🔶 MiM Audio Dark Magician

[Tonytex_Teixeira]

MIM Dark Magician - The Ultimate Single DD

The Dark Magician has in a matter of weeks gone from unknown to the new "King of the Hill " in the single DD world.

The DM is an earphone that I believe gets its inspiration, from what has been the reference under 300usd for a single DD.
I’m talking of course of the Tanchjim Oxygen, that over the last 3 years ,has carved its place well in what a properly tuned DD should be.

Much like the Blon 03 that shook the budget IEM market, the Oxygen is an astonishingly good IEM, with a tonality, timbre and mid reproduction that is borderline flawless when you consider it’s all done with one driver.

The DM had taken that base and Improved upon it.
Firstly the bass is mainly mid-bass oriented and just slightly above neutral. And as one might imagine with this type of tuning, the transition into the mids is exemplary, bringing texture and bass detail to another level.
It’s not without its flaws, and I would have liked a little more quantity, just enough to bring a little extra weight to some musical genres and render male voices at least to me as perfect as the Oxygen does it.

Next the midrange of the DM is its strength to my ears.
It’s what caught my attention when I first listened to it, it’s open, huge, 3D sounding, and full of detail.
This is the type of midrange you can listen to for hours without fatigue.

Finally the treble response of the DM I s again bordering perfection, let’s not forget this is a single DD, but the fact it’s around 4db lower than the Oxygen , makes it for some people resolve the problem of the extra brightness, basically there’s no sibilance, energy levels are more coherent, so although there are occasions where you might want to falter it, cymbals sometimes are a little fuzzy, I remind you all this is a single DD.

With regards to technicalities the DM is very good…detail… ultimate detail if again we remember it’s a single DD, soundstage excellent, Imaging and layering impressive , detail retrival crazy good.

Overall if what you want is a super capable single DD with regards to texture, details, female vocal reproduction, the DM ticks the right boxes, if you want something with a warmer tonality, with that extra bass weight that makes things sound not as clinical then the Oxygen is still the one.

There is one more suprise " contender ", the Moondrop Kato, yes you read that right, the Kato is capable of bringing together some of the positive characteristics of the Oxygen and DM and offer it at a price of around 200usd, which brings me to the cost of the DM.

At 600usd it finds some very stiff competition , the likes of SHUOER EJ07m, AüR Audio Neon, Softears RSV and a few others that can I my opinion bring to the table the same as the DM and also give a sense of better value for money.
Of course that is relative…one pays what one beliefs something is worth and for me the DM should be a earphone of 350 to 400 USD at most.

[thoohil]

Hi Tony, nice to meet you on hifiguides. Watching your video now. The DM driver model seems to be the same as the one in the O2, Hana 2021 and the Olina. Interesting.

[nymz]

Glad you liked it

EJ next?

[ttorbic]

Olá amigo and kia ora! Welcome - big fan of your work on YouTube. Nice shout-out to @nymz

[SoundEater]

E eu pensei que DM era um pouco caro, mas provavelmente vale a pena! Muito boa revisão.

[Ohmboy]

Precog's IEM Reviews & Impressions

[nymz]

That’s actually well translated to brazilian portuguese

[SoundEater]

I don’t make any difference between Brazilian Portuguese and your Portuguese …

[Ohmboy]

@nymz

That’s actually well translated to brazilian portuguese

Tony sounds more South African/New Zealand’ish than Portuguese?

[SoundEater]

And now in English - from the review I learned that for DM you pay for tuning, which is very important, because bad tuning is bad sound, regardless of timbre.

[nymz]

He’s portuguese and he lives close to me. His voice is not so deep IRL, must be his mic

[nymz]

It’s the same, minus couple words. Just syntax differences, etc. Both can understand each other 100%, just some slang that changes

[vald]

Not gonna lie, this set has me very curious by how it graphs, only hurdle is the price.

