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And indeed there is: You can take all those criticisms and flip them on their head. Not unlike the 64 Audio U12t, the Starfield toes the line between being intangibly pleasing and slightly neutering resolution with its soft, blunted transient attack decay is equally oh-so-natural. Somewhat rolled-treble and extended bass shelf in-hand, the Starfield is, accordingly, a considerably warm IEM with a tendency to delve into congestion on more complex tracks.įor an IEM I like so much, I’ve already cited quite a few issues, right? But surely, you say, there’s a catch.

Treble is about equal parts milquetoast, rolling off fairly linearly post-5kHz with a tad bump in the mid-treble at around 8kHz and in the bottom air frequencies. Interestingly, the KXXS actually has slightly more energy around this region, lending to a slightly brighter, “edgier” presentation. The midrange of the Starfield is Harman-inspired, peaking at around 3kHz with a tad too much emphasis at around 4kHz which some might find bright initially I know I certainly did on the KXXS. Transient attack is fairly soft – there’s no way around it – and dynamic slam is pretty lackluster with an oft-cited “pillowy-ness” to the way hits are articulated. The bass on the Starfield is about equal parts sub-bass and mid-bass – considerably above neutral – and honestly, it’s not very good. At least not according to the metrics with which I’d normally qualify good bass.

The main deviation would be in the bass which slopes out further, lending some extra note-weight to male vocals (not at all a bad thing) the Harman target is a good deal more incisive at around 200hZ by comparison. Sound AnalysisĪ lot of people say that the Starfield is Harman-tuned, and eh, sure, I can see the resemblance. If you’ve read my reviews before, then you’ll know I don’t really care to cover the accessories, build, etc. Of course, this review isn’t about the KXXS it’s about the Starfield, which promises comparable sonic performance at close to half the price. That alone should probably be a testament to how much I like the KXXS, and I have well over a couple hundred hours on my unit. In this time, I’ve been lucky enough to try and review dozens of IEMs, some very expensive ones, and yet, the KXXS remains a staple of my small collection. I’ve owned the KXXS (the Starfield’s more premium brother) for more than a year at this point. I have a Starfield on loan right now from Super*Review so I figured I’d drop a quick review.īut first, a quick spiel.