Bonjour mes amis !

I won't list the specs, just go and take a look at the product page on Penon Audio.

This post is a follow up to my unboxing.

Disclaimer(s) :

• Basshead.
• Treble sensitive bearded princess.
• Mid bass supremacy, slam all day.
• Metal head.
• Used to long listening sessions.
• Warm signatures for the win.
• While I did pay for this IEM, I was offered a VIP early bird deal by Penon Audio. This was appreciated, but did not skew my review at all.
• English is not my first language.
• W shape is the right shape.
• I tend to have a "stream of thoughts" approach while reviewing, hence the seemingly random IEMs used in A/B testing, and the haphazard gaming analysis. My bad.
• Did I mention  ... bass ?
• Take all reviews -and especially this one- with the biggest grain of salt possible, we all got different ears and different sensibilities.

Other infos :

Sources :

• M21 (FLAC) and Android phone (Tidal) used to test digital music.
• Wavelet used for EQ in both cases.
• AT-LP3XBT turntable + Fosi box x5 + FiiO K7 for analog music.
• I reviewed the "Gaming" version, not the audiophile one (cf. my unboxing)
• PS portal and Steam Deck for gaming.

Accessories used :

• Tips : Azla Origin for the first a/b testing, but I ended up switching to tang sancai noble brass edition. The Onyx finally "made sense" to me with those.
• Cable : Tripowin Noire (4.4 for a/b listening to avoid volume bias, 3.5 otherwise).
• DAC / adapters : There is an Ab13x usb audio chip in the adapter (not on the product page, so FYI). I avoided using my Moondrop Dawn Pro 2 / Echo B while listening to music on my phone, and plugged the Onyx on the adapter you get in the "Gaming" package.

Impressions :

• I had to tip roll A LOT (10+ tips tried before I had a 'pleasant' experience). I'm an eartip diva, but that took a bit more testing and finagling than what I'm used to.
• They respond to EQ surprisingly well.
• They're easy enough to drive, I had no problem with the sources I used.
• The high frequencies are handled by a dedicated DD, which was new for me. More on that down the line.
• The overall sound is a little bit "dry" to my hears without EQ (so a perfect tone for you non-bass-loving muggles, I suppose).
• The signature in a few words, a "TLDR before the actual review" if you will : Gentle U shaped. Not fatiguing for treble sensitive persons, and with a slight bass boost, but nothing too boomy.

On to the meat of the analysis.

Frequencies :

Bass : With the graph on the product page, I definitely expected a warmer sound with a bass floor that high (it wasn't), and I was a bit worried about a bass bleed into the mids (there wasn't). Even if I was wrong on both accounts, bass quality is here. Lacking on the quantity for my taste, but well defined. Decay is on point for me on really busy tracks, and I'm not (too much) frustrated on the mid bass. An honest 3.5 out of 5 on the Davie504 scale.

Mids : From what I listened to, the mids aren't that recessed, nor are they overshadowed by the lower treble (it does make sense looking at the graph here, the pinna gain is not that steep). But, let's be clear, this is not a vocal forward iem. I can feel it struggling on rendering female voices in an organic way. Pushing the 800 to 1200hz frequencies a bit with a parametric EQ (making it ever so slightly W shaped) helped a lot on that front. Same analysis on saturated guitars, I had to EQ a bit to make them “pop” in the mix.

Trebles : Judging trebles is hard for me. But in a few words : good presentation, and again, "non fatiguing". I'll copy paste the first impressions I wrote under my unboxing post : "On the trebles though, I'm kind of stumped. I'm a treble sensitive person. I usually EQ the hell out of that kind of treble gain to avoid discomfort, pain, or even plain headache after listening for a while. Not here. I can feel that those are frequencies I usually do not listen to at that volume, but it doesn't bother me as much."

Other sound stuff :

Soundstage : average / medium-sized. Satisfiying for my kind of music. I honestly thought that gaming IEMs needed to have the widest possible soundstage, but it was probably a misconception on my part.

Resolution (detail retrieval, transient response) : the instrument separation is good, very good even, especially at this price point. Good transient response too, nice decay from what I could hear. I tend to really push my IEMs on this (Wintersun, Ne Obliviscaris...), and the Onyx honestly surprised me.

A/B testing :

Aful Performer 5+2 : First time using those without EQ in a good long while. God those trebles are shouty. I felt that the overall technical presentation of the p5+2 was slightly better, and the soundstage a tad wider. Once both were EQ-ed to my taste, it's a coin toss though. The P7 is a really good set, but out of the box, for me, Onyx all day.

Kefine Klean : I wanted to throw a "neutral" IEM in the mix. These ones are, admittedly, good at everything, but "master of none". The one takeaway I had from this comparison is that the Onyx's mids can lack some forwardness. Again, it is to be expected from the graph / sound signature, but swtiching from one to the other really emphasized this. After all is said and done though, sorry, neutral is way too vanilla for me. I don't do kink-less, I do thick. And, to me, the Onyx is curvy enough, at least compared to this one.

TSMR X (my actual daily / favorite IEM) : this is not a fair fight. To me, the X wins in every category without EQ. Once EQ-ed, since I can get a proper mid bass presence on the Onyx, and that I -for once- do not have to completely castrate the trebles, things start to get interesting. The Onyx still lags behind in the mids section, and the bass on the X are on another level altogether, but for a third of the price (the X being in a forever-discount for some weird reason), you definitely do not get a third of the experience. So, the X wins, hands down. But the Onyx, once EQ-ed, did not get ridiculed.

