of female vocals mostly, but also I quite enjoy it when IEMs have that subwoofer effect. The DaVincis do not have that Sub woofer effect, but rather a complete and full bass experience. I felt they had adequate texture, not mind-blowing, buuuuut sufficient. Depth is slightly lacking in terms of the bass notes but, I will say they’re punchy and well-defined. Whatever DD is being used in these things is working to earn their coin. My ultimate Sub bass test, Fruiting Body by Goon is rendered quite well, but again, it’s mostly an overall warmer presentation with the Sub bass not quite standing out as much as I’d personally want but it’s more than audible which I think a lot of budget sets struggle with. There’s lots of instrumentation going on at the same time and vocals too. I’ve learned that if an IEM can render all those things AND I can still feel and hear that rumble, the hardware is doing a great job with the layering. It’s a tough test a lots of IEMs fail it - The DaVincis did not so, bravo on that!
Mids
The mids are a weird sort - They’re warm, lush, and very natural sounding… sometimes. Here’s my biggest issue with the DaVincis. Where the hardware is working well in the bass region, the mids are suffering to my ears and it comes down to timbre. Bad timbre. Grainy timbre. Together by Maggie Rogers is almost unlistenable and it comes down to Maggie’s high notes - once she starts going up here, with the unusual production on her vocals specifically, the DaVincis stumble with strange metallic, grainy and sometimes even shrill timbre. What happened here? Man. I wasn’t expecting this set to stumble in the vocals considering Timmy Is such a big fan. It may be just my ears here, but I am somewhat validated by Chris (HBB) as he seems to have experienced the same thing. Waves by Wild Painting is a similar story - the vocal timbre just isn’t doing it for me and Slide Tackle by Japanese Breakfast is just, nah, no way. Can’t do it. To be fair, that is a sibilance fest on lots of sets, but here the mix is not made for the DaVincis. Overall layering and presentation is fantastic otherwise. Guitars and other instruments have a mostly natural and smooth timbre to them, just as long as notes don’t go into the upper registers. Overall, the mids are somewhat of a disappointment and I can’t believe it, quite frankly. If the hardware could catch up with he tuning here, which is fantastic let me add, then we’d have a winner. Is it because they’re unbranded, custom BAs? I’m not sure honestly. But it does beg the question, should Dunu have opted for Sonion/Knowles hardware and just increased the price a bit to possibly mitigate that strange mid range/vocal timbre? Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll let you, the reader, decide for yourself. Just like most folks, the mids are incredibly important, that’s where all of the instrumentation lives besides those deep bass notes, but the timbre being not to my liking is a massive strike to the overall experience I had with the DaVincis. NOW, let me just say that I am SUPER sensitive to timbre. It’s the first thing that jumps out to me and because of this, I want to put this disclaimer out there; it could just be me being overly critical. However, I haven’t had this issue with other IEMs around the same price.
Treble
The treble on the DaVincis is… safe. If I were to use a word, that’d be it. Safe. Days by No Vacation doesn’t have as much air and shimmer as I’d like, but by no means is it offensive in anyway. I’d actually classify the DaVincis slightly on the darker side here, especially compared to something like the Pilgrims and the newly released Simgot SM4. I know I know, 3 different price brackets, but I firmly believe that If you’re about to drop $300 on a pair of IEMs, saving up an extra few weeks to go up to $400 wouldn’t be out of the question, especially if it’s a different sig. and it’s a sig that you’re looking for. The Simgot SM4 is, well, a little bit of an outlier but I won’t get into that here. Summer Madness by Kool & The Gang never gets sharp and shrill. And I’ll say that overall micro-contrast and resolution is fairly strong here. I think the 5 way crossover is really doing its job of making sure the instruments don’t ever trip on themselves and the tuning definitely helps with that. Overall, the treble is fine. Non-offensive in any way, but definitely not anything that will blow your socks off either. I almost feel bad for calling the Pilgrim’s Treble safe because compared to the DaVincis, it’s pretty exciting if I think about it.
Technicalities
The techs on the DaVincis are overall strong - As I mentioned before, layering is fantastic and so is imaging. I’d say it’s hitting above its respective asking price for sure. Resolution and detail retrieval are both very respectable and I can make out finer details in my music and I never experienced any blurriness or muddy-like sound. I wouldn’t say details and resolution are a standout here, but I also don’t think one would be disappointed either. Now, timbre on the other hand is rough. Specifically mid-range timbre - That damn BA handling around the 3-5k area is killing me here, smalls. I just can’t get past it, but If you can, I will give you flowers. Treble timbre is natural albeit a little on the darker side for my preferences, but again, natural and easily enjoyable. Staging is neither impressive nor claustrophobic. I’d say the DaVincis have pretty good depth but width and height are both pretty forgettable. Dynamics, which is another stealth attribute that mean a lot to me in an IEM, are not particularly strong, but again, not befitting of the price range I’d say so it does compete with it’s piers.
Source Differences
The DaVincis didn’t really change much when it came to sources surprisingly, they were all very in line with one another so the output impedance of all my dongles and Amps didn’t phase the DaVinci too much here which is great, honestly. I think I preferred the overall cleaner sig. of the Topping L30 in my testing, but the Muse M4, Fosi DS2, and ST-Amp all did well, however, the ST-Amp did bring out that strange mid-range timbre too much the other way so I didn’t do much testing on that amp. The BTR7 overall smoothened the signature, providing the best depth and best bass response for whatever reason, so I stuck with that BT amp/DAC mostly.
Conclusion
Overall, I think the DaVincis having all this hype surrounding them makes perfect sense; you have probably the most popular IEM reviewer on Youtube teaming up with one of the most well know Audio companies in the hobby to create a very well thought-out, thoroughly worked-on project that’s come together over many many months into an overall successful project which should satisfy 90% of listeners. I think the DaVincis is a safe pick if you’re holding onto $300 and it’s burning a hole in your proverbial audiophile pocket. The Unboxing and included accessories are top notch in my humble opinion and the overall theme and aesthetic of the DaVinci is very well done, regardless of your subject stance on the looks of the faceplates. You have to admit, Dunu and Timmy put some work into these things. I also think that in a world where most companies are throwing together random faceplate designs, random cables, and whatever-they-could-find-stock-tips into the box in order to pass and to be acceptable, the Dunu DaVinci says “We understand $300 is a good amount of cash, here’s the full package to make sure you feel like you’re getting your money’s worth”. I think they’ve succeeded in that regard. On the flip side to that, and most importantly, the overall sound presentation of the DaVincis leaves something to be desired honestly. The bass is great and definitely is the highlight of the set, but the mid-range timbre and darker treble response aren’t for me.
Thanks again for reading yet another write-up, I hope I’m getting better at these and you guys can all take some important info away from here. Cheers, and happy listening.
