Thank you good buddy!
Without grills it does affect the sound signature though correct?
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I am beyond excited to hear your Anomaly, one might say I am practically edging.
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The tip-lockless nozzles is a nice touch that makes the whole project even better (it’s the details). Are the dimensions of the Anomaly similar to Twilight (seeing I own that one and it fits just fine)? And congrats of course!
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Seconding the clapping but ambiguous about the second part of that sentence 
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The nozzles are already 6.4mm large so they make it just under 7mm.. this is just probably over the top. I was thinking about something different but in the end, just a rough sanding is likely enough
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not sure to what extent nozzle diameter affects tuning as I’m only used to BAs so I work with 2mm ID…
Can’t OD be like 5.8 or 5.5mm, ID be like 4mm on your iem?
Should be extremely minimal as those seem to have the lowest amount of damping as they are just meant for protection not sound adjustments.
For reference this is another iem but gives you the picture.
And this is with a 200 mesh, which has a bit more damping than the one above.
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I currently have no grills on them, definitely sounds like there’s an affect that’s not very minimal. Dark Magician is a different beast I guess.
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Then it may have some more damping in it than that link above.
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Grills are not dampers. If you need a damper it would be around a 450 value 5.0mm
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That would definitely have a big difference in sound.
(didnt measure 400 or 450 grade, but you get the point.)
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Hi all, I wanted to make a post about Michael Bruce’s home made IEM called Anomaly. I’ve been listening to the latest prototype over the last few days, and I am extremely impressed with the sound quality and everything else. I think it’s about time for Anomaly to be released after over two years of development, so I wanted to give him a shout out and share my thoughts on his IEM.
Before Mike worked on Anomaly, he was a YouTube reviewer and an IEM modder who was primarily known for retuning the Letshuoer S12 planar IEM’s. You may have heard of his past planar tunings like Eru, Glamdring, Fat Earth and Nobody. I remember joining his discord, getting in contact with him and buying a Glamdring almost 3 years ago. When I got it and heard it for the first time, I was floored at how good it sounded. Ever since then, me and him have been friends, and I’ve heard many of his modded IEMs. Needless to say, I’ve never been disappointed with anything he’s done, and I know that he’s clearly a man who could not only talk the talk, but walk the walk.
Rewinding about 4 years ago, the MiM Dark Magician came onto the market for $599. A few people took a chance on it, and after they heard it, the word quickly spread that it was no ordinary single DD IEM. People including Mike praised the Dark Magician for its incredible 3D stage, uniquely flat and monitor like replay, and full and emotional midrange and vocals. Perhaps the most important thing about the Dark Magician though was the fact that it had an unusually capable driver at its core. Anyone who’s heard the Dark Magician, Tigerism Octave, or the XSL X One can attest to how the driver has a unique ability to sound lifelike in its timbre and tone, dive incredibly deep in the bass, and separate stage details like a planar or hybrid IEM. Why this driver can do what it does is a mystery (even to Mike who’s been tuning it for years). Sadly though, the original Dark Magician was discontinued after only a few months of production. A revised version came out shortly after, but the sound was nowhere close to what it was before. Clearly the original recipe was lost and no other Dark Magician like IEMs have come out since then (until now).
After reaching his end game S12 tuning (Nobody) at the beginning of 2024, Mike decided to go on his own journey and recreate the original Dark Magician for his next project. He managed to get his hands on the Dark Magician drivers and learned how to make his own shells, and ever since then he’s been hard at work tuning his IEM that he calls Anomaly. Anomaly may have started out as a project to recreate the Dark Magician, but it morphed into something else completely after Mike heard the potential that the driver had.
Mike being the mad scientist that he is didn’t go for a normal single DD IEM design. One sound improvement and shell redesign led to another, and eventually he ended up with a design that’s a hybrid between an open baffle speaker and a traditional single DD IEM. I asked him how his shell design works, and this is how he described it in his own words. ‘The crux of the tuning is the open baffle design combined with the tip-channel vents, and while clearly, with an IEM, full open baffle is not entirely possible since you need extremely large drivers.. there is a middle ground.’ ‘The driver has a 1 millimeter baffle around it, and a gap between it and the shell, most of the sound goes directly out the nozzle into the ear canal, but when the back waves bounce back they are both diminished by the 2 nozzle channel vents and the driver itself not being sealed.’ ‘It is open back in the sense the back damper on the driver itself is minimal and sound can leak from it out the rear end of the shell.’ ‘There is a wave guide/rounded chamber in front of the driver optimized to make all this happen’. How this design translates into the sound is really interesting to me. To me, Anomaly presents like a mix between an IEM, speaker and earbud. You get the full sealed sound of an IEM, the stage openness and clear bass punch of an earbud, and the tonality and smoothness of a bookshelf speaker. Needless to say it’s a completely unique sound experience. The fit is also perfect for me and I’ve had zero issues with comfort or getting a nice seal.
