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

How do you do that? I can't seem to associate my order with the account I just created.

 

If you created the account while making the order, it should just show up upon logging into that account.

If you created an account afterwards, I'd imagine you cannot associate the order as a user. Try calling them.

 

I've been agonizing over reviews for the past few days, trying to filter through the absurd amount of noise at headfi, and I was very happy to find this site yesterday. I have a Mojo and some long-in-the-tooth Earsonic SM3's that I am looking to upgrade; I'm down to two choices, the UERR and the Andromeda. I can't audition either so I would appreciate any input from the users here who have heard both.

I'll try to summarize my audio preferences to give you a baseline for which might be the better option. What I'm looking for is first and foremost is clarity and dynamics, bass should be tight and articulate (I'd rather have control than deep extension) and the mids should be liquid. $1k is about my budget, and I just got my ears scanned at an eFit event so going custom vs. universal doesn't much matter.

Any suggestions or advice would be incredibly appreciated.

gary

 

I think you should be looking at the UERM instead of the UERR, though it can be daunting to find one on the aftermarket. There was just one put up for sale on HF last night but unfortunately the owner seems to be delusional as to the resale value of customs.

 

Welcome gary,

You can introduce yourself here:

http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/new-members-introduce-yourself.17/

Also, if you need advice on gear, you can post in this thread here:

http://www.superbestaudiofriends.or...dget-among-headphones-amps-and-dac-source.57/

and here at the Advice Thread:

http://www.superbestaudiofriends.or...l-purpose-advice-thread.19/page-73#post-54968

 

One person at HF is saying that ALO told him they are redesigning the shells for the Andromeda. I am extremely dubious of this for many reasons. Has anyone here heard the same?

 

i emailed them with a question and what i heard back was that they're doing some minor design tweaks with production. that could mean a lot of things, and not necessarily changing the shells at all. i doubt they would make any significant changes to the final product itself at this point.

 

Exaggeration on head-fi? Not possible.

 

I can't stress enough how good the treble on the Andromeda is, and this allows for a more accurate and natural midrange — without a doubt the best midrange I've heard to date, aided, of course, by a pretty impressive low-end with a great balance between low, mid and upper bass/lower mids.

This truly is the first time I've heard Robert Fripp's NY3 rendered so accurately through a pair of earphones/headphones.

 

I spoke to them on the phone the other day to get a feel on the wait time, and IIRC, they attributed the long wait times to (1) waiting on new types of screws (2) painting process had weird hiccups for andromeda's color and (3) smoothing out edges a bit more due to feedback about sharpness. It's less of a re-design, and more so small adjustments.

 

Pretty cool that they're so responsive to feedback. Hopefully it won't affect the sound!

 

I've been listening to the Andromeda and as initial impressions go, it's quite positive. I like it better than the Jupiters (which were very good as well), with the Andros being cleaner, less warm in the lower mids.

I like the overall balance, love the detail and clarity, pretty good timbre and coherence for an armature iem, too. Subbass extension is passable, could be a little better for use during commute, but I like that the midbass isn't overly boosted in realtion to the subbass. The treble extends well for me, up to and past 16k, which is just peachy. There is a hint of sibilance and harshness, not bad at all but it's there. I'm only noting what I'm hearing in the first 10 hours in case someone is sensitive to treble.

These are very sensitive iems, as noted! With my apex glacier I do get a slightly fuller sound with more bass (welcome) than my ipod, but both are fine and lower on the volume scale. And there's some hiss, I should note.

The housing can be a little sharp, so I'm glad that it's being smoothed. Also, the paint is just beginning to wear away.

Overall, these are really top-tier, glad to hear them.

 

Can you review more the differences you've noticed between the jupiter and andromeda?
I picked up the jupiters to try while waiting for the andromedas, with the intention of possibly keeping them if I had liked them a lot.

Unfortunately, I'm not terribly blown away; especially considering their price (for reference, my main cans and IEMs are the hd800 and the fx850).
The resolution, tonal balance, and build quality are really great (though mids and vocals seem a bit recessed); but I was hoping for a bit more 'emotion'/dynamics*, a wider sound-stage, and more airiness (i.e., something that I could take to work instead of wanting to lug my hd800 around).

