Hey guys 
Happy Thursday!
Now, I’m sure many of you are already familiar with Moondrop, mainly they’re known for their waifus, obviously, and some other stuff I guess. They were one of the first pioneers in the chifi market bringing us classics like the Blessing 2, the starfield, Aria, and of course, the in-famous Variations, So with this history of innovation and aggressive pricing, you’d expect the Aria 2 to be a market breaker like the Chu, or perhaps, the new budget benchmark… But, Nope - it’s not that.
It’s not bad or anything, the technical performance is solid, a small improvement over the OG Aria as well as the SE… but like it’s younger brothers, and all the other 20+ similar iems out right now, the Aria 2 also follows a very similar target. The low-end is punchy, bass notes have a nice tactility and weight to them, no mid-bass bleed, not overly warm, fairly balanced, very… familiar sounding. Mid-range is also relatively clean with some body added from the mid-bass, and vocals don’t sound light or scooped, instruments are well separated and the driver does feel faster than the OG Aria and the Aria SE which helps boosts it’s clarity.
Vocals are in-offensive, presented at a normal distance, not too forward nor too recessed, with a slight boost in the 1.5K region for more body in the voices, but it’s still natural, not much muffling or colouring, not thin or shrill, relatively smooth and non-fatiguing unless you’re blasting them way up. Treble is likewise inoffensive, no peakiness and massive roll-offs, you get a good amount of air to cymbal crashes and decay, and you do hear a little more reverb vs the OG and Aria SE - But, it’s not going to be sparkly or lively like the Melody, EPZ 620, or IE200.
Basically, the Aria 2 plays back most things really well without focusing or highlighting any frequency in particular again - like the majority of the IEMs out right now, it’s a great all-rounder that follows an adjusted Diffuse-field like tuning. It also comes with a nice quality cable with interchangeable connectors, a sturdier, more premium case, so really I should be shilling it and telling you guys to go buy it since it’s an upgrade all-around versus the Aria SE for the same price, right? So then, why am I not too impressed? Well, it’s because the Simgot EW200 exists, at half the price.
The EW200 has a very similar sound signature to the Aria 2, a great build, in-fact I like the EW200’s design more with its minimalistic metal finish. It also comes with a decent cable and a carrying pouch, although the accessories are better on the Aria 2, But most importantly, the technical performance is pretty much identical with the Aria 2, however, the EW200 comes in at $40 instead of $80 at half the price.
So then, the question becomes, what are you getting from spending an additional $40 on the Aria 2? Well, it’s not the sound profile because they’re both pretty much the same with a slight difference in the mid-bass which the EW200 is actually cleaner in, along with having better sub-bass extension. You’re also not getting a bump in resolution and technical performance with the Aria 2, especially not 2 times as the price would suggest… Because again, they’re very very similar, not much of a difference and I’ve been A/Bing them for the past few days - at one point I was literally listening to the same song for 2 hours straight, like I was about to go crazy comparing.
It also doesn’t help that both are using a very similar driver, and it might even be the same driver with the only difference being in the diaphragm (based off what we can see from their marketing/description). So then what’s left? The waifus? Well, you don’t get any waifus aside from the cover, but hey if that’s your thing… So the only logical conclusion I can arrive at is that, you’re paying the extra $40 for a better case, as well as the detachable connectors on the cable, which you know it’s a nice cable and all, better than the EW200s, but Moondrop also sells the same exact cable with a mic for $25, just not with the different connectors, which let’s be honest here most people are just going to use one connector type anyways.
IMHO Moondrop should’ve just included a cheaper cable and dropped the price to $40 or even $50 since again you can just grab the cable on the side as an accessory if you really wanted to, but instead, Moondrop decided to group them together to save additional shipping and packaging costs, which helps move more units for the cable because there’s more demand for the Aria branding than just the cable, which then leads to higher economies of scale, which equals more profit for them.
So ya they got a little greedy, and should’ve just created a separate bundle option for the connector cable, and put the main focus back on the Aria 2 as a new $40-50 benchmark/market disruptor. It also doesn’t help that Moondrop has a history of QC issues with the paints chipping, the 2-pin breaking, plates cracking, and refusing to replace an $800 Darksaber that’s barely a month old… Like what’s the point of paying for more for the same performance and sound if the QC isn’t any better, arguable worse, but now you’re just paying double waiting for it to break?
I would just not guys, don’t coinflip with Moondrop QC - you’re not gonna win. The cable on the EW200 is pretty solid already (no sound difference) - I’m stock cable user, but if you really need a multi-connector cable just buy it separately there are tons of them out there already. As for some comparisons, again, the Aria 2 is an upgrade over the OG Aria and Aria SE, as well as the OG Starfield, Chu 2, Lan and the cheaper harman/df sets (aside from the EW200), and if you want less bass and more highlights on the vocals then the EP G10 would still be the better pick.
Technical performance wise it’s around the same as the Red but with heavier note-weight, however, it’s still behind the SIMGOT EA500, Olina SE, and Hexa which IS around its price of $80, so ya… the Aria 2 gets destroyed on both ends - not quite good enough to compete with the $80 benchmarks resolution wise, but also too overpriced to compete with the EW200. You know, if the EW200 didn’t exist the Aria 2 would’ve been an ok offer, good even, but too bad the EW200 is here, and not going anywhere.
Overall, the Aria 2 again, is good, and a bump over the OG and SE, but the CHIFI market is just too crazy right now, and Moondrop’s offer is poorly priced as of the current time. Who knows? Maybe they’ll have it on sale - if it drops to $60 or $50 I would recommend it because it does have better accessories like the cable and case…
Thanks for reading 
Final scores:
Tonality: B+/A-
Tech: B
Overall: High B
Aria SE for reference
Tonality: B+
Tech: B-
Overall: B