[Milkman]

I wait on pins and needles to get my hands on the one I ordered a couple weeks ago.
I am patient I am patient I am patient =P

[Milkman]

Just received shipping confirmation. My Dark Magician will be here in 10 days!!! Wooot

[Milkman]

The Dark Magician arrived a week early!!! Woohoo!!

So I have the balanced version of the DM (not sure if they sell an unbalanced) with the 4.4mm connector. It was very easy to connect the components together and fit the tips, and I was able to go from unboxing to listening in like 3 minutes. I’ve had about 2 hours listening time as of this post. This IEM (as most IEM users will know about most IEMs) is dangerous – watch your levels! These can really damage eardrums if you want them to.

The sound coming from these things is amazing, and the sub bass, bass, and mid-bass are super tight, super solid, and beefy as hell. The highs and mids are loud, forward, and clean, with every texture and detail in that spectrum sounding coherent and spaced out properly.

No sign of low end distortion on any of the bass music I threw at it, and I used my hip-dac2 on both regular and high power mode. The Dark Magician benefitted from the higher power setting, which is usually reserved for large headphones, so play around with your own DAC’s power and gain settings to find your sweet spot. I have primarily listened to bass music (trap, dubstep, dub) but will play some rock, metal, grunge, jazz, and classical later. I really wanted these for the bass music.

I heard some complaints about the cable and overall fit, but these are literally the best fitting IEM or earbud I’ve ever used. The tip + insertion depth + cable are all perfect for me, and I have 1 ear canal slightly larger than the other. Tips usually fall out when I walk or anything.

The assembler used some soft heat shrink to crimp the last 2ish inches of the braided cable into an ear shape, and when they are inserted into the ears and the cable looped around your early properly, they fit like a glove over your ear and around your neck. I can walk, jump, run, ride a bike, or whatever, and the tips don’t shift or fall out. This is the BEST fit, for me.

I have zero complaints as of now. Price is a little high but I would probably have to buy and test 4-5 other IEM at a similar price point to confirm premium pricing. I’ll leave that to the sponsored critics.

I loooove these things!! I wonder if the vendor read some of the “fit” criticisms online and modified the cable with the heat shrink?

[Milkman]

So I’ve had another 5-6 hours of listening time on the DM and have more feedback. Please forgive the screenshot – this is from my Tidal player, a favorite late-night/before sleep Jean-Michel Jarre ambient + binaural recording that knocked my socks off on the DM. The ‘holographic’ soundstage of the DM really elevated this recording above any other headphone in my home, including the DT1990, and I had to share this as a listening recommendation for anyone picking up the DM or any other strong IEM.

Initially, when the above binaural album began playing, I thought… I had inserted the 4.4mm connector halfway, or my DAC was dying or something, because the DM amplified such faint details at the start of the first track that I noticed a fade-in that was left channel only. I tapped on the connector and messed with the volume, only to realize I was hearing new details as the track faded in!!

I tried out the other tips included with the DM to see how the fit was, and found that I really have to stick to the large tips exclusively. The medium tip, in one of my ear canals, just falls right out. I can’t use medium tips at all.

I did notice that WITHOUT my hip-dac2’s bass boost feature, the bass on the DM is a bit weaker. Bass is still punchy, precise, wide, and solid, but I get about 25% improvement with that DAC feature turned on. If you are a bass music listener, you may want some sort of EQ or ‘bass boost’ enabled on whatever your source gear. I think these are neutral + a slight bass bump, as the graphs for these IEM show. Very good and very enjoyable without bass boost, but if you like that oomf, boost it.

[Milkman]

I am swapping out my hip-dac2 for a Luxury & Precision W2, and will update on how the pairing with the Dark Magician sounds once it arrives.

[nymz]

I wanna grab a Cayin RU-6 R2R and test it on my DD sets as well. Loving more DM everyday

[Milkman]

We may grab a nice DAP at some point. We are usually at home right now (working from home, kids) so we dont really have a use for a DAP, but the convenience and cleanliness of a good player + DAC + amp + the Dark Magician in my pocket is alluring.