They said flagship-price and they meant it
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Iād be curious how it stacks up against the Penon Impact. @tgx gave it fairly high praise. Still waiting for some more legit reviews, though.
Congratulations nice set!
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I didnāt buy it. At that price I wouldnāt buy it. I just posted the price information when it was available on the site. But it looks like a good IEM. 
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Now thereās a thing 
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Yes. At least it looks good. There are a lot of options for this priceā¦ Iām a bit skeptical about the sound and specs. But letās see the reviews.
I did, loved some things, didnāt love other things as much.
Iām gonna have a second audition and will do some cable and source rolling. Treble wasnāt peaky or harsh at all, just a bit more intense than my ideal. I felt the same about Prestige and mentioned it in my impressions post.
Special mention for the build quality. The shell is very cool and feels so good to hold. Can serve as stress relief when not listening to music 
.
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Now youāve got me curious to hear these because I absolutely dig the treble presentation on the Prestige. I think it matches very well with the elevated bass and overall moderate V shaped tuning profile. The more I listen to them the more I like them. When I got the Excaliburs off the For Sale thread here a few months back my initial thought was that ThieAudio should do a similar tuning at the Monarch level and I even posted something to that effect here or on head-fi somewhere.
When the Prestige was announced it was like ThieAudio had listened and I was cautiously optimistic because V shaped tunings tend to sound either great or terrible to me depending on if they get the balancing act between the bass and treble right and if they donāt take it too far. Thankfully, once my set showed up it was immediately apparent to me that they had pretty much made exactly what I was hoping for.
When it comes to the Cadenza 12, the price is steep, but Iād love to hear what they put together if it shares a similar treble profile and balance. Now how am I gonna get my hands on a pair to try? 
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Super low-key release. Havenāt heard a thing about this anywhere
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Yes. Appeared out of nowhere! 
āBetter audio performance at more affordable price rangesā.
Yeah, that went out of the window
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Ok. Itās been a while now that I received Santa @nymz 's dunu Talos as a gift. I listened to it casually and got used to it. Now itās time for me to give my feedback.
On the hardware side of things, I like the looks of the shells. I find them classy: the simple geometrical shape colored buy golden accents is appealing to me. The shells are a bit big, but nothing detrimental for fit.
The cable is excellent, really; the only drawback I find is that itās 3.5mm. given the planar hunger for current, a 4.4 could have been a better move.
There are 2 bad things I have to say about the hardware. First, the case, while good looking, is a false good idea: the band that prevents the case from opening too much takes much place, and the opening of the case is to small for me to get things in it comfortably. The second thing is the writing for the switch: 1 and ON . What weird logic could have led to this writing? I would have understood 0/1, off/on, or even 1/2(driver count), but 1/ON?! I had to go and check on dunuās website to be sure about the meaning of this.
On the sound side, you get a balanced/bright set. The bass is just great for rock (merzhin, hoshi, pink Floyd), but wonāt have quantities for demanding music (Lorde, prodigy, wiodkid). The. Mids clearly are the star of the show; they are as forward as can be without being unnatural (postodern jukebox, Adele, Birdy). The highs are not dark nor too bright; the set avoids unnecessary sibilances, but some tracks that are recorded with sibilance may hurt you (merzhin, Birdy, Lorde).
For technicalities, I had a blast: the stage and imaging are a little above average. The resolution and instrument separation though are top notch: the set keep its composure even under heavy busy tracks (muse, dropkick Murphys, rage against the machine), and the details in the mids made me appreciate the voices grain (Haley Reinhardt, hoshi); in that particular subject, I found the Talos as competent as the OG tea. The differences lying in the fact you have to be a little more focused as it is more obvious on the mangirdās set.
So all in all, I think the set is worth its asking price of approx $200. It can lack punch in the low-end for specific genre, but for the others, it delivers a great level of technicalities.
I tip-rolled too with the set. Here is my top 3:
- azla sedna short (S) : sacrifices a little it of stage and comfort to add some bass in the mix (due to deep insertion, mainly)
- final E (the middle size): gives all the bass I want, but brings some sibilance with it too
- default tips: the one I did my review with.
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well for that driver config other brands are what at least $2k, technically not wrong lol
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Dunuās BA implementation on the Talos has to be one of the worst driver implementations in IEM history.
No one asked for treble murdah, I donāt think even trebleheads will enjoy the BA mode.
Wasted potential.
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Yeah, the BA setting us essentially useless. That said, while the solo planar sound wasnāt my cup of tea, I can see some people really enjoying how they tuned the planar. I like the fact that Dunu are willing to push the envelope and try novel driver configs and tunings that arenāt standard or safe, but with that will come some hits and some misses. The BA part of the Talos was a miss and if the BAs werenāt included how much less would the set have cost if they just released it as a decent planar option? I think going that route would have made it more competitive in the market.
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Yes, I forgot to mention that: the āONā setting (so planar+ba) is just for people who want to obliterate their eardrums in 2 minutes. Cymbal strike become soooooo prominent!
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