Campfire Audio Andromeda Review: Holy Cow, This is a Dream, Awesomesauce!

I think it must be, more or less. There's a bit of structure there too to keep everything together, but it must be some adhesive

 

I agree with you about the solid customer service. I've heard nothing but positives on how Campfire handles its customers.

Though I think Ken doesn't agree with you about the "annoying poster."

http://www.head-fi.org/t/805107/cam...s-hello-andromeda-and-nova/2775#post_12854938

 

Haha, dude just posted a photo of a broken unit and they act like there was an ulterior motive. Kens proper response should have been sympathetic and apologetic in tone, not snide. He was terse when someone was wondering why customer service said a week for shipping and not correct...technically , they told me two weeks and website says in stock and shipping soon so can understand someone asking but I considered it more in terms of two weeks of delivery in software biz

 

Looks like we found out where the Golden Shlong that @Marvey gave the Andromedas ended up. He should take it out every so often.

And now they're back to "suck up to Ken Ball" mode. Until the next poster there posts his dissembled Andromedas.

 

More power to 'em. The world goes round again. Huzzah!

 

I see the he responded to my warranty concern. Hopefully the one with the luck of a golden schlong stuck in his ear isn't me. I tend to get lucky that way with products...not schlongs

 

On my pair of Jupiter one MMCX connector got slightly loose. Glued it back to place.

 

I've been listening to the Andromeda as part of the loaner program for a few weeks now. Here are my thoughts...

My digital chain during this evaluation was 2014 Macbook Pro USB to Yggdrasil with and without Mutec MC3+ and Intona USB isolater.
My analog chain was a Kronos Sparta turntable (Helena arm) with Zyx Omega Premium cartridge and Trulife Argo phono stage.
The amp is the balanced output of Ragnarok with a Norne adapter and the Tinsel balanced cable.
The portable setup was an iPhone 6 with UE Pro Line Drive acting as a buffer.
My current reference are the UERR/UERM both of which I listen to daily.

General:
- Absolutely need to get a good seal. I found Comply medium and spiral dot medium to work best for my ears.
- Comfort was good for a non custom IEM. The memory wire used on the cables is very flexible and wraps nicely.
- I love the MMCX connectors. They are awesome and make changing cables easy. I didn't particularly care for the tinsel cable. Got wrapped up a lot and very microphonic. Litz had much better ergonomics but I used the Tinsel most of the time because balanced. Sound difference? Didn't check too many variables.
- Nice case, nice accessories with a variety of tips.

What I liked:
- All the technicalities; tone, resolution, transients, staging are better than UERR/UERM. Really first class stuff I am impressed. I find when something is obviously great like this I don't need to write much because it's obvious from the moment you start listening.

What I did not like:
- There is a peak in the upper treble somewhere around 8-9K that I find extremely annoying. It makes many recordings with brass (about 2/3rds of the stuff I listen to) or other content with a lot of energy in that region piercing and rapidly fatiguing. It also makes them unsuitable for music production work. To make things worse this peak is preceded by a small dip in the presence (4-6K) range which makes it stick out even more. I find this extremely frustrating as it bothers me enough to be a deal breaker despite the fact that in all other respects this is the best IEM I have ever heard.
- The impedance curve and sensitivity are borderline ridiculous. The Andro is super amp sensitive and sounds VERY different depending on what you plug it into. I did NOT like it at all without a near zero output impedance. That peak now becomes a stabby ice pick. Did not like it straight out of iPhone 6. Did like it once I put the UE Line drive in place. I feel this aspect has been somewhat overlooked in the thread so far. Ragnarok was not a great match for these. I was forced to use the lowest gain setting (to me Ragnarok sounds best on the +6dB setting) and I got electrical hum if I tried to use my (thick and well shielded) extension cable.


Conclusion:
- Spectacularly good (maybe the best but I haven't heard them all) but needs careful pairing in terms of amp. For portable use (iPhone 6) I strongly preferred them with the UE Line drive or use a device that has a near zero OI.
- Beware the treble peak. You probably want to listen before buying to see if this bothers you or not.

 

Nice impressions, Chris. Curious about the line drive - will have to research. Could help with running andros from desktop amps.

 

I should add that it's possible the peak I hear is simply ear canal interaction.

