I’d like to thank Campfire Audio’s dynamic duo, Ken Ball and Chris Halasz, for sending us Chimera for this review. The Headphone List is not affiliated with Campfire, and the impressions and opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
Preface
As the headline above suggests, this is Part One of our comprehensive Chimera review. This IEM is so new, I’ve barely had a chance to burn it in, and in fact, most of my sound impressions are taken with Chimera still going through the full burn-in process.
As such, while I’ll delve into as much detail about Chimera’s backstory, design and technical make-up as I can – with first-hand insight from both Ken and Chris – you’ll have to wait for Part Two, coming next month, for in-depth sound comparisons, source pairing, and sound shaping with cables and tips.
Given its $7,500 price point (no, that’s not a typo) and technical departure from just about any IEM Campfire has released to date, there is understandably quite a bit of interest about Chimera, with both hype and counter-hype bouncing around forums and chat groups at present.
I’m going to try avoid most of that and keep the content of this review as down-the-line as possible, without swerving too far into hyperbole. Still, I don’t know how to write without emotion, so please forgive me if some unbridled enthusiasm slips through the cracks from time to time.
Introduction
There’s something about mythical creatures that stirs the imagination for us music lovers. For many, music is an escape into a fantastical world, evoking deep-rooted passions we keep craving, like a drug.
But in the case of Campfire Audio’s new ultra-flagship IEM, Chimera, the analogy is more straightforward. Like the beast of legend – with the head of a lion, body and horns of a goat, and tail of a snake – Chimera is a made up of wildly different parts that, somehow, work together to create something wholly new, yet miraculously cohesive and unquestionably powerful.
It’s also introduces a smorgasbord of firsts for a company that’s never been shy to experiment, both with its designs and tunings, garnering a legion of loyal fans and vociferous doubters in equal measure. Almost everything about Chimera is new for Campfire: the drivers, the acoustic design, the shells and faceplates, and, most importantly, the sound.
As Campfire’s Chris Halasz concedes, Chimera is a huge swing for a company that build its reputation on the back of Andromeda, the iconic green and angular IEM that introduced the world to Ken Ball’s multifaceted and unconventional audio vision.
“It’s been a ton of work and a totally uncompromising development process,” says Chris.
“With Andromeda 10, we celebrated and synthesised the ‘classic’, paying homage to Campfire’s history. Chimera is a signal to the future, breaking from our traditional mould and pushing ourselves to create something new and special, while also being responsive to feedback and the market.
“I think the Andromeda 10-Chimera dichotomy is also reflected in our current roadmap, where we have innovation and new technology side-by-side with revisions and reimaginings.”
I think Chris is being somewhat humble in this, so different is Chimera to anything that Ken has cooked up before. In fact, when it was first released to a handful of Head-Fi enthusiasts as a secret working prototype, some were at first privately disappointed that it was a Campfire, and then, when they heard it, openly surprised that it was a Campfire.
They even codenamed it ‘Chivo’ – which loosely translates to ‘goat’ in Spanish – a name that, as you probably already know, set the Chimera hype train in motion. If you’ve been in the hobby for a while, you’ll also know that watching hype trains derail is a very popular sport in these parts.
But I digress. The point I started making above is that Chimera is different. Very different. But it’s different not because it sounds wonky or weird. Tongue in cheek, that would be par for the course for Campfire. No, it’s different because, unconventional looks aside, it sounds so right.
Packaging and accessories
This will be a quick bookend section before we get to the really exciting stuff, only because there’s not too much to write home about when it comes to Chimera’s packaging and accessories.
Chimera ships in an unusually large box (for a Campfire IEM), stretched to cinematic proportions (keep that word in mind, as I’ll be coming back to it later in this review). The front is silkscreened with an interesting series of design elements and symbols denoting the different ‘parts’ of Chimera, while on the back you’ll find an exploded diagram of Chimera’s internals and detailed descriptions of the different parts of the IEM.
Campfire is clearly proud of the engineering work that went into the design, so they made sure that it’s one of the first things potential customers see even before they open the box.
Inside, the box is split into three compartments. On the left is a conventional cardboard container housing the smaller accessories: two types of silicone tips (including new ‘high and clear’ traction tips), foam tips, a cleaning tool, microfibre cloth, a Breezy Bag Micro in a new magenta colour, and a CA lapel pin.
The middle compartment is a large foam tray with two cutouts in the centre holding the earpieces in pace. One of my earpieces came loose in the tray, so be careful when opening the box in case there’s a loose earpiece inside yours.
On the right is an oversized black leather zippered case, with an interesting display stand inside, ready to hold and protect each earpiece in its own slot, with a channel for routing and winding the cable around a central axil.
My sample Chimera didn’t come with a cable, as the new ALO-branded (yes, the ALO brand is officially back in business) Audio Valance 6-wire copper and silver-plated copper stock cable wasn’t ready for shipping in mid-May. Chris assures me that the cable will be part of the retail packages, once they start shipping in early June, and I will include my impressions of it when Part Two of this review is published.
Overall, Chimera’s is a solid, premium set of accessories, with a few interesting additions, though it’s not quite at the same everything-but-the-kitchen-sink level of some other ultra-flagship IEMs like PMG Audio’s Apx ME and Subtonic’s Storm.
Continue to design and fit…
