Night Oblivion Butastur or You Can Be Correct But Does That Make You Right?
Thank you, @mmag05 for the opportunity to demo the Night Oblivion Butastur. The opportunity to hear this set has cleared up some things regarding how I feel about BA sets, small operation IEMs, price gatekeeping, and my state in the hobby as a whole. We’re going to have a very philosophical conversation about a very well executed IEM, which is a polar opposite to the last IEM I talked about. God help me, let’s do this thing.
THE SOUND
Hey is it me, did I fly you away? Am I wrong, Are you not who I say?; If I call which one of you will answer anyway, anyway?
Someone Else - REZZ & Grabbitz
(IEM Tuning Style: Chameleon)
So first off, I can confirm that the tuning switches on Butastur do enough that I feel like there is some fundamental change that occurs to the foundation tuning. Down-Down is the most neutral, pure tuning setting; the first switch moves the pinna gain a small amount so Up-Down brings the pinna down slightly and gives more emphasis to the low-end and it sounds slightly darker than neutral. The second switch moves the treble substantially, so Down-Up sounds closer to a neutral-bright. Up-Up combines both effects, which I found to be closer to a neutral-warm and was how I preferred Butastur at the end of the day. So the rest of the impressions will start from there, and if you want to know how the other switches may sound, apply the conceptual filters I just laid out in your own mind.
So how did I experience Butastur in the Up-Up configuration? We started out very positively. @AmericanSpirit_JP made some strong claims about the tonality and performance of his IEM and in terms of the tonality, I think he and his team nailed his vision. In terms of tuning, to sound correct, it would be a difficult task to do better than Butastur does. But what does this mean to me?
In a lot of music, the bass is fine. It’s almost never emphasized but is present, with better weight and decay, to my ear, than a lot of BA bass implementations I’ve heard. It is still BA bass though, and Butastur’s implementation is particularly divisive to me: More often than I like, the bass sounds separated from the rest of the signature. Drum sets, especially, sound like they are steps behind the rest of the music. So while they may be present, they have times where they just don’t feel connected to everything else I’m listening to. And I feel like this is part of the design, for reasons I will get into, but It’s not a bass playback I like.
I feel like this is the design, though, because of the desire for the midrange to be peerless. I don’t think they achieved that, but the midrange is on a tier that is about as flawless as I’ve heard so they almost got there. On tuning, there’s not much to nitpick here: the lower-midrange has body and weight, but zero bleed/mud coming out of the bass. Vocals sound about as accurate to what I expect male and female singers sound like, Brian Molko of Placebo or Freya Ridings sound pitch perfect. The upper midrange gives correct energy, never being too splashy or dull and not having untenable peaks or valleys that are either harsh or missing information. Sophie Powers “1 Thing” never strays into the sibilance I can get from poor tunings. Especially with the second switch in the up position, Butatsur doesn’t hold anything back: if it’s there you get it, and it plays it back very nicely. You get a dip in the treble with that switch in the down position if you have some treble sensitivity or prefer a little more laid-back playback. The areas the second switch affected were very thoughtfully executed.
The soundstage and technicalities are a place I have grievances because Butastur is a mixed bag at them. The soundstage is fine under most configurations: It has slightly above average width and depth for my ear, except in Down-Up, where I get a deeper soundstage. The technicalities are disappointing to me. For all of @AmericanSpirit_JP’s talk about micro vs. macrodynamcs, I don’t hear it. Take my two major tests of dynamics and ability to reproduce details and sound effects “If I Fall” and “Swashers”. Both songs have effects in the first 10-15 seconds they need to be able to produce: the effect of swirling wind in “If I Fall” and the effect of crashing waves in “Swashers”. For all the talk of the dynamic ability of Butastur, it does not produce a proper effect in either song. The reason I don’t absolutely crush Butatstur is that it has high-level imaging ability. “Bubbles” sounds pretty awesome.
