Moondrop Aria High Performance LCP Diaphragm Dynamic Driver IEMs in-Ear Earphone

These earphones are unmatched for value for money. Whilst the BLON-03 may dominate the below £40 pricepoint, I think the Aria are the best below £100.Sound:The soundstage is wider and more pleasing than the Starfields. The resolution and transients more impressive, resulting in a more pleasing and tight sound, especially for EDM music. The Aria is warmer in tonality with slightly steeper boost in the sub (30-50hz) region. The high-mids are less shouty than the Starfields / more laid back (approximately 2-6khz region) and has a better extension of terble (although for me and my unit, this is a negative. The 15khz+ region is more prominent than the Starfields and may even peak a little for my unit, resulting in a siblance a little too much for my liking, which I EQ out slightly. But I take the overall sound signature of the Aria over the Starfields anyday.Fit:The Aria is smaller than the Starfield by a small but noticeable amount, also with a less protruding shape as the top surface is flat. The Aria fit slightly more naturally in my ears.Accesories:The cable is ... diffrent. They went for a shoe-lace like outter cable for the Aria. I find it folds and loops on itself very readily and esily gets knotted when stored in a case or pocket. This is unideal but then again, no stock cable tends to be great quality and all cables knot to some degree. I bought myself a replacement 16 core cable, as I did with the Starfields when I first got them.Personal reccomendation: Get foam tips like Comply or (for me) i get InAirs as they are cheaper. the fit of the tips are simply better and fit to your earshape, sound isolation is better and the foam tips work nicely with the Aria or Starfield to warm the sound just that little bit more and to make the treble seem a little less sharp and more resolving. Get a size down than your silicone tip size for foam tips though.

I have several IEM'S and these are the best. The only other Moondrop ones I own are the SSP's and these have a better sound. The instructions say to burn them in for 100 hours to get the best sound. I have about 26 hours playtime so far and haven't noticed any difference, they were good out of the box.I use them mainly with Amazon music HD and a variety of FLAC files stored on my POCO X3 phone. I connect them via the USB C port using a small DAC which allows me to play all of the Ultra HD tracks at full resolution.I feel the combination extracts the best quality possible from my cheap phone. A wide sound stage, good bass (as I like it anyway) mids are clear and high frequencies are just crisp without being shrill.Build quality is very good and they are comfortable to wear for long periods. A good selection of tips is provided and even replacement filters and tweezers. A good quality box is also provided for storage and transport.I'm not keen on the cable as it does get twisted up easily. Overall this is an excellent set of IEM'S for the money and compares favourably to earphones I have costing over 5x as much. If you are able to listen with the inconvenience of a cable and without Bluetooth then soundwise they are considerably better than my Sennheiser momentum 2's.

Sound evaluated using the Fiio M11 Plus LTD over multiple monthsSound: They are quite detailed, and surprisingly wide sounding.They seem to aim for the Harman target, meaning they have decently balanced sound, however there is an emphasis in the bass, creating a warm, rumbly sound with a slight dip in the 1k-2k range in the highs, which isn't the most technically correct but it's likely to be fairly pleasing to most people.They are fairly well detailed and I haven't had them distort at the audio levels I listened to,Build: Honestly, they are not good, at least my ones aren't. As shown in the image, the paint finish was bubbly and uneven and flaked off, and the edges of the outer facing side of the IEMs wore off.The cable was frankly poor, the more rigid part that wraps around your ears didn't hold its shape and I lost audio in my right ear a couple months into use and now I use an aftermarket cable which is a major improvement.Comfort: They fit me well, personally. Though the original cable did not hold them in my ears as securely as an aftermarket, after a while it got so warped that it actively pulled my right one away from my ears.Misc: Very easy to drive, as are most IEMs, for the average person I'd recommend just driving them out of your phone as you won't get a massive difference using a dedicated DAC with them unless you have a truly awful phone output.I recommend using foam tips, I enjoyed the Klim tips on these, though they do break down and disintegrate with use.Conclusion:Audiophiles, look at the frequency response graphs, if it seems fine to you then sure, buy them. They are a good cheaper alternative to something like the Starfields though they do get outperformed by significantly more expensive IEMs such as the Blessing 2s or the Sennheiser IE600.For the rest, they sound great, almost certainly better than whatever you're using now unless you somehow have excellent sounding earbuds without being an audiophile. Though the finish and cable sucks.They are probably the best sounding IEMs at this price range, even factoring in the cost of Cable and Tips, the next significant step up is probably something like the Moondrop Blessing 2 which is about triple the cost.They are let down by the cables and finish, though once the cable is replaced the only negatives are cosmetic.