Moving onto the sound itself, I would describe it as sounding incredibly smooth, open, versatile and speaker like it’s in playback. The moment you start listening to them, you’ll be instantly reminded of your favorite stereo speakers. The bass is full and perfectly weighted, the midrange is natural and true to life for any genre, and the treble is smooth and extended just right without any peaks or quirks. It has the ability to just pull you into the music and make you forget that you’re listening to IEMs. This has happened nearly every time that I’ve listened to Anomaly. That to me is a big part of the X factor of this set. The stage and imaging is also a big standout to me. Anomaly sounds incredibly open and separated, and it’s not closed in or claustrophobic sounding compared to a lot of other IEMs due to the unique design of the shell. It kind of sounds like you have a speaker shooting directly into your ears. I know it sounds weird, but once you hear it, you’ll immediately understand what I’m talking about. The center image is also pretty strong too, which I like personally. Overall I’ll say that Anomaly has some of the most perfect sound that I’ve heard out of an IEM to date. I’ve flipped between all kinds of genres and tracks, and Anomaly plays them back almost exactly the way I want them to be played back. Clearly me and Mike both appreciate the way that nice speakers sound, and this is why I’m vibing a lot with the sound on display here. There is one other positive thing that I’ll mention about the sound too. The low sub bass around 10 to 20hz can really boom with the right track. You don’t notice until one track comes along and you just get a blast of awesome sub bass. I’m not sure exactly how he tuned this aspect in, but I think it has to do with how these large sound waves can’t escape the shell easily when this deep bass hits. Switch from any rock track to a rap song by Lil Wayne for instance, and you’ll be wondering.. where the hell did this bass come from?? It’s almost like an invisible subwoofer gets switched on with bass heavy tracks.
Despite all of the positives, there are a couple problems that I have with Anomaly. The first and most obvious problem is that Mike designed Anomaly’s nozzle around the Softears UC tips. The tip is literally designed to be the nozzle, which means that you either need to use the UC tips or another similar tip in order to get the intended sound from Anomaly. All other tips that I tried (except for one) ended up throwing off the delicate balance that Anomaly has by increasing the bass and shifting around the midrange and treble. One tip in particular (Divinus Prism), made the bass almost too punchy and I couldn’t listen to Anomaly for more than a short period of time. So I’ll say that if you’re interested in Anomaly, you need to either use the UC tips that come with them or another tip that is very similar to the UC tip. Get a liquid silicone tip with a similar internal diameter, length of the sound tube, and concave design. In my testing, I found that the Whizzer LT100 tips were a solid replacement for the UC tips. The other thing is that Anomaly is not V shaped or U shaped in any way. It is very, very speaker like in its overall sound. If you like 10db of upper mids, big mid bass, or lots of sparkly treble, you will likely dislike Anomaly. Anomaly has a very accurate and slightly delicate sound that some people might find boring.
In conclusion, I’ll say that Anomaly is without a doubt one of the best IEMs that I’ve heard up until now. The sound screams refinement and accuracy, and it’s so satisfying to hear music and get totally lost in it everytime you put these in. I don’t find myself craving more of this or less of that at any point really. I can put on a metal track for instance and hear the tactile and impactful drums, guitar crunch, screaming and atmosphere without any over or under boosting. I can also turn it up as loud as I want without any peaks hitting me wrong, just like how a speaker would play back the song. So despite the couple of negatives, I will wholeheartedly recommend Anomaly to any IEM or headphone enthusiast. Mike put a ton of work into this project and that is very apparent to me. The way that he made a single DD IEM sound the way that it does is truly a big achievement. If you’d like to get in touch with him about Anomaly, you can message redrol on Head Fi or message shortbus on the HiFi Guides forum. I’m also happy to share the link to his Discord as well. Anyway, awesome job Mike! I can’t wait for everyone else to experience Anomaly.
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Thanks for the info! Appreciate the writeup. The set in the pictures looks awesome. I definitely would like to get my hands on a pair now (and own enough of those Softears tips to last m lifetime ).
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A short bus that turned into a “Long Train Runnin’ “ (music pun intended) Sounds like all the hard work’s paid off. Congrats to Mike for creating a true labour of love, for letting us follow the journey and hopefully being a sounding board lol. Nothing but 110% respect for the man 
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I’ll gladly repeat that we need more people like Mike to move the hobby forward. Not the umpteenth variation on some squig but something daring and new 
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I’m aware that they aren’t dampers, but without the grills on it affects the sound at least to my hearing anyway.
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Very nice write up dude. Mike said he was providing instructions and/or tools for people to mod Anomaly to taste a short while ago, any play with that?
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I’m guessuming this is an anomaly? 
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