Edited…
13 Likes
6 Likes
CCA CRA Review
hype
/hʌɪp/
noun
Extravagant or intensive publicity or promotion.
“The CCA CRA was hyped as an IEM that outperforms significantly more expensive earphones.”
Man does it feel difficult writing this review. I am not quite sure why. Maybe I’m subconsciously scared of the blowback for trashing the community’s latest darling? Maybe I’m wondering how to word this to not read like blind hate?
Or maybe the reason is much more prosaic - I hated listening tho these so much that I don’t want to recount that experience.
Whatever the case is…
Sigh…
We gotta talk about the CRA.
The Other Things
I’m going to keep this part brief - anyone who wants to know more about the build quality, design and accessories should watch my video review of the CRA, here I’m going to focus mostly on the sound.
CCA CRA is a brand new IEM from everyone’s favourite chi-fi brand, KZ.
It uses a single Dynamic Driver enclosed in a typical KZ-style shell with no pseudo-custom elements. This universal fit, coupled with the small size, means that no one should have problems fitting it or getting a good seal, but it is not going to be supremely comfortable for anyone either. It’s an average fit.
When it comes to looks, the CRA delivers. It utilises a two-tone look achieved with a combination of resin and polished plastic, giving me strong Cyberpunk vibes. Not bad.
The earphone sports a QDC connector for connecting cables, and I can’t stress how much better this system is than your standard 2-Pin plug. I really wish other companies like Moondrop or Tanchjim would adopt this connector instead of sticking with regular 2-Pin.
As for the cable that connects to these pins, it’s simple and functional - just two wires glued together until the y-split. It’s quite stiff to the touch and quite kinky unless you heat-treat it, but it gets the job done. I much prefer it to the old KZ cables.
I wish I could say the same about the included tips. They seal much better than KZ’s older Starline tips, but they make my ears itch about an hour or so of use - it seems like I am the only person with this problem so far, though, so your mileage may vary.
Sound Signature
The CRA is unapologetically V-Shaped.
Compared to the Crackhead Target, which is how a good V-Shaped set should be tuned in my opinion, you can see a frankly ridiculous boost in the sub-bass - 5dB above the target, which already features a 10dB bass boost. Combine that with a huge contrast between the lower and upper midrange and very bright treble - that 5kHz peak is definitely real - and you get a parody of a V-shaped signature, something that would feel at home in a pair of Raycons.
What that means in practice is that vocals sound thin, midrange is extremely recessed, the sub-bass dominates all the other sounds, and the treble is just on the edge of being too sharp - keep in mind, that’s on the edge for me, and I am very tolerant of sharp treble, so if you are more sensitive to sharpness than me, you will find them intolerable.
If that signature sounds like fun to you, more power to you. My friend and fellow reviewer @RikudouGoku loves it, for example. But personally, I found it extremely boring - I listen to music for the melody and the instruments, not just the wub-wub of the sub-bass. Listening to my review playlist on these and A/B testing with other sets in a similar price range felt like a chore.
One of the few genres I enjoyed on these was metal. In Kingslayer by Bring Me The Horizon I couldn’t stop tapping my feet to the rhytm, and I loved the presentation of electric guitars in DiE4u by that same band. In Am I Evil? by Metallica, the electric guitar and kick-drum took priority over all the other instruments, but that is not necessarily a bad thing in a metal song.
However, not even all of metal sounds great.** **In Paranoid by Megadeth, the bass felt disjointed, the plucks of guitar strings were ridiculously overemphasised, the cymbals were very sharp, and the vocal, while decently forward, very thin. A terrible offender was A Place For My Head by Linkin Park, where yes, the electric guitars sounded amazing, but both the vocalists sounded distant and lifeless.
The CRA can work for pop music with female vocals, like Cyn’s Drinks or KDA’s Drum Go Dum. The lack of mid-bass makes for a "clean” presentation in these songs, but in my opinion, the same feature makes these songs lack a certain kind of musicality.
Electronic music is the last genre that works well on the CRA. Everything else is a no-go.
You would think a V-Shaped set would do well at rap, but when I tested the CRA with my favourite rap songs like No Name by NF and E-Girls Are Ruining My Life by Corpse, even though the bass was skull-shaking and the snares drove the rhytm nicely, the vocals were stupidly recessed… Which, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the vocals the main part of a rap song?
And don’t even try instrumental music. I played Harvest Dawn from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion soundtrack and I burst out laughing. This amount of bloat really reminds me of Raycons or old-school Beats.
