Sound impressions
I tested N8 with my usual set of test tracks, mainly female vocal indie/pop with a sprinkling of classic rock, pop, singer-songwriter, soundtracks, and modern EDM. I’ll make specific reference to these tracks in the notes below, but PM me if you’d like to compare my test playlist with the music you usually listen to.
N8 is rated at a very low 6 ohms with a sensitivity of 105dB, so it’s relatively easy to drive, although I find it enjoys higher gain and voltage boosts from my HiBy DAPs. As such it doesn’t need external amping to shine, but will naturally scale with larger amps. All notes were taken with the stock m15 module unless otherwise indicated, using HiBy’s flagship R8 II (reviewed here).
“I’ve always just wanted a really great tone, warm and fat but punchy and definitive.” – Nathan East
The three words I’d use to describe N8’s sound profile is warm, smooth and musical. They have a meaty U-shaped tonality, with an obvious and dominating bass shelf that can occasionally tilt them closer to L-shaped, although the way the bass notes are mostly kept separate from the lower and centre mids gives them a better balance than I find with some looser warm-tuned, bottom-heavy sets.
There’s no guessing what the star of the show is here: bass. Don’t expect anything less than a stellar, saturated and all-encompassing bass response from N8, even with the ‘meeker’ sounding mX module.
Bass notes extend well below 20Hz, or at least far enough for me to feel even the slightest rumble when it’s there in the track. There’s plenty of midbass heft here too, but not so much that it bloats the sound or veils the midrange, though midrange purists and detail heads may disagree.
I do find midbass notes to be slightly rounded, not quite ‘pillowy’, but leaning softer rather than hard-edged. This doesn’t always play well with highly technical, fast-paced music where bass edges need to be as sharp as everything else (more on this later), but lends itself perfectly to slower, more relaxed music, or to those who are happy to forego strict analytical cleanliness for some easier listening musicality.
You can feel this bass character in the guitar pluck intro to the Eagles’ live performance of Hotel California, even before the iconic drums kick in – drums that I use to test the power and texture of dynamic driver bass with every new IEM. N8 doesn’t disappoint, rendering the kicks with a certain smoothness but plenty of rich, textural reverb; less slap, more natural punch.
That warm, resonant sound transcends genres. I can hear it in the upright bass plucks in Allen Toussaint’s rendition of St. James Infirmary, and in the electronically-altered bass notes in Feist’s Tout Doucement. Then, in CloZee’s hypnotic psych-chill track Brave, I get a sense of how tight and controlled N8’s bass driver can be with electronic bass too, despite it being more suited to acoustic bass in my opinion.
Finally, no N8 review can be truly complete without at least one reference to a Nathan East bass track, so here’s two.
Ever find yourself toe-tapping to the beefy bass tones in the chorus to Daft Punk’s Get Lucky? That’s Nathan East on bass right there. Playing this track on repeat shows just how well N8 not only renders but also integrates the bass with all the other elements – guitars, drums, Pharrell Williams’ vocals, and Daft Punk’s masterful electronic mixing. Decay control is impressive, and the bass is never too loose that it drowns out even subtle details.
Another great example is East’s playful bass sparring with the jazz-infused trumpets and vocals in Hubert Laws’ Family. What’s really cool about this track is that the fusion between bass and brass really showcases N8’s ability and versatility. From bass to mids to treble, everything is distinct, textured, detailed, and downright funky.
I could have picked from hundreds of other famous examples of his work, but the important thing for me is that I’m listening back to the music in the way that Nathan East intended for it to be heard. After all, he tuned this IEM to be as true to life to his recording sessions as possible (his words, not mine), and there’s no reason not to take him at his word.
All that’s left to say then is that, for bass lovers, this is an IEM that will reward you not only with its luscious bass tone, but also in its ability to create a bass-first sound inside a vast menagerie of musical notes.
Which brings us to the midrange. If bass is the foundation, mids are the fundamentals. Everything from pianos to cellos, male and female vocals, and even harmonic elements in drums and strings are centred firmly in the midrange. I hear N8’s mids closer to neutral in level, but still infused with some upper bass warmth in the lower mids that carries through the rest of the midrange to give it a rich, denser-than-usual tone.
There’s a hint of dreaminess to N8’s rendition of Stevie Nicks’ distinct vocals in Fleetwood Mac’s aptly-named Dreams. N8 seems to be more forgiving than some monitors with Stevie’s harder vocal inflections, which makes even well-recorded tracks like these sound a bit more relaxed than you’d hear them with other, livelier sets.
The same goes for Jim Croce’s tragically poignant Time In A Bottle, where his vocals come through sweeter and with more melancholy than some thinner monitors would render them. In case you’re wondering, I find this forgiving nature of N8’s midrange playback to be a real pro, despite the perceived ‘drop’ in resolution typical of smoother IEMs like this (and for the record, I don’t find N8 lacking in detail whatsoever).
Where N8 absolutely nails midrange playback is timbre. From its rich, lifelike bass and emotive vocal tones to the clear, weighty and utterly realistic pianos, guitars and even organ pipes in tracks as diverse as David Lanz & Paul Speer’s Whispered In Signs, Ethel Cain’s Sun Bleached Flies, and Max Richter’s Elena & Lila, N8’s timbral qualities are second to none.
If any of this gives you the impression that N8 sounds a bit like warmed-up breakfast oatmeal, delicious as that may be, fear not, because 64 Audio’s Tia treble gives it just enough incisiveness, sparkle and treble extension to give this porridge some bite.
There’s an air and width to the sound that Tia evokes by highlighting tiny flicks and flecks of treble, the sparkle of a chime, the ping of a high-pitched piano key, the leading edge of a violin string. It all contrasts beautifully with the saturated bass and hearty vocals in acoustic music, and to my ears gives even faster electronic tracks more than enough room to shine.
Play through to the violin solo in Max Richter’s transcendent anthem On The Nature Of Daylight and you’ll hear the sweetest of treble tones contrasted beautifully with the fullness of the bass instruments, both clear and distinct. Want even sharper? Skip to the middle of Nils Lofgren’s live performance of Keith Don’t Go and the high-pitched steel guitar plucks will almost cut you.
What N8 does really well for me is eliminate any semblance of harshness from treble (and other frequencies). Cymbal crashes are less violent, more polite, but still very detailed and natural, as in the cymbal burst at the end of Fran’s Limousine, or throughout Def Leppard’s Love Bites, a track I actively avoid with brighter, treble-forward IEMs. Cymbals sit slightly behind guitar plucks and stick hits, which I personally prefer but some may not.
N8 also negates any sibilance, even in otherwise sibilant tracks, such as Missy Higgins’ Shark Fin Blues or the aforementioned Love Bites. This makes N8 one of the least fatiguing monitors I own, and the one I generally turn to when I want a smoother sound for extended sessions.
Technical performance
I said earlier that N8 is not all about bass, or even tone, and that’s because it’s a solid technical performer, at least where it matters most to me.
Despite its fuller note weight, Tia air gives N8 a spaciousness that belies its warmth. Listening to Yosi Horikawa’s Bubbles reveals an open soundstage that’s as deep as it is wide, and fairly tall too. N8 is also able to precisely image the various sounds inside the space, and differentiate between the sounds of smaller and larger elements, separating them neatly from each other.
Where it falls slightly behind some of the super technical sets is layering and, to an extent, resolution. That’s not to say either of these metrics are poor, on the contrary. But on bassier tracks (like Bubbles), there’s some diffusion going on that prevents them from sounding as micro detailed as some leaner monitors tend to do.
Still, I find the sound very dynamic, and well composed under pressure. When the spaceship in Daft Punk’s Contact hurtles to its destruction in a blazing, complex crescendo, N8 does perfectly well to keep up with the mayhem, with minimal smearing.
On the 10th Anniversary edition of same album, Random Access Memories, both the simplicity and, in its latter stages, complexity of Giorgio by Moroder, are deftly rendered by N8’s control on the one hand and dynamics on the other. It also demonstrates just how resolving N8 can be with the right music. In fact, if there’s one album you should absolutely treat yourself to if you’re lucky enough to own an N8, it’s this one.
“I wanted to have something that was recreating sonically what I was hearing in the studio.” – Nathan East
A note on Apex modules: Switching from the stock m15 to m20 is not as dramatic as you’d expect with N8; you get more (and deeper) bass, with slightly more rumble, but it’s not necessary here in my opinion, because you get all of that with better technical performance sticking with stock.
mX is also an option, but even then N8 isn’t bass shy. Stage gets wider, transients faster, and the overall sound is more balanced, but honestly, if you want a faster, more spacious, less bass-dominant monitor, there are ‘safer’ alternatives in my opinion, like 64 Audio’s A/U12t or FIR Audio’s Rn6.
Continue to select comparisons…
