Sound Summary
The Dragon feels like a resurgence of the speaker cabinet sound of the 80s – Brash, bold and big. Anecdotes aside, the Dragon’s dynamic driver ekes out a mightily strong and robust mid-bass cliff that is satisfyingly thick and snappy. The Dragon’s midrange is evocative of vinyl records – natural, even-harmonic slanting with a pleasant and inviting tone (with some grit when needed)
This is further bolstered by a strong sense of space around the ears, with a deep and expansive headroom that’s bordering on flagship territory. There is some light sluggishness in the overall transient response, lacking the resolving and nimble nature of balanced armature transducers. There also appears to be a less exuberant and jaunty highs; common ailments (or benefits) depending on your listening preferences. Stay tuned for more down below.
Bass
The Dragon’s bass-response is the focal point of its entire frequency response, bolstered by a full-bodied, prominent mid-bass punch. However prominent it may be, the overall lower-regions are characterised by a smooth, analogue-like timbre, erring into bass-head territory, but a few decibels shy from a larger-than-life presentation. The atmospheric portion of the low-end (sub-bass) is proportionally subdued, but enveloping and immersive – as one would expect from a dynamic-driver IEM.
Texturally, the Dragon’s low-end captures micro-details and subtle transitions in tone excellently for its price-tag, pacing just a few steps behind the flagship moniker. Trailing tones are pronounced, as is the distinct timbres of each instrument.
There is a danger with uplifting the ‘weight’ of the bass, which is the dreaded midrange crossover or bleed that smears the frequencies where the subtler details linger. This IEM doesn’t overcome this trade-off – instead, it embraces it in favour of a sound that harkens back to the day of vinyl records and cassettes. Expect modest levels of bleed, with the mid-bass aplomb blotting micro-details in the midrange and brilliance regions.
Midrange
The Dragon’s midrange gently prioritises smoother and organic tones for a coarse-free listen. There is a clear rise in the lower-midrange for a coloured sound that embodies the softer, contoured notes rather than upper-midrange exuberance and brightness. The upside to this type-of-tuning is the carefree, seamless transition from one note to the next free of sibilance and shoutiness.
However, it never wholeheartedly presents itself as a completely smooth operator – the Dragon is still, resolutely, a highly-detailed IEM, and this is still expressed by a neutral-to-warm signature. The upper-midrange remains highly-expressive , modestly accentuating the airiness and wispiness in male and female voicings without presenting itself as splashy or grainy.
Overall detail-retrieval is very robust, with the Dragon’s rigid dynamic driver displaying excellent technical performance in terms of resolution and transient performance in terms of its fundamental PRAT.
Treble
The Dragon’s treble, relative to its commanding bass-response, is tuned as a safe ‘course correction’ to specifically contain the rawness in the mid-bass that threatens to upheave the remainder of the frequency response. Personally, I think it does so successfully, but with a few caveats.
The treble region does a commendable job allowing odd-harmonic focused instruments, melodies and vocals with enough elbow room to extend fully with a creamy, sweet-toned sparkle. This controlled expression of the brilliance region provides enough pre-requisite detailing and airiness, juxtaposed against the musicality that is central to the Dragon’s musical inclinations.
The caveats, however, are the lack of excitement, vivaciousness and spaciousness that a sharp injection of air brings to the table. Female vocals don’t reach sky-high levels of hyper-realism and sonority. Violins or string instruments lack the vibrato and pizazz that treble-heads crave. To the treble-sensitive, this ‘balanced tuning’ may even prove to be too much for the especially sensitive. I personally sit in the former camp, but I can tangibly understand the tuning decisions that were made here.
Soundstage and Imaging
The recent spate of higher-end dynamic driver IEMs have impressed in this arena, and the Dragon is no exception to this trend. The Dragon presents instruments and voicings strewn across the stage with impressive headroom laterally. Z-axis imaging in the form of pans and cues 45-degrees from the ears as a reference point are cleanly presented, with expressive sweeps for unbroken and undisturbed immersion.
The distortion-free, highly responsive driver allows instruments, voicings and micro-details to be singled out independently with little-to-no overlap of crossover murkiness, save for some cloudiness in the upper-treble due to its ‘cautious’ tuning. Overall, the Dragon is an expansive and expressive listen with a grandiose presentation.
Turn to the next page for Synergy, A Brief Comparison and Conclusive Remarks