Speaking of bloat…
Bass
It is not a secret that I prefer a neutral sound, but that does not mean I hate bass. When I reviewed KZ’s own DQ6, I raved about the bass response, despite it having a huge bass boost. I just thought this is important to mention before the following paragraph.
The bass on the CRA is not only too much, it’s also poorly executed. The sub-bass dominates the music and crowds out the mid-bass, leading to weird effects like in Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby by Cigarettes After Sex, where the bass guitar in the intro is certainly strong and hits you… But doesn’t have that "warm blanket” effect that it would on most bass boosted sets. Even worse is Nirvana’s Something In The Way from their MTV Unplugged concert, where you certainly feel the cello coming in at 0:44… But you can’t hear it at all.
Tuning aside, the quality of the bass is quite good, especially for the price range. Both the bass guitar in Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby and the bass synth in E-Girls Are Ruining My Life are nicely textured. In the under-$40 price range the quality of the bass beats everything except the DQ6, which is a huge outlier in that regard itself.
Mids
If music were a soup, the bass would be the salt, the mids is the stock and vegetables, and the treble is the spices. You don’t want to have a soup with no salt or spices, you need at least some of them to make it tasty. Everyone has a different taste for how much salt and spice they prefer, but one thing is certain, you don’t want to overdo them.
Well, the CRA is like a tomato soup made from a great, flavourful stock and fresh, tasty Spanish tomatoes, that someone then added three ladles of himalayan salt to and then put in a whole jar of rotten coriander.
It makes you sick, despite most of the ingredients being great.
And the mids on the CRA really are of great quality. There’s so much detail here. When I volume matched and A/B tested the CRA versus the $110 Moondrop Starfield… Yup. The CRA retrieved MORE detail from the music.
In Something In The Way, you can hear subtle details in Kurt Cobain’s strumming of the acoustic guitar. In Blowin’ In The Wind by Bob Dylan there’s so much complexity to the Harmonica’s sound that you really can get lost in it. In DiE4u by Bring Me The Horizon, you can hear the electric guitar’s strings being plucked at 2:59. This is is real detail, too, not just fake detai courtesy of a boosted treble response, because the Heart Mirror (an IEM known for having good technical performance for the price already) does not show it despite a very similar treble level.
I can’t stress enough how great the CRA is at retrieving details in the midrange. It is not only great for the price. It is great period, matching sets like Tanchjim’s Hana 2021, a $180 IEM known for good detail retrieval.
Which is a god damn shame, because of how recessed and veiled the entire midrange, is. One of my favourite songs recently is Civil War by Guns N’ Roses and listening to it on the CRA just makes me sad. It resolves all the instruments really well, but it all just sounds off regardless.
Treble
Let’s start with the good.
It extends well.
Okay, that’s it. Remember that rotten cilantro analogy?
A soup with too much salt would be edible, if disgusting. A soup with too much salt and a bunch of rotten cilantro, well, it will make you sick. And so does the treble here.
I have no idea who thought this kind of treble boost was a good idea, but dude should get a Darwin award along with his job termination. The treble here is atrocious. I have probably the most blessed ears when it comes to treble tolerance, because I never found the aforementioned Heart Mirror, nor most cheap KZs even, particularly sharp. Even still, the CRA was toeing the line for me many times. If you have any less treble tolerance than I do, avoid at all costs.
In April Showers by Aimer, you have strings playing in the background. On most sets, I would say they are beautiful. On the CRA, they are annoying. So is the harmonica in Blowin’ In The Wind. So are the strings and cymbals in Supremacy by Muse. So are 3/4 of the songs on my playlist. Extremely annoying. When we discussed my video review on Discord with other people who bought it after the initial wave of hype, some even described it as painful.
When it comes to the technical performance in the treble, cymbals and hi-hats in songs like Teenagers by My Chemical Romance or the aforementioned Am I Evil? by Metallica are extremely detailed, but their timbre is so fucked they sound like paper.
Technical Performance
This is the one part that CRA does well.
As I mentioned earlier, detail retrieval and treble extension are strong parts of this set. So is the resolution - the CRA manages to separate all the instruments in busy songs like Civil War and DiE4u, to a legitimately impressive extent. Despite all the soup talk earlier, you don’t have to worry about your music blending into one. With all the “CRA is worth $300” hype talk, the detail retrieval and resolution are the only parts of this IEM that could belong in that price bracket.
Coming back to the sub-30 dollar market, though. After it separates them, it feels as if the CRA does not know where to place the instruments, because the imaging is really weird sometimes. It separates from left to right really well, but front to back placement is almost non-existent. Combine that with a weirdly claustrophobic soundstage - the sounds feel like they’re placed on the inside walls of your skull, being neither spacious, nor intimate - and you start to remember how much you paid for this set.