Do the andromedas offer this? Or am I setting myself up for disappointment?

*(not sure if right word, but lively yet appropriate physical sensation when a note is played/sung or a drum is hit)

Edit: After a few days of burn-in the Jupiter sounds significantly more impressive. The dynamics, attack, staging, and brightness really opened up a lot. It now sounds like its worth its price tag. But still, after reading all the reviews of the andromeda doing all of this better + more mids, I'll likely still return and continue waiting for the Andro.

 

I enquired with Campfire audio regarding shell amendments. The response is:

"We are still a couple of weeks out from rolling out the change. It is fairly minor from the outside, but gives us more interior room to work inside the shell.

If we have not shipped your earphones already, you will receive a revised shell Andromeda when it ships."

Hopefully the altered interior design doesn't change the sound signature.

 

I can tell you that one of my test tracks is with a lot of instruments and a woman who has a slightly deeper female vocal range. I use it for a number of things, but one is how well the iem brings out her voice. The andro didn't bring her voice out in the mix. Not that it was recessed, and everything is clear, but it may not what you want if you are looking for more vocal boost.

The andro does very well with male and female voices, don't get me wrong.

I think the lack of a thicker lower mid helps the upper mids and treble come out with more emotion than the Jupiter. I mean, the Andro has an additional treble driver as well, airness should be fine.

I don't have a definitive answer, but a few other people have heard both, so you'll get a few takes. I can't promise you'll be blown away by any iem, but most of us here who have heard both seem to like the Andro more by a fair amount.

The andro does hiss out of my glacier a bit, though.

Honestly, for a few of the folks in this thread looking for a warm mid with good treble air, I would recommend the RE-00, as odd as that may sound. Based on the Re-zero, it should give you what you want and for a crazy low price. Enjoy that until something else high-end comes along with the sound sig you want.

 

Interesting! Would you mind sharing the EQ settings you used to match Jupiter to Andromeda?

Right now, I'm trying - which seems to correct the weird 'fishbowl' sound from some songs:
Channel: all
Preamp: -6.5 dB
Filter 1: ON PK Fc 10 Hz Gain 1.5 dB Q 1.41
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 21 Hz Gain 3 dB Q 1.41
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 42 Hz Gain 6.5 dB Q 1.41
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 83 Hz Gain 5 dB Q 1.41
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 110 Hz Gain 1 dB Q 1.41
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 250 Hz Gain -1.5 dB Q 1.41
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 577 Hz Gain -1 dB Q 1.64
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 1000 Hz Gain 2.5 dB Q 1.41
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 2000 Hz Gain 5.5 dB Q 1.41
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 4000 Hz Gain 6.5 dB Q 1.41
Filter 11: ON PK Fc 8000 Hz Gain 4.5 dB Q 1.41
Filter 12: ON PK Fc 16000 Hz Gain 2 dB Q 1.41
Filter 13: ON PK Fc 20000 Hz Gain 0.5 dB Q 2.99

Edit: After a few more days of burn in, the above 'fishbowl' sound has gone away. It was particularly bad with TV (e.g., new season of OITNB required EQ for the first couple of days). Now it sounds much better and has no more issues that require EQ to mitigate.

 

Cough, cough...

I'm sure some new toy syndrome is still at work, but Onkyo DP-X1 is a good match with Andromeda. Significant improvement over AK100ii.

- Better tonality
- Significantly less bassy - no abuse of the speed and punchiness of BAs. Which results in a less warm signature, and an immediate improvement in layering, soundstage correctness (in depth in particular), and finer macro-detail retrieval.
- Undeniably better resolution. I'm again hearing shit I've only had minor experience with.
- To exaggerate, the overall presentation reminds me of Gungnir Multibit-Mj2-HD800S - just a gut feel sort of thing.
- Sabre-ness is kinda like GOV2 - still hints, but overall very un-sabre.

 

According to CA they're just waiting on new screws to finish assembling and ship out the new Andromedas. They should be in in the next week or two.

 

Anything in particular you recommend for those who are looking for a vocal boost? I currently have the Orion and my favorite thing about it is the resolution and relative forwardness of the vocal region, wouldn't want to lose that in an upgrade.