ODA Dolphin Review: Clean and Powerful

Amarantine, The Charismatic Flagship

Now we’ll move on to Amarantine, the high-end model of the ODA product range. Amarantine (model code A500) sports 5 balanced armature drivers – 2 low-mids, 1 mid, and 2 highs. The earpieces are made of resin with a grey opaque body and a three-dimensional opal faceplate. The stock images show the body color to be close to white, yet it’s actually bright grey. The earpieces are ergonomically shaped and would easily provide a snug fit. It’s shaped nothing unordinary so most of the users would be very familiar with the shape. The packaging and cable are identical to Hesperus so again, we’ll move on to the core details right away.

 

 

SPC & Pure Copper Cable

Amarantine comes with a high-quality cable comprised of 4-core silver-plated copper and high-purity copper. The insulation is transparent and well displays the grey strands of wires. Connectors, plugs, and splitters are all finished in metal parts that match well with the metal earpieces. The cable is identical to the one included with Hesperus.

 

 

How does Amarantine sound?

This model is particularly crucial to match the right eartips, so I suggest trying out a few different tips you have – I personally choose AZLA Xelastec to work the best with Amarantine. Amarantine has a spatial w-shaped sound signature. Lows highlight solid, thick bass grooves that keep very good control of the sub-bass reverbs. This leads to producing prominent dynamics while offering a cleaner, linear environment for the mids and highs. The bass temperature is neutral-warm, hitting the sweet spot of being both organic and crisp in color. Quantity-wise, Amarantine’s bass sits at being v-shaped or mildly lesser than Hesperus. However, the scale and size of the bass are large and expansive, hence Amarantine brings a strong bass presence to the music.

 

Mids take quite an interesting turn here. Amarantine forms a unique, spatial headroom for the vocals – as if creating its own world of music. I’m opposed to using any sort of EQ as I prefer to listen as the IEMs are intended to be heard, but most importantly because it usually makes the vocals sound choked and stuffy. Instead, Amarantine’s vocals have a sweet, fruity, and sparkly timbre.

Amarantine feels like it has its own EQ for the vocals and stage formation, yet I’m not feeling any repulsion for its sound. The tone and nuance don’t sound distorted, choking, or “wrong”. It sounds different. This means Amarantine is more vulnerable to being polarized in thoughts based on each individual’s preference. Some may find it unusual. Yet others find it quite memorable and even addictive – which is the case of mine. My first impressions of Amarantine were somewhat awkward due to its unique presentation, yet after getting used to it, I started to crave listening to Amarantine again. The vocals are neutral in thickness making it ideal for both male and female vocals. I would say it’s more appealing to female vocals, however. There are no noticeable sibilance, dips, or spikes throughout the mid-range. Amarantine keeps a smooth, steady flow.

 

Highs are crisp and fast. It doesn’t get violent in quantity but appropriately strengthened. Amarantine has a neutral brightness and having an ample amount of brightness and treble technicality brings in nice harmony with the lows and mids. It’s positioned similarly or a small step back from the vocals, yet the separation is done cleanly. Amarantine keeps the musical elements organized and refined within the range of staying musical. The texture feels like it’s holding in good moisture and smoothness, giving off a rich tone and weighty lushness. Highs don’t particularly crave aggressive openness or chilling transparency – however, I found the technical and vividness of the treble is appropriately set as it is for keeping the overall sound harmonious. In fact, Amarantine’s treble capability is well shown as it’s able to portray bright colors and cold temperatures from treble strikes and snares. The headroom is quite spacious. The altitude difference between lows and highs, and the expansive bass room create a generously-sized studio vibe for Amrantine.

 

 

Compared to QOA Mojito (Review Link)

Let’s compare Amarantine with QOA’s post-flagship 6BA model, the Mojito. Amarantine conquers Mojito in terms of resolution and timbre accuracy. Compared to Amarantine, Mojito creates a drier tone that achieves less smoothness and texture details. The overall clarity and liveliness are noticeably superior on Amarantine. Another is that Mojito is comparably slightly off-tone in sound especially for the trebles, not achieving as much clarity as Amarantine achieves. As for the bass, Amarantine takes another win as it brings out a larger scale and depth for the low-ends, offering deeper extension and fullness. A similar situation goes on with the vocals as Amarantine creates a richer tone and fuller scale than Mojito.

 

 

Compared to ODA Hesperus

Hesperus produces a significantly warmer and darker sound. Amarantine’s bass also has a warmer tone but not as much as Hesperus’s. Amarantine has its superiority over Hesperus in terms of transparency, technicality, resolution, and tone. As mentioned, Hesperus may be the most “organic”, yet it’s not the most neutral tone. Amarantine portrays the most accurate timbre and maximum detail retrieval amongst the ODA family. The brightness contrasts are also more properly shown on Amarantine by making clear distinctions between black and white tones, whereas Hesperus’ brightness spectrum is mostly focused on blacker tones. The overall sound is more vibrant, engaging, and colorful on Amarantine.

 

 

Verdicts for Amarantine

Despite it using a classic full-BA setup, Amarantine manages to pull off to level of competitiveness and charms that this “red ocean” Chi-Fi IEM market demands. Of course, Amarantine also deserves to be the highest model among the ODA family through its superior technicality and accuracy. Amarantine is organically flavorful and tasteful. It’s a seamless mixture of color and naturality, first making you feel unusual with its sound, then quickly getting familiarized with it, and then making you want to listen again. If you enjoy the classic sound factors created by full-BA setups but find the old IEMs too bland to listen to anymore or feel outdated in performance, Amarantine is the choice that will tune up your classic desire with up-to-date performance and up-to-trend charms. 

 

 

Wrapping it up: Are ODA IEMs worth choosing over the known brands?

When I first came across ODA, my expectations of ODA weren’t really high frankly. Yet all three ODA IEMs managed to impress me. Dolphin, Hesperus, and Amarantine all marked the high scores in performance, quality of the tuning, and uniqueness in sound. My only complaint, however, would be the looks. They look neat and are well-made, yet I’ve wished to see more uniqueness and design features that could make them better pop out visually. Well, despite all that, and nevertheless, it’s the sound that really matters. Each one of the ODA models has their own strengths – Dolphin has the powerful and punchy w-shaped dynamics – Hesperus has that warm, thick, and groovy sound – and Amarantine has the technical, skillful, and addictive charming all-rounder sound. It’s easy to overlook new Chi-Fi brands due to the overwhelming inflow of new products and companies. Yet at least for ODA, I’m impressed enough to be paying close attention to see what they will have to offer us audiophiles. Remember the ODA!    

 

 

Compact, hassle-free earpiece design
Top-notch custom grade cable
Powerful yet fatigueless w-shaped sound signature
A hard-to-go-wrong choice
Not ideal for those who want basshead level for the bass volume
The earpiece design could have been more unique
8.9