šŸ”¶ Moondrop Aria

  • Obvious comparison to the Starfield here: yes, they areā€¦ very similar. Itā€™s honestly hard to tell between the two and if I do itā€™s clearly not by tuning, but rather the subtle differences in how each presents their respective images.
    • The Starfield has slightly more narrow soundstage but more precise imaging, whereas the Aria can get impressively wide but at the cost of positional accuracy.
  • Otherwise yeah, another solid budget DD from Moondrop. The Aria and the rest of the DDs are definitely suffering from Same Face Syndrome at this point, but I canā€™t really fault it especially when it all comes with a price cut. If anything else, Moondropā€™s embodying the whole ā€œif it ainā€™t broke, donā€™t fix itā€ philosophy to a T.

More redundancy into the lineup thats already has a lot of redundancyā€¦

At least they reduced the price.

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True maybe Iā€™ll pick them up for just to hear the starfield for cheapā€¦ when I have the money. I just spent money on a used Dt 770 pro, pads for the shp 9500, and a replacement headband for my m1060cā€™s. Itā€™s probably only like $200, but right now Iā€™m a little broke. Iā€™m guessing youā€™ve listened to both the tin t2 and the starfields at one point. How do they compare in terms of clarity and sound signature?

I havent heard them actually. But I got the Tin T3 and the Moondrop KXXS and the KXXS is beating the T3 pretty hard.

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Alright that is good info thanks!

No problem. I would definitely wait for more info before dropping money on something that just came out.

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I meanā€¦ Yeahā€¦ I understand finding ways to make things cheaper, butā€¦ Some change or innovation would be great. Something to make me feel like it would be great to pick up the new thing to try it out, and not find myself with a different colored and cheaper version of this thing I already had.

Exactly. If they already got a working model, then why release essentially the same thing? That comes across as just a cash grab IMO. They should release stuff thats different from their existing iems, that way they can grab more people and avoid redundancy.

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Given that they have (from my understanding) 4 IEMs that are basically samesies. KXXS, KXXX, Starfield, and now the Aria. This isnt to mention the SSR and SSP.

yup, those 4 are basically the same but in different price ranges lol.

Although the SSR and SSP are different from those 4 at leastā€¦

True, though from my understanding, they really arenā€™t that different from each other in price or sound

The SSP is a bassier SSR.

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Indeed it is

Cash grab, maybe? I wouldnā€™t doubt that filling in a price bracket. Theyā€™ve got $40, $120, $180, ect sets, now a $80.

Not that I donā€™t mind it. An $80 Starfield-like IEM sounds like a good deal to me. One of the issues with the Starfield right now is that it doesnā€™t really compete in itā€™s price bracket in terms of values alongside FH3, T4 and others. It just seems weird. I think it would have been a better deal to lower the price of the Starfield and then introduce a new $120 IEM. But that can degrade brand appearance.

Thereā€™s also the idea of them phasing out the Starfield and gonna release a new $120-150 IEM soon.

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I thought the aria was going to be the one in that 150 usd price range.

$80 starfields with a ā€˜betterā€™ cable (moondrop gets plenty of flack for their cables apparently) doesnā€™t sound bad to me. Too bad itā€™s their 4th clone. Hope they donā€™t continue with this in their higher price brackets.

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I love the Starfields so much that almost any new Moondrop product has me at hello. Still, this seems to be too similar to the Starfield to spend $80.

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so, not an upgrade in their lineupā€¦but a lower price point for first timers.

doesnā€™t make much sense to savage their own lineup thoughā€¦but that seems to be something very Asian as they all seem to do this.

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Not really. Chi-fi brands do release quite a lot of iems and pretty fast, but they do tend to sound different from each other.

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Using SHENZHENAUDIO5 code to get 5USD lower at shenzhenaudio.com, thumb-up!

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Apos now carries them. Probably where my money will be going, given their level of customer service.

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