Some songs that show off the poor imaging particularly well are Letter by Yosi Horikawa, where the placement of objects is solid, but the presentation feels very 2D, and Villain by K/DA, where listening to the part between 2:17 and 2:45 on a good set gives you goosebumps, as if you’re being seduced by a succubus. On the CRA, thanks to 2D imaging and recessed midrange, no such effect.
Comparisons
VS Blon BL03
Both the Blon and the CCA are V-Shaped sets, however the 03 does the tuning much better. First of all, the bass-boost isn’t as isolated to the sub-bass. You also have some more upper mids, as well as a treble that’s still elevated, but not as much as on the CRA.
In practice, this makes the Blon set sound much more organic, natural, musical, and over-all pleasant, not to mention you are able to turn the volume up louder without it becoming unpleasant, which means that you can take in more of the mids. Even volume-matched, though, the mids on the Blons have a much fuller body to them, rather than sounding like ghastly illusions from another plane of existence.
In Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby the bass guitar is much warmer and more full on the Blons, vocal competes with the synths for space instead of conceding it, and the percussion in the background has actual timbre.
The CRA only wins where you would expect it to win - it resolves more detail in the midrange and bass. This is especially aparent between 1:35 and 1:47 in Drinks by Cyn.
VS KZ DQ6
In the past, I’ve described the DQ6 with foam tips (graph shows a mod that sounds quite close, but not quite the same) as a better Blon BL03 with less treble. It follows within reason, then, that since the Blon destroys the CRA, so will the DQ6.
And indeed it does, throwing a few punches that the Blon would not. The DQ6 brings the midrange much more forward. It has more detail in the bass (though less in the mids and treble) than the CRA. And it has insane soundstage and imaging that the CRA could only dream of.
Conclusion
It’s hard to rate the CRA. On the one hand, I really want to commend KZ for innovating with their driver tech to get this amount of detail retrieval and resolution at such a ridiculously low price. I also want to commend them for learning from their collaboration with @Crinacle and using proper dampening materials to tune their infamous peaks down.
On the other hand, they made the decision to boost the shit out of the bass and treble instead of just reusing the tuning Crin did for them on the ZEX Pro.
On the third hand (I have four, shut up), I know that I am not necessarily the target audience of this tuning as someone who does not like a ton of bass and gets most of his music enjoyment from exploring the intricacies of the midrange.
On the fourth hand (told you) the technical capabilities of this driver are BEGGING for a more refined tuning, and this IEM just sounds… Bad.
So I decided to split the difference. I could place it in E Tier, because that’s how bad the tuning is to my ears. I could place it in B Tier, because that’s where the detail retrieval belongs. And in the end, I will place it in C+ Tier. C Tier is where the good earphones belong, and this one certainly has something special that, for the right person (someone who likes big bass AND loves to EQ), makes it more than just good.
At the price it really doesn’t have an equal. Even the Blon 03 and KZ DQ6/DQ6S are twice the price of the CRA. Sure, that just means you’d have to deny yourselves three Starbucks coffees to save $15, but the point stands. So I will award it two value stars as well.
It feels wrong to rate the CRA so highly despite it being one of the most boring, most annoying and straight up worst experiences I have had listening to music lately. Thankfully, if you caught one of my last two streams, you know that I created a new, very subjective rating system, based only on how much I actually enjoyed listening to an earphone. The scale starts at -10 (absolute dumpster fire), and goes through 0 (where the REALLY good stuff sits) all the way up to 3 (absolute perfection). This scale shouldn’t really matter to you unless you have literally the same taste I have, but it matters to me. I call it the Scale of Suck. And on that scale, the CCA CRA scores a very prestigious -8.
Fuck the CRA.
Tier: C+
Tonality: D-
Technical Performance: B-
Value: * * / 3
Scale of Suck: -8
8 Likes
I think you do a great job of summing up the CRA faults really well: this is not a vocal set, it sucks at imaging as the sound stage is wide and flat, and it isn’t good for older tracks with noise in the recording.
The Blon BL03 is warmer in the mid bass, and much better tonally for vocals, while the CRA is more technically capable.
The CRA subbass may be too much for some, but the main fault always comes down to that ~4.7 KHz peak that seems imprinted into the driver. Some stuff will sound thin and lifeless and capture a lot of background air and mic blowing (songs without much of bass), other stuff will sound like deep fried dried noodles (already trebly tracks).
But every now and then there is a song that pushes drums and cymbals cleanly, or bumps up orchestra sub bass making it thunderous, and brings out the brass instruments up front and in your face like the curse of sergio.
