Low-Range: Tactile and Lush Bass. Lush.
Raven has a vibrant, well-balanced W-shaped sound signature that poses an all-rounder characteristic. The bass control and extension are near perfection. Raven dives deep to the ultra-lows with clean clarity and resolution, well bringing out bass rumbles and vibrations. Reverbs make their pleasant decay but without deterring from Raven maintaining its clarity.
Reverbs are pronounced yet decay with agility, nog lingering too long to make the low-end atmosphere muddy or dragging the tempo. The bass quantity is just similar to those with slightly v-shaped IEMs, not quite strong enough to call it a basshead IEM but far more elevated from being flat. It’s an adequate bass quantity that general crowds would be satisfied with.
What I particularly love from Raven’s bass response is how clearly it pronounces the bass lines and grooves cleanly without bloating the sub-bass. The bass shows good meatiness and is full in body, and this confident and thick bass dynamics is finely controlled to keep its position on the lower point of the headroom, preventing the bass from intruding on the mid-range. Can’t miss out on mentioning the lush bass texture – it’s lush, and smooth, and has a specific bass tone that is neutral but also carries weight and density, giving that “expensive speaker-like” tone for the low range.
Mid-Range: Reference-like vocals but also dynamic?!
Raven has a mastery of providing a mid-range that is reference and full-bodied at the same time. The vocals are agile and evenly distributed, with superb texture details. Normally when I refer to an IEM having a “reference sound signature” (like the Astel&Kern Zero 2), reference-type sounds may be highly resolving in vocal transparency and show vast, evenly-spread vocals but usually trade-off the mid-range fullness.
Raven is a rare find that achieves both properties – being reference and musical. By being neutral, I mean neutral and transparent timbre, resolution-demanding nature, and evenly vast vocals. Yet for the musical aspect, Raven is carefully tuned to have enough warmth for the vocals to prevent fatigue, as well as the butter-smooth texture while penetrating with great resolution.
Vocals are thick and full-bodied, yet also able to bring out refined female voices accompanied with creamy, melodic layerings. A stable, consistent mid-range presentation (in both texture and tone) is what I consider a must for a reference IEM, and Raven checks out in these aspects while being surprisingly musical. Explaining this far would perhaps make it pointless for me to mention if there’s any noticeable dip, distortion, or sibilance across the vocals – though if you still need an answer, none. A very fine job by AME tuning the mid-frequency.
High-Range: Blissfully detailed Highs that AME made it look easy.
Most AME IEMs share a common aspect that AME finds very important from an IEM, and it is the treble response. Despite the lively and energetic lows and mids, highs are surprisingly tamed and refined, and provide one of the cleanest treble. With impressive clarity and resolution, Raven readily extends its high-frequencies up to ultra-highs, based on smoothness and a fatigue-free experience. Listen to the “Easy Breeze” by Victor Lundeberg, you’ll see how finely and blissfully Raven is able to expansively spread across the headroom with treble bliss and micro sparkles. It’s that earphone capable of giving you “eargasms”.
The treble quantity is surprisingly calm considering the treble details being presented, hence the high frequencies don’t get heated or shouty. Trebles are gently lesser in quantity than the mids. Another impressive and charming point of Raven’s treble is the natural transition it makes as the sound extends from the upper-mids to the trebles, yet the treble instruments and ultra-high details are clearly and cleanly separated/organized from the mid-highs.
While there aren’t many EST drivers out there just yet, and at the same time there are so many companies using electrostatics. I would pick Raven as one solid testimony that it’s the IEM brand’s tuning skills that make a day-and-night difference in treble performance and quality, even if using the same super-tweeter drivers – or using even more.
Next Page: Comparisons with Flagship IEMs / Verdicts