Lows:
Mid over sub, but not pointedly so, fairly even. In my experience that’s a good thing - isolated sub bass leads to an indistinct underlying warmth everything sits on without any real punch. Too much isolated mid bass gives an unnatural bounciness. When about even, you get atmospheric rumbles as well as a decisive start, stop, and impact to the bass.
With tracks like Strange Behaviour by Roots Manuva, I’m satisfied with the blend of punch and rumble. With acoustic instruments like the drum at the start of Tinariwen’s Imidiwan Winakalin, the swell is true to a stretched skin being struck. In Tupelo by Nick Cave and the bad seeds, the bass guitar has menace and reverb. In White Bread by Buck 65, the repeating low notes give a center-of-the-head glow, while actual percussion hits further out. In tracks like Vehemence by Purity Ring and Alone by Alan Walker, the low end is providing the immersive atmosphere that it’s required to. When a sub-bass dependent track like most songs by Lorne comes on, I’m not left feeling that the low end was only traced or described, I can both feel and hear it, there is weight. In Lying from You by Linkin Park, I often used this track to see if a driver can give a significant “felt” dive at 7 seconds, and also the double hit during singing (around 2:55) without masking the vocals or being too subdued itself. I also like that double hit to be clean / have some texture, not just showing up as a blob. DB Monroe passes.
I would say the driver has about a medium speed to it, decay is slow enough for natural timbre, but has clear punctuation, not dragging too long for there to be a firm contrast of impact starting and stopping. I’m not sure if there’s any crossover inside, but like the Serial using multiple DDs, I think there’s an advantage to one driver providing a more incisive hit, while the other provides some lingering warmth for natural timbre.
Mids:
This is one of the main things tip rolling changed. With the Spinfits and deep insertion, mids are not recessed. Upper mids have more emphasis than lower, but I do not think this leads to any “shout”.
Female vocals/deeper: Weyes Blood: A Lot’s Gonna Change her voice is smooth, not husky. Intimate but not necessarily forward from the rest of the music. Saint Savior: Animal, I: her voice is crisp (this album can have too many “mouth noises” on the wrong sets unfortunately), smooth, and not recessed. (Woodwinds and strings have great timbre too.)
Female vocals/higher: Caroline Polacheck: Hey Big Eyes / Parachute: Even higher pitched sections from Parachute never become nasal or piercing, I find them smooth and emphasized enough to be very emotional.
Male vocals/deeper: Johnny Cash is resonant and clear in his largely acoustic songs, but Lemmy is a little lost in the wash in Evil Eye by Motorhead - despite parts of his singing still having a lot of texture to them. I don’t listen to Motorhead often enough to rule out that the album could just be mastered this way.
Male vocals/higher: Marvine Gaye in the album What’s Going On, and You’ve Got Everything Now by The Smiths: no lock of detail, neither forward nor recessed.
I find rhythm guitars in punk rock and heavy rock are something I’m particular about. When I’m listening to The Offspring, older Green Day, Stahlmann, Rammstein etc with driving guitars they have to both have meat/weight and bite/detail. Those requirements aren’t easily balanced.
Der Schmied by Stahlmann is a good test track for this, and the rhythm guitars are definitely crunchy and dense at the same time.
Highs:
I think the venting of the shell helps with this. The set graphs dark, and perhaps it is, at least in the sense that the Penon Serial is meant to be “dark” – but I never feel I’m missing any treble necessary for good cymbals, stage and general small noises that treble can rescue from being lost. However it’s not a set that emphasizes treble. From recent experiences, I would turn to the Simgot EN1000 or better still the Night Oblivion Butastur to scratch an itch of being able to hear all the treble there is to hear without fatigue. Different price ranges completely, they’re just the sets I know hit treble well, I haven’t tried any lower priced sets I can compare for treble.
The 7kHz spike is usually something unwelcome to me in a darker/warmer set. Usually a spike around 8kHz (beyond the usual artificial coupler resonance) brings some snap and contrast back in, but if it’s isolated, then to my ears it sounds rather obviously isolated, and too stark of an emphasis to come out of nowhere in the mix. My take is that to counteract a raised low end, you have to raise a ramp somewhere on the higher end, not an obelisk. However, it hasn’t been overdone in this set, having a moderate upper mids gain already tempers that. That also saves it from being an overt V-shape where a pocketful of pixie-dust “sparkle” is sprinkled on top to fight the mud.
For this signature, frankly I wouldn’t want any more than is there.
In Moonchild by King Crimson: Cymbals/bells all very convincing. In Der Schmied by Stahlmann which was already used earlier to reference rhythm guitars, the cymbals just about cut through during the chorus, without sounding grainy/distorted/rattley.
In something like Caroline Shut Up by Caroline Polachek, the synths reach some very high pitches, and they’re all present and adding to the mix. For reference I can hear up to 18KHz. It’s important to mention that as what we can hear varies and would significantly affect our opinions on treble extension. You may hear further, or less, but now you know what you’re adjusting for.
Stage/imaging:
The most subjective part of an already highly subjective write-up. There are no issues with L/R imaging, sounds come from decently far outside my head towards the sides. While the sub-bass can feel a little lower-and-behind me, I would say things don’t move forward or behind much. Things do not feel flat, things do not feel closed in or intimate, but I wouldn’t expect this set to be topping lists for competitive FPS or for tricking someone into thinking they’re on a stage or in a studio. No weaknesses for ordinary enjoyment of music and the intended panning of tracks.
Customer service:
I purchased my set from ShenzhenAudio on AliExpress, one of the few shops to stock DB IEMs.
Having taken a gamble on this set, which will be the case for anyone buying DB sets until there are more reviews and graphs available, being taken care of was an important factor.
The paint on my set started chipping off in under a month, when they were only listened to about once or twice a week at that point, and stored in a soft case. Even my Starfield’s didn’t chip after longer use, so this seemed like a weakness in the finish at least for that batch.
When I first contacted ShenzhenAudio things went the usual way of “that’s what you get for ordering from AliExpress” as far as an offer of a $5 refund, or me shipping the item to China.
HOWEVER, after I talked with them further (and communication was prompt, I had replies nightly) they changed their response to one I think was completely satisfactory - either a half refund, or a refund after shipping the set to a CONUS address.
It’s a shame it took prompting, but I am glad with their final decision.
This is all very important to note considering DB also have a Luna and Sunna set that are exponentially more expensive than this one, with even less information available. No one wants to lose their investment on a lemon, if taking a chance on a company.
Conclusion:
One of the only descriptions I had been able to find had these as leaning into an analogue tuning, and at least with the most successful tip pairing (the Spinfits) I’m not sure I agree. They have the right kind of warmth in the lower mids for that vibe, but so do many sets, and they don’t have me thinking of a tape deck. With other tips (like the Final E) some lo-fi fuzzy could be introduced I suppose.
So it seems I only have more or less good things to say about the sound. That is true. They are a set that once put on, have no trouble staying on. They can disappear and let me listen to music.
Do I recommend them? That depends. They do very little wrong, if at all. But there are two considerations:
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Cost: Their cost has barely lowered if at all over the years - and in the same years, the $20-$50 has reality exploded with sets that “do very little wrong” and $50-100 sets that “leave little to improve”, usually with at least one “woah factor” trait thrown in. The most direct comparison in my opinion would be the HBBxQKZ which shares some tuning traits and is much cheaper. The HBB is bassier, but for my ear only had one compromise (completely acceptable at the price) which was a slightly metallic timbre for upper mids. To its credit, the DB Monroe does not have a timbre issue.
In fact, it just occured to me that this would only marginally improve on the good old BLON BL03. The DBs would have a tad more control in the bass. -
Place in your rotation/collection: Admittedly this comes from a very privileged setup of having multiple sets with different strengths that can be changed between. I certainly didn’t always have that and recognize that many folks don’t. In my case, although these are easy listening for many genres for many hours without regrets, they don’t often elicit a “woah” during that time. If I wanted all-rounders with an even better low end and mids, I already own the Penon Serial*. If I wanted more energy and an even more open sound I already own the Simgot EN1000. However those are both pricier sets. If your budget was $100, you could do worse than the DB Monroe. I do believe that in today’s market they compete with $60-70 sets more accurately. If you can lose some sub-bass comfortably, then the EA500 is a set that would give a few more “woah” moments.
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They are a fun set, and their timbre is good - so for a fun set with good timbre that could be a mostly all rounder depending on library, I could imagine recommending them with a slight discount.
Which takes us back to the one sentence review: A good bass-leaning all rounder with a tasteful FR and OK technicalities, even so, hard to recommend as a new purchase in today’s market.
* A note I can’t leave out: Although the Serial is still a top 2 set for me, and Penon has taken good care of me as a customer personally on multiple occasions - they try to influence how reviews are written and to remove anything less than glowing reviews of their products, so I can’t recommend a product of theirs without adding this disclaimer. This is based on communication with friends who Penon contacted after giving them a discount, asking them to then frame their reviews in certain ways. This is not speculation.
