In-Ear Fidelity

[Cliffnotes] Moondrop S8 (+ A8): Wake-up Call

Welcome to my Cliffnotes, a series where I push out rapid fire opinions of some of the IEMs I’ve heard but can’t be bothered to fully review. Thus I won’t get too in-depth,  nor will I be too formal and technical. Less analysis, more… from-the-heart if you will.

Introduction

I remember the early days when barely anyone has even heard of the brand “Moondrop”. It was by pure accident that I stumbled upon measurements of the original Blessing on the Ear-Fi Blog, at which point my interest was piqued enough to start asking around for sample units to review. 

It’s funny in retrospect, how this almost-underground upstart company managed to hit the Harman in-ear target better than Harman could. And so established their reputation as the “Target Hitter”, tuning their IEMs to Harman (and Diffuse Field in the case of the Spaceship).

I don’t think anyone, myself included, would’ve expected that Moondrop would become one of the greatest chifi powerhouses of the new generation, churning out product after product that received their own share of critical acclaim and mainstream hype. Their meteoric rise no doubt contributed to many other chifi companies’ consideration of Western academic curves as viable targets, which may be why we’ve been seeing a renaissance of chifi IEMs attempting to emulate Harman (to varying degrees of success).

Their current star-studded cast include the Spaceship, the KXXS and more recently, the Starfield and the upcoming Blessing 2. The S8 is Moondrop’s surprise update to the A8, an IEM that has long since been their flagship though lingers in the shadow of its more popular, far cheaper siblings.

Let’s see if Moondrop’s flagship deserves a spot in the limelight, for once.

Product page: Moondrop S8, Moondrop A8

MSRP: $700

Driver configuration: 8BA

Let’s begin with some exposition. Skip this chunk of text if you want to cut to the chase.

I’ve made no secret of my opinions on the state of chifi over the years. In my eyes, it seems that the Chinese have been rather aimless in their pursuit of fidelity, focusing on asinine things such as driver count and chasing irrelevant awards that ultimately had no bearing on how good their IEMs would eventually sound. For many companies, the prevailing strategy is to knock out as many new models as possible, dangling a shiny new toy over their easily-distracted fanbase every time the hype inevitably dies down. Because when the hype dies, it dies quick.

It’s no surprise and this also ties in to their tuning strategies, i.e. throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks. I also like to call it the “Pan Sieve Strategy”, where you’d take a bunch of dirt and starting sieving away in hopes of finding that shiny nugget lying in there somewhere, much like the miners during the infamous gold rush. Except this time, imagine the dirt being the vast ocean of garbage chifi, and the gold nuggets being the rare few that prove themselves to be above the rest.

Now I’m not going to pretend that the Harman Target is perfect by any means, but it is a pretty decent target in terms of mainