For Light Harmonic, the audiophile audio brand founded by Larry Ho, many people’s first impression should be the unique audiophile-grade DAC "Davinci DAC". However, Light Harmonic turned out to be Launched Stella, a mid-to-high unit price in-ear headphone, inspired by Van Gogh's famous painting Starry Night, aiming to create high-end in-ear headphones with low background noise, good three-band extension and rich details. This time, we also obtained this model based on the Starry Night goddess. Auditioned for the name Stella.
At the Japan Autumn Headphone Festival last year, audiophile audio brand Light Harmonic teamed up with Campfire, a subsidiary of ALO Audio, to showcase a Dorado-based in-ear headphone called Asteria A1. However, in the end, Asteria A1 was discontinued and replaced by This Stella's newly designed in-ear headphones may seem somewhat similar to the previous Asteria A1 at first glance, but Stella actually has nothing to do with the Asteria A1 except for the color, especially if you look closely at the design and structure.
Stella's packaging is a large black paper box. When opened, it contains a Milky Way photo taken by NASA's space telescope with Stella's warranty card backing, blue headphone body, earplugs and soft leather storage bag. , two sets of wires, 3.5mm single-ended and 2.5mm four-pole balanced, are lying in the carton. The blue color of Stella is also the blue carefully selected by Larry Ho and the team. This is the same as a certain German high-end touring car. The blue color is the same dark metallic blue, which also echoes the starry sky image of Stella, the goddess of the starry night.
There are quite complex reasons why the Asteria A1 that the two parties cooperated with finally broke down, but the appearance of Stella was originally in Light Harmonic's planning was even earlier than contacting Campfire. Although the structural design is a hybrid structure of ear loops 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. This is not just for styling, but due to the patented HBCC cavity structure design. HBCC has the most elastic and stable hexagonal structure in nature, matching the California, USA The aluminum-copper-magnesium hybrid material is CNC-processed in the cavity, so that the moving coil unit can be naturally reflected in it. Compared with the traditional round shape, it can significantly reduce the unnecessary vibration of the cavity. It is said to make the sound of the moving coil unit better. More natural and delicate.
In addition, in order to naturally integrate the two monomers with different characteristics of the dynamic coil and the balanced armature, Light Harmonic chose to use a 9mm beryllium diaphragm dynamic monomer with a thickness of 3.5um. body, combined with a double balanced armature, and two key technologies developed by Light Harmonic: zero phase error crossover, ESSD semi-transparent dual tone cavity technology, supplemented by a copper alloy metal damped CAAD front mouthpiece (i.e. Shiny tube).
Frequency division technology has always been a considerable knowledge for multi-unit headphones, because in-ear headphones do not have as much space to configure as speakers. How to make a reasonable frequency division line affects the sound. The key, especially the hoop iron hybrid headphones with completely different tonality, is more likely to produce a sense of disharmony between different sounds due to frequency division. Light Harmonic uses American Vishay MMCU high-precision resistors, Japanese precision capacitor materials, etc. to form an ultra-low phase The error constitutes the frequency division line.
In addition, unlike common coil-iron hybrid headphones, which usually use separate sound conduits for the balanced armature and dynamic driver, Stella uses a patented ESDD semi-hybrid dual-chamber diffusion structure to combine the balanced armature and the dynamic driver. The natural fusion with the sound produced by the dynamic coil, and its special frequency division method, make Stella's sound without the incongruous feeling of traditional coil-iron hybrid headphones; at the same time, the balance is eliminated through the tube with CAAD copper alloy technology The specific frequency piercing feeling of the armature high frequency makes the sound harmonious and natural.
Since the author’s player is a Sony system, this time I used a handmade cable based on the Oyaide 102SSC cable body for the 4.4mm balance. Only the single-ended part is matched with Stella’s original cable; Stella’s original The factory wire is oxygen-free copper wire body from Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. The terminals and splitters have blue hexagonal treatment with Stella color and HBCC technology. Although the terminal part is MMCX, it uses customized components, which has stronger friction and is less likely to rotate than ordinary terminals after connection.
It should also be noted that although Stella comes with a set of sponges and a set of silicone earplugs, and the left and right are distinguished by red and gray, due to the ESDD and CAAD technology, Stella uses more general in-ear headphones. There is currently no more suitable silicone earplugs for the larger tube diameter. According to the original manufacturer, the silicone earplugs used this time were originally developed by SpinFit for sports headphones. The front opening is small and is not the sound that Light Harmonic intends to present. Appearance, it is recommended to use it with sponge earplugs.
Stella has a standard around-the-ear design, but because the tube is larger than regular in-ear headphones, users with smaller ear holes may not be able to wear it easily. In-ear headphones are a bit difficult to match with size S earplugs. It is recommended to ask if there is a place where you can try them on. Secondly, the angle of the wire terminals is slightly special. You need to try a few times for the first time. The terminals are at an angle of about 45 degrees. There will be no sense of interference.
When listening with the original standard Furukawa OFC single-ended cable, the overall sound is relatively warm and full, and the position of the vocals is slightly retreated. The overall sound does not have an overbearing feeling, and the low-frequency envelopment is quite good. It is rich but not oppressive. 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 there is almost no interference between the Stella coil and the iron. The natural fusion of the sounds of the coil and the iron is Stella’s key features.
Replacing the 4-core balanced cable based on Oyaide 102SSC, you can feel that the characteristics of the cable are quite obvious for Stella. The warm and moist feeling of the mid-range has become a more straightforward sound, and it is not as rich as the original sound. Neutral characteristics, and the low-frequency style becomes stronger as a result, turning into a slightly aggressive sound. However, the high-frequency becomes more prominent and the sound field becomes wider. However, since the ZX300 is not single-ended and balanced, Without using the architecture, there is no guarantee that it is simply the influence of wires or balanced lines.
However, Stella has to be praised for its high work efficiency and anti-noise ability. In the past, these two characteristics have been at odds with each other to a certain extent. Headphones with high sensitivity and easy to drive are often easily disturbed by the background noise. Headphones that do not easily reflect the noise floor are not easily driven by portable devices. At least using a mobile phone or the single-ended part of the ZX300 can easily achieve a suitable listening volume. The single-ended output of the ZX300 is around 20, and the volume of the Stella is about the same. big.
However, the sound insulation is what I criticize most about Stella. Even if I have used sponge earplugs, Stella is still easily disturbed by the chatter of nearby colleagues in my working environment. Probably only Sony MDR-EX1000 with the original The sound isolation effect on the left and right sides of the factory earplugs may be a bit embarrassing for users with noisy listening environments.
In addition, although the performance of the original wiring is not bad, for players who want to explore the potential of the headset itself, they can also use different wires to try changes and release detailed performance. The original wiring tends to be warm and moist. This will result in too much low-frequency volume, poor high-frequency expression, and the ability to express details is easily overshadowed by thicker sounds. But after all, this is the original tuning style, and the sound direction of the original line can also be used as a benchmark. Cables with more detailed information.
The overall performance of Stella has indeed reached the level expected of recent flagship in-ear headphones, but the pricing is still high-priced and high-quality. The price offered in China is about NT$45,000. But on the one hand It is also because Stella is positioned as a Light Harmonic fever brand, and the accessories and packaging are also full of quality, so we can understand the reason for such a price.
However, audio products cannot be quantified in the first place. The author has also heard headphones whose unit price is much higher than Stella, but whose sound performance is not even as good as Westone UM50. However, there are still many die-hard supporters because of the tuning characteristics. After all, high-priced headphones or speakers cannot be viewed rationally. It all depends on whether consumers are willing to pay such a price for Stella's sound.
According to Light Harmonic, Stella is just the beginning of their headphone project. For Larry Ho, Stella has not yet reached the ultimate in his mind. In the future, there will be more comprehensive super headphones than Stella. flagship in-ear headphones, and a new portable DAC product will also be born. In terms of generations, it will be the third generation of Geek Out products, but due to the brand reorganization plan, there will be a new name.