šŸ”¶ MiM Audio Dark Magician

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.

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

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Itā€™s the same, minus couple words. Just syntax differences, etc. Both can understand each other 100%, just some slang that changes :slight_smile:

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

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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

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

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


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. Iā€™ve had about 2 hours listening time as of this post. This IEM (as most IEM users will know about most IEMs) is dangerous ā€“ watch your levels! These can really damage eardrums if you want them to. :smirk:

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 DACā€™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 Iā€™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 donā€™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. Iā€™ll leave that to the sponsored critics. :grin:

I loooove these things!! I wonder if the vendor read some of the ā€œfitā€ criticisms online and modified the cable with the heat shrink?

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So Iā€™ve had another 5-6 hours of listening time on the DM and have more feedback. Please forgive the screenshot ā€“ 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 ā€˜holographicā€™ 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 thoughtā€¦ 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 canā€™t use medium tips at all.

I did notice that WITHOUT my hip-dac2ā€™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 ā€˜bass boostā€™ 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.

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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.

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

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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.

If you usually in the house, just a portable dac/amp that is very good or even has good BT is more than enough! Let me know if you need some help when you decide to!

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Damn straight I will. Iā€™ve only been on this forum a little over a month, but I love this place. I really enjoy talking about hifi and audio tech, and have enjoyed it for 30 years. Its nice to be around a group of people who are as passionate as I, and dont think Im nuts for seeking the highest quality audio gear.

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You arenā€™t. This is (mostly) a safe place!

And you like DM so you are in the right track :slight_smile:

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We know that you are nuts, but accept you as one of us.

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You are nuts: spending so much money just for audio enjoyment is insane.

But you are asking like-minded people here, so itā€™s ok :wink:

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:grinning: :grinning: you folks rock pretty hard

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Ok, I received the L&P W2, and its great! Zero hiss and great list of features, super portable and easy to use, and it drives earbuds and sensitive IEMs very well. Dark Magician sound the way I hoped they would/could, and the W2 hits a little harder in some areas than the hip-dac2.

I noticed right away the sound stage and ā€˜holographicā€™ space was larger and more crisp than the hip-dac2, and the EQ of the W2 allows me to better fine tune many aspects of the sound, including low frequency roll-off speed(fast/slow/low latency fast/slow, etc), 2 stage gain, tuning (ā€œgentleā€/ā€œrefinedā€), something labeled ā€œSDFā€ that I do not understand, which has these options: ā€œSDF: normal, IER-Z1R, SE 846, IE 800 S, Xelentoā€ (filters??), SPDIF on/off (it uses a 3.5mm jack for this), and a toggle for HID mode to allow the DAC to control device volume & vice versa. The device also allows UAC 1/2 switching.

I had to post the front AND back of this little DAC because I like the carbon fiber back. The small digital display is bright and legible, but was not on in the photo. The display shows vol, H/L gain, file format, birate, freq.

W2 has 3.5mm unbalanced and 4.4mm balanced outs, and the 4.4 was the lucky socket into which my new DMs were inserted with a ā€˜snickā€™ that made me smile, and since then my dac/iem and I have been inseparable.

Have had around 4 hours with it on my note10+ and it uses less energy than the onboard bluetooth controller when streaming music to a stereo. The bt will use 25% battery inside 25 mins, whereas Iā€™ve been letting the W2 leech my Note10 for 4 hours and Im now at 55%. I could probably get 6-8 hours out of this.

The sound is very good overall, itā€™s spacious & clean, and there is zero hiss or distortion anytime before or during playback. On high gain settings, the volume coming from this thing was more than enough to keep me from going above 60%(on my IEMs) for most content. The eq is a joy, and is a simple list of presets like jazz, bass, rock, pop, movie, game, etc. I keep mine on bass usually lol.

The DM sound great on these and Im super happy it worked out this way and gave me the chance to try a couple devices! Hip-dac2 and DM sounded great except for the hiss, but the W2 + DM is, right now, my go to listening device. I do miss the analog volume control of the hip-dac2, but Iā€™m able to use the very sensitive onscreen vol slider in UAPP pro on my phone to control it about as well.

EDIT: forgot to mention headphones ā€“ the W2 can push some large headphones, but lacks volume and possibly detail. I havent done much testing there, but will at some point.

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If it requires a disclaimer, Iā€™m not very sold on it being all that good. I am concerned about its technical skills, bass, and treble refinement being merely a DD. I suppose Iā€™d expect more for such a price, though this certainly isnā€™t traditional TOTL price level.

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Anyone here has the revised tuning for the MiM DM?