At the Japanese Autumn Headphone Festival last year, the fever audio brand Qingqian showed an in-ear earphone named Asteria A 1 based on the Campfire of ALO Audio at that time, but in the end, Asteria A 1 failed. Instead, it introduces Stella's newly designed in-ear headphones. At first glance, it seems to be somewhat similar to the previous Asteria A 1, but Stella has nothing to do with Asteria A 1 except the color, especially if you look at the design and structure carefully.
Stella's package is a huge black paper box. After opening, a galaxy photo taken by NASA's space telescope matches Stella's warranty card liner. There are blue earphone bodies, earplugs and soft leather storage bags in the paper box, as well as two groups of 3.5mm single-ended and 2.5mm quadrupole balanced wires. Stella's blue is also the blue carefully selected by Larry Ho and his team. It is the same dark metallic blue as the blue of German luxury RV, echoing Stella's starry night goddess.
The reasons for the failure of Asteria A 1 in cooperation between the two parties are quite complicated. However, Stella's appearance was originally planned by the light harmonic, even before it came into contact with the campfire. Although the structural design is a mixed structure of ear winding and hoop iron, the design concept is completely different, and the unique appearance is one of the essence of Stella.
Stella has a unique hexagonal appearance, not only for modeling design, but because of the patented HBCC cavity structure design. HBCC adopts the most elastic and stable hexagonal structure in nature, and the cavity made of aluminum, copper and magnesium produced in California, USA, allows the moving coil monomer to reflect naturally in it, which can greatly reduce the redundant cavity vibration compared with the traditional circular shape, claiming to make the sound of the moving coil monomer more natural and delicate.
In addition, in order to make the moving coil and the balanced armature with different characteristics blend naturally, the moving coil of 9mm beryllium diaphragm with a thickness of 3.5um was selected, combined with the double balanced armature, and combined with the two key technologies developed by the light harmonic: zero phase error frequency divider, ESSD translucent dual-tone cavity technology, supplemented by CAAD front acoustic nozzle (that is, shiny conduit) with copper alloy metal damping.
Frequency division technology has always been a considerable knowledge for multi-unit headphones, because in-ear headphones do not have as much space as speakers to configure, and how to make a reasonable frequency division circuit is the key to affect the sound, especially the ring-iron hybrid headphones with different tonality are more likely to produce a sense of disharmony between different sounds because of frequency division. The optical harmonic adopts frequency division circuit composed of Vishay MMCU high precision resistor of the United States and Japanese precision capacitor materials.
In addition, unlike the common ring-iron hybrid headphones, which usually use independent sound pipes for the balance armature and the moving coil, Stella naturally fuses the sound from the balance armature and the moving coil by using the patented ESDD semi-mixed dual-cavity diffusion structure, and at the same time, with its special frequency division method, Stella's sound will not have the disharmony of traditional ring-iron hybrid headphones; At the same time, by using the catheter of CAAD copper alloy technology, the unique frequency puncture feeling of armature high frequency is eliminated, and the sound is harmonious and natural.
Because the author's player is Sony system, a manual cable based on Oyade102SSC is used in the 4.4mm balance wheel, and only one end is equipped with Stella original wire. Stella's original wire rod is oxygen-free copper wire of Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd., and the terminals and distributors are treated with Stella color and blue hexagon of HBCC technology. Although the terminal part is MMCX, it adopts customized components, which has stronger friction and is more difficult to rotate than the general terminal.
In addition, it should be noted that although Stella comes with a set of sponge and a set of silicone earplugs, which are distinguished by red and gray, there is no more suitable silicone earplugs at present because Stella uses a larger catheter diameter than ordinary in-ear headphones for ESDD and CAAD technologies. The original factory said that the silicone earplugs were originally developed for sports headphones, and the front opening is very small, which is not the sound appearance that light harmony wants to present. It is recommended to wear a sponge.
Stella's wearing is a standard wrap-around design, but because the catheter is larger than ordinary in-ear headphones, it may be difficult for users with small ear holes to wear it. If ordinary in-ear headphones are a little difficult to use even with S-code earplugs, it is recommended to ask if there is a place to try them on first. Secondly, the angle of the wire terminal is slightly special, so it needs to be tried several times for the first time, and there will be no interference when the terminal is tilted about 45 degrees.
When listening with the original factory's standard ancient river OFC single-ended line, the overall sound is moist and full, and the position of the human voice recedes slightly, so the overall sound will not feel aggressive. The low-frequency sound is quite good, rich without oppression, and the high-frequency performance is slightly overshadowed by the low frequency, but you can still feel a good sense of extension, but the most important thing is that Stella's hoop iron can hardly hear interference, and the natural integration of hoop iron sound is Stella's key feature.
By replacing the 4-core balance wire based on Oyade 102 SSC, we can feel that the wire characteristics are quite obvious to Stella, and the moist feeling in the middle frequency becomes a relatively straightforward sound, but the style in the low frequency becomes stronger and slightly domineering, but the high frequency becomes more prominent and the sound stage becomes broader. But because the ZX300 single-ended and balanced sound is not * *.
However, I have to praise Stella for her high working efficiency and anti-noise ability. In the past, these two qualities have been sawed to some extent. Headphones with high sensitivity and easy driving are often easily disturbed by noise, while headphones that are not easy to reflect noise are not easy to be driven by portable devices. At least using a mobile phone or a single-ended part of the ZX300 can easily achieve the appropriate listening volume. The single-ended output of ZX300 is around 20, and Stella's volume is quite high.
However, sound insulation will be where the author criticizes Stella. Even though the sponge earplugs have been used, Stella is easily disturbed by the chat of colleagues nearby in the author's working environment. Only Sony MDR-EX 1000 with original earplugs has sound insulation effect, which will be awkward for users with noisy listening environment.
In addition, although the original wiring performance is not bad, players who want to explore the potential of headphones can try to change and liberate the details by matching different wiring in various ways. The wet characteristics of precursor will make the low frequency feel too much, the high frequency performance is not good, and the detail performance is easily covered by coarse sound. However, this is the original style after all, and it is also possible to find more detailed silk based on the sound trend of the precursor.
Stella's overall performance has indeed reached the level of flagship in-ear headphones in recent years, but the pricing part is still high-priced boutique-oriented. The price offered by China is about NT$ 45,000, but on the one hand, it is also because Stella is positioned as a brand of light harmonic fever, and its accessories and packaging are also very textured and understandable.
However, the original audio products cannot be quantified. I've also heard that the unit price of headphones is much higher than Stella's, but the sound performance is not even as good as that of Westone UM50. But because of the tuning characteristics, there are still many die-hard supporters. After all, high-priced headphones or stereos cannot be treated rationally. Everything depends on whether consumers are willing to pay such a price for Stella's voice.
According to LightHarmony, Stella is just the beginning of their earphone project. For Larry Ho, Stella has not reached the acme in his mind. In the future, there will be a more comprehensive super flagship in-ear earphone than Stella, and a new portable DAC product will be born. This will be the third generation product of Geek Out, but it will have a brand new name due to the brand reorganization plan.