I wonder if anyone has tried poking a hole into the bass vent tuning filter?
I would also hope someone can graph the ol’ dried towelette mod with it as well.
2 Likes
For real, sometimes the CRA just hits and sounds amazing. I just wish it happened more than 10% of the time 
As for mods, no better person to ask than the man, the myth, the legend @Rikudou_Goku himself 
Alright lads, just wondering what review you’d like to see me do next?
- Sennheiser HD600
- Tanchjim Hana 2021 (pls no)
- Moondrop Starfield
- TinHiFi T2
- Moondrop SSR
- Koss KSC75
- Grado SR60e
- QianYun Qian39
0 voters
Besides these options, mostly anything from my tier list is still fair game, and if I don’t own something already, I can try to get a review unit.
2 Likes
I am interested in your take on Qian39 as only proper rebiew visible in internet is Rikudoku’s and I am quite happy with mine
1 Like
Riku got his a bit after me and he was even more impressed than I were.
I want to review it, but it will certainly be a difficult review to do. While I listen to open backs and IEMs every day, open earbuds aren’t something I use often, so I will have to listen to a few of them to “calibrate” my brain before the review process. 
I believe it is pretty much pointless to review it now as it seems to be discontinued and gone now…
3 Likes
A thorough and well written review I very much enjoyed. I look forward to reading more in this thread as well as following your YouTube channel.
As for the tier list, the Z1R is the best sounding anything I’ve heard, so I know our preferences align in that respect.
Great work.
1 Like
It actually seems to be available still:
3 Likes
Personally, the value I see in doing these retro-reviews is if someone finds something on the used market and isn’t sure if they’re worth it. Or as a reference to people who already have it.
Clearly there is a lot of interest in the 39 though!
1 Like
Thank you!
Personally, I enjoy the Sennheiser HD600 more than the IER-Z1R, but that’s my #nobassgang allegiance showing, I still think out of everything I heard, Z1R is objectively the best. 
That’s fantastic.
Not heard the HD600 but the 660’s even when drive via tube = 
sold…Z1R is totally on a different tier level…have you still got your Z1R’s can you compare them to your other sets 
2 Likes
Oi, lads!
I went on a lil hiatus recently, was feeling so bad and burned out by shitty gear (looking at you, Hana 21 and CRA!) recently that I just wasn’t enjoying music. Well, I’m back now, and I just demoed some wild headphones. Let’s talk about them.
Going from cheapest to most expensive:
- TinHiFi T4
- Monoprice M350
- Hifiman Sundara
- DCA Aeon 2 Noire Closed
- Grado RS300e
Let’s play a game. I’m gonna tell you one of them is S Tier, two are great, and two are rubbish. Make your picks now. Let’s see how you did. 
TinHiFi T4
Photo credit: Headfonics
I like TinHiFi. So far my sample size to make that statement was one model, the T2. After trying the T4, let me say, with a sample size of two models, I like TinHiFi even more.
The tuning is a very tasteful, mild V-Shape, not unlike the Moondrop Starfield, but the T4 seems just a smidge bassier and brighter. The tuning is very well balanced though, I never felt like the mids were too recessed or some part of the FR was standing out. The technical performance was surprisingly great, too, comparable to sets like the CRA and SSR, and better than Starfield.
Not much to say here except I will for sure try to add this one to my collection!
Rank: B+
Tuning: B+
Technicalities: B+
Monoprice M350
Let’s start with the good things. These are an open-back planar IEM, so not only are you able to hear your environment really well, but they also presumably respond well to EQ.
Okay, now about the bad things.
The tuning was so bad it made me burst out laughing. It’s all mid-bass and lower mids, all the time. I played some Linkin Park and quite honestly felt like I was listening to a pair of VE Monks, not a high tech planar IEM.
Have I mentioned that it’s built out of cancer-inducing plastic? Or that the technicalities are only on par with the T4, despite being more expensive… And isn’t that the whole point of a planar driver? Skip.
Rank: D
Tuning: E
Technicalities: B+
Hifiman Sundara
Photo credit: Hifiman
I have listened to them before, but I must say over time I have forgotten just how good they are. Over time I simplified my opinion from “great, but not as great as the HD600” to just “not as good as the HD600”, and I feel like it is doing them a disservice, so let me rectify it now.
They are not as good as the HD600 at sounding absolutely natural and true to life. The Sennheiser has a very unique take on the neutral tuning that just works wonderfully for my tastes.
However, the Sundara does some things better than the HD600, as well. One of them is bass - the Sundara extends better into the sub bass and takes to EQ extremely well - the xBass on the Zen Dac increased the bass a ton, without ruining the sound or introducing any distortion. The bass isn’t quite as dynamic and tactile as the HD600, but there is more of it, and as a result, it can feel stronger. Another thing these do better is soundstage and imaging. Whereas they don’t get quite as intimate as the Sennheiser set, they get a fair bit wider, and the placement of instruments is very good.
And, to be completely honest, I kinda want one. As similar as it is to the HD600, now I see that it’s just different enough to warrant owning both… If you are as much of a nerd as I am.
Updated Rank: A
Tuning: A
Technicalities: A
Dan Clark Audio Aeon 2 Noire Closed (Kings Legacy Pro Max Ultra)
Moving significantly up in price, at almost $1000, we got the DCA Aeon 2 Closed. Before today, it would have been by far the most expensive headphone (not counting IEMs) that I ever listened to.
AND GOD DAMN IT I WANT ONE.
I didn’t expect much (in fact, I didn’t know what model it was before trying to buy it, so I had no idea what the price was), and uh. I was immediately smitten by them. The tuning is fantastic, it’s a very warm, neutral-ish tuning with a small bass boost. The technical performance is fantastic too, retrieving a ton of detail, of all the things I ever listened to probably less only than the ThieAudio Monarch and the next entry on this list.
It worked well for any song in my library. Linking Park? Amazing. Dua Lipa? Stellar.
Man, I am in LOVE with how they sound.
Best of all? Despite being a closed back, not only is treble not cucked, the soundstage is actually bigger than the Sundara! Amazing shit.
I didn’t know who Dan Clark was before today, but he sure as shit has my attention now.
Rank: S
Tuning: S
Technicalities: S-
Grado GS-3000e
I didn’t know how much they cost before putting them on. I knew they aren’t going to be cheap, just because I knew they are a higher end model than the 325x, which is already firmly in the mid-fi range. My suspicion was confirmed when I heard the amount of detail they retrieve in music, which is truly stunning. By far the most detailed headphone I have ever tried. I assumed it will be around the $1000 mark.
After a couple songs, I took them off and said “Mate, I don’t know how much they cost, but I know for sure I wouldn’t pay that much for them.”.
Then the store owner hit me with the price tag.
$2400.
Excuse the fuck out of me, what!?
Let me explain my shock.
Yes, they are a fantastically technical headphone. I know it’s a cliché, but I really did hear details in my music that I never heard before. The sound was spacious and very well resolved, with only one major problem.
They were tuned by a fucking half-deaf, brain damaged donkey.
They made the Hana 21 sound well tuned. The midrange was just all flavours of fucked, with Kurt Cobain’s voice in Something In The Way somehow sounding both shouty and muffled at the same time. Bass was nonexistent - you know it’s a problem when I complain, and the treble was… There.
Not to mention that I bet there are mud huts in Africa made out of better materials than these pads. They were stiff, uncomfortable and itchy. YUCK.
Who the fuck allowed this accursed contraption to exist? If I paid $2400 for this I would personally fly to Brooklyn and punch John Grado in the dick. Jesus Christ what an embarrassment.
Rank: C-
Tonality: E
Technicalities: S+
That’s all for today, lads! I’m gonna come out today with either of two videos: Hana 21 review or “why is making a good audio review so hard”. Or both at the same time. Idk. Stay safe, and don’t buy expensive Grados. Instead, buy two Noires - one for you and one for me.
Fuck off. See ya.
7 Likes
Yes, a familiar feeling. Maybe a $ 100 earphone will make you dance …
3 Likes
Like for real mate, I genuinely think the $100 T4 is a better listening experience than these $2400 Grados.
…what were they thinking XD
1 Like
Interesting lol, will try the NA2+ when I get the chance haha.
Linsoul HC-08
Great fucking cable mate. The T4 I tried today had this exact cable and it was glorious, very soft and supple.
1 Like
Hello there!!!
I didn’t want to resurrect the thread until I know that I am back for sure, but, well, I am!
I have produced some great content in the past few weeks, so here goes:
Blon BL-03 Review
I have just uploaded this video. The goal of this review was to see how does a legend stack up to new contenders.
Exposing Myself in Public
I think it’s important for everyone to know their reviewer’s biases. So here are mine.
Letshuoer S12 Review
I have reviewed the Letshuoer S12. Does Planar live up to the hype?
Spoiler: yes.
Letshuoer S12, iBasso AM05 First Impressions
I said in the thumbnail that one of these is a must buy. Won’t tell you which, but since I have already told you that the S12 is pretty good…
–
That’s it for today, fellow nerds, just a quick post saying that I’m alive. Will post here more in the coming weeks. <3
5 Likes