TSMR Armor : Heresy. I won't.

Artti T10 : Since I was so pleasantly surprised with their transient response, I wanted to put them in front of a planar. Because why the F not.
While it was a good idea on paper (or so I thought), the analytical side and faster-er transient response of a planar IEM were too drastic of a difference. A U shaped DD IEM is too warm, and too “colored” to really A/B with the T10. I do stand by my first impression though, the Onyx definitely has a more-than-average resolution for these kind of drivers, in this price bracket.

CVJ Night Elf : I had no real pair with a dedicated DD handling the high frequencies (apart from some really cheap single DDs), so I ordered this one to help me better understand the "feel" I initially got on the Onyx regarding the trebles.
<A week later>
I had a very busy week, and could not fit a single listening session for several days, so I fired up my M21 with the Night Elf and immediately tried a very “aggressive” track, treble-wise (Anamanaguchi - Endless Fantasy). It took me a minute or two, but the initial uneasiness I had faded away before the track was over. I listened to a few more songs to gauge the bass, mids, speed, soundstage (very good soundstage compared to the Vivian !), and left quite satisfied with the IEM itself. It does seem like dedicated DDs for higher frequencies sound better to me (or more palatable at least). On to the Onyx.
I re-discovered their sound with ‘rested’ ears, and … this is a very good IEM. The texture, the details... This is the definition, to me, of an easy-to-listen and easy-to-enjoy earphone. A 30 bucks vs 130 bucks A/B comparison was -again- unfair, but I think it solidified my overall impressions on the Onyx.

Gaming (Imaging):

To use a French idiom, I felt "like a chicken with a knife" doing this (ie. having no F-ing clue about what I was doing). So I went with what I knew :

• Metal (Doom the Dark Ages)
• Frenchness & busy tracks (Expedition 33).
• … GRIME 2 IS OUT ? LET'S GOOOO !

GRIME 2 :
The ambient music fits perfectly with the overall tonality of the Onyx. The different sound effects have a lot of “weight”, be it attacking enemies, getting hit, or melding into the save points. The audio positioning is really well done, and well transcribed.  It makes for a really good experience. I 100% recommend IEMs for this game !

Expedition 33 :
The title screen track is beautifully rendered. The battle tracks hit just right. I would have loved a bit more slam on the battle's hit sound effects, but a lot of care has been put on the sound design balance, and I can respect that. The spatial rendering of the sounds while exploring is on point. I wonder if a good closed back headphone wouldn't be better here though, as some micro details seem lost in the mix sometimes (music + voices + sound effects …).

Doom :
Metal, explosions everywhere. Fun, but not exactly useful for a review. I cut the experience short because I had an idea :

Dead Space (remake) :
Well. That was fun.The bips of the machines, the random noises, the voices position during dialogs, the hull creaking, the scratches against the floor and walls, this is an immersive experience alright. Very “balanced”, nothing stood out too much., I forgot I had earphones after a while, I was just “in” the game. I guess that's the main goal of these kinds of earphones, so it's clearly a win on imaging quality here.

#Bonus tests

Since I figured the best test(s) for spatial audio would be … dedicated spatial audio tests, I tried :

• The virtual barbershop : Impressive results. Sligthly more precise (to my hears) than a pair of Simgot EW300 that I wipped out to A/B the video.
• Valorant Directional Footstep sounds : the left / right perception is on point. The distance imaging seems accurate too. The depth perception though, (further in front, or further back), I seem to have trouble with. 
• Various DTS / THX test files : I tried a few without any valuable notes or takeaway on my part, except for “I do hear stuff around me”

Final thoughts :

This is a weird, quite unique set from my experience. I honestly grew to like it a lot during this review.

I did not get this set to listen to music, I got this set to play on my PS Portal and my Steam Deck, and it does seem like a good gaming set, with good imaging.

But...

...for some listening sessions, I actually forgot that I had a non-EQed, non-basshead set blasting some In Flames, some Landmvrks or some Architects in my ears. I just enjoyed the music, I got accustomed to the signature. This has to be the magic of the 6mm DD driver used for high frequencies, since this is something that had never happened to me before. I always had to tone down anything that came over 4khz if I listened to music for more than 15 minutes.

So these will definitely be my everyday gaming IEMs, and I'll probably use them to cleanse my 50-80hz obsessed palate from time to time.

Overall conclusion: I do not have a lot of gear in the 100-150 range, but, from my limited experience in this bracket, this is an easy recommendation from me.

Thank you for reading this far ! Merci les amis ;p

I'm obviously open to any suggestion, correction, adjustement or question(s) that you might have, fire away <3

PS : someone who read my review in advance asked for my switches configuration on the X, and it is (unsurprisingly) 1-2-0. Since this is my prefered sound, I saw no reason to use a 0-0-0 or 1-2-3 configuration.

PPS : if it was not obvious enough, the first picture is obviously a perfectly staged picture, and not at all an AI meme I struggled for an hour to get right. Who would waste time to do something this dumb ? (I'll remove it if it goes against rule #8, no problem)