I tried it with Ragnarok SE. It was OK but I think it worked best with portable or laptop outs. The primary issue is that Ragnarok is simply not an optimal pairing for the Andromeda. The transparency and control are all there but there are noise floor and other (minor but still present) electrical issues that come with trying to use a 100W speaker amp to drive 115dB sensitive IEM. The UERM/UERR do pair very well with Ragnarok via SE with line drive/impedance pigtail or balanced with adapter. (note: I have not tried UERM balanced only UERR)

I think I will start a dedicated line drive thread. I think it's a really great device for balanced armature IEMs/portable rigs and it seems to have little to no coverage. It's a no brainier for the UE ones and I liked both Jupiter and Andromeda better with line drive.

 

Line out for Andro looks promising. The Andro sounds way better out of my phone compared to the anaemic bass light sound of my Vaio laptop as a result of impedance issues. It is a bit of a pain as I have terabytes of music stuck in hardrives that don't sound great unless transferred to phone. The Rag sounded fine with Andro except for the annoying ground loop hum I get when SE is used. Now that Rag is out for repair, I am tempted to hook it up to my old Vali1. I am not expecting great stuff as the impedance is 6 ohm out of that little monster!

 

I'd also like to read more about the line drive. I'm not grasping exactly what it does and what the benefits are.

Edit: a bit more research indicates that it's just line level buffer, which would allow you to take higher impedance input and convert it to a lower impedance output. I'm not sure what benefit it would have aside from allowing you to use an amp with a high impedance output.

 

I'm interested in the UE Line Drive, as well. I'd anticipate using it with the Torpedo III's low z output and super low impedance IEMs.

The Line Drive must offer something besides impedance matching cause @Chris F mentioned he didn't like the Andro with low OI amps like the Rag (.03 ohms OI).. but he did like it with the UE Line Out:

"I did NOT like it at all without a near zero output impedance. That peak now becomes a stabby ice pick. Did not like it straight out of iPhone 6. Did like it once I put the UE Line drive in place."

From what I understand though, doesn't the UE Line Drive have super low OI? Isn't this part of what made it such a good match with the IEMs like the UERM/UERR which practically demand low OI sources to sound their best?

 

You basically have it. The Line Drive is a buffer tailored for balanced armature IEMs that has (I assume) a very high input impedance and a near zero output impedance along with possibly some other secret sauce.

You might want to use it because the frequency response of many IEMs change quite a bit with OI. The Andromeda is the perfect poster child for this; to me it was a complete chameleon depending on what I plugged it into due to the impedance curve which drops down to 3Ohms.

 

One thing that continually impresses me about the ZX2-Andro combo is how good it makes poorly recorded tracks sound. I'm listening to tracks from the 30s-50s and the improvement in SQ is almost as big as for more recent recordings. I don't know how they manage to dig into details without over exposing the hiss.

 

It can also allow you to not use any amp at all. Most IEMs don't need amplification (gain) so the output of DAC should be enough. However, DAC likes high impedance load (not IEM for sure) and IEM like low output impedance (not output of DAC). So you can just plug the buffer directly to DAC and plug your IEM to the buffer and enjoy absence of distortion from amplification.

By the way, this doesn't mean UE Line Drive is perfect, it may not have voltage swing and output current capability of some amp. It just have unity gain, high input impedance, and low output impedance.

 

But in that scenario, there's no physical volume control. I suppose you could use a software volume control, but ugh.

 

Got my andros back from Campfire yesterday. They really turned them around and back out to me super fast, so high marks from me.

The sound is awesome. The highs are amazing. FR is pretty close to just right out of zx2. A touch dark, but pleasingly so. Only one downside, BA lack of weight/body (sometimes sounds "small"), though they almost manage to sidestep that, too. That sense even goes away with a bit of a bump in volume, but I always worry about turning up too high with IEMs.

Anyway, really incredible phones, super happy to have them. I'm curious to hear others (fidue a91, noble katana), but I expect I'm more than satisfied with these (until CA releases something even more outrageously good, if).

 

Do you experience any hiss with the ZX2+Andro combination?

 

Yeah I get some hiss that usually doesn't annoy me, but it does sometimes. I actually picked up the UE buffer jack to try out for this reason. I haven't tried it yet, though.