THE GOOD
- Tuning
- The goal was to bring TOTL, uncolored tuning to a more affordable price bracket. I’d find it hard to believe this failed at that task
- Fit and comfort
- I don’t think I’d have to worry much, if ever about fit in-ear, and pressure issues don’t exist. This I could wear all day
- Value relative to driver configuration
- I don’t know the particulars of why BA sets of this quality can’t get under $500, but for the state of all-BA sets and their price points, you’re not beating this
THE BAD
- Design implementation
- I have a bone to pick with the first tuning switch
- Tuning
- I’m not a big fan of the bass playback, which will tie back into the first point
- Soundstage and Technicals
- Butastur left a bit on the table where soundstage or technicals can be good, but they’re never really good together, to my ear
- Value relative to other driver configurations
- I think this performance can be achieved by other sets at lower prices, with different driver configurations (which comes down to preference and budget)
WHO IS THIS SET FOR?
- Someone who wants top-shelf tuning, pure and simple
- Neutralheads and vocal-centric listeners
- Depending on switch configuration: someone who wants an easy-listening long-session set
- Someone who likes BA sets but has fit and comfort issues
- Anyone who wants to support bringing down the BA set paywall
- This is one step closer to a sub-$500 all-BA set to walk away from the hobby with
WHO IS THIS SET NOT FOR?
- People who prioritize bass
- Not even in a “I prefer DD bass” way. If bass is your number one priority, I wouldn’t recommend Butastur to you
- Someone who wants more colored playback
- As much as tips and sources can move the needle a bit, at the end of the day a leopard is a leopard and an elephant is an elephant. This is a neutrally-tuned IEM.
- The person fully biased against BA sets
- This could have been a set to maybe change your mind but they dropped the ball in one important place
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
Now I promised you a philosophical question that we will get to, but one more aside first. To get to the lede, I think Butastur falls just short of an A rank for me. Now if you adore Butastur, you’re going to ask why. I will tell you why: the first tuning switch. A lot of the things I nitpicked Butastur on are not dealbreakers or things that hurt my experience with it. The true deal breaker is the lack of a dedicated bass boost. For as much care was put into the treble switch, to allow people that want the extra boost and don’t to co-exist, I think it was a folly to not give the same care to the bass. Moving the pinna gain is a half step in that direction and it seems satisfactory, until I tried Down-Down on my iFi Hip-Dac, with XBass activated. If the first tuning switch had that kind of configuration, this IEM would be a BA set I’d tell anybody to run and go get Butastur. As the set is, I can only describe my feelings in a gif:
Now that brings me to my philosophical question: Is a set that does things “correctly” better than a set that chooses a playback style that is intentionally colored? There isn’t a right or wrong answer to this question, just our own personal truths. I think one can be better than the other if the execution is better. This is why Butastur jumped the line and got the next post after Shortbus Fat Cosmos: These sets could not be more diametrically opposed, but that’s not the ultimate point of comparison. For me, it’s about execution. The difference between the two sets is Fat Cosmos had a tuning vision, and saw it through to exactly what it should be. Butastur does not, and it’s because of the tuning switches. If this had been a set with one tuning and no switches, I’d be less harsh because each tuning was done with great individual care. The problem is that they’re trying to hit most people with the options offered in the switches, but left a large constituency on the outside. If there was an option for people who wanted bass emphasis, this set would have knocked it out of the park. But there isn’t, and that is a failure of the design. So for that reason I cannot give it the highest marks. But I will say that if you are a fan of getting exactly what is there, without extra flavor or add-ons, and wanted a BA set in your collection, this is probably the endgame for a lot of people in this hobby. So if you haven’t hit this set up yet, you might want to.And that’s going to be it for this review. Enjoy your days, and take care till next time!
Rank for Night Oblivion Butastur (Up Up Configuration): B+
Rank With Personal Bias: B+
Recommendation Level: Highly Recommended (Chameleon)
Rank As a Food: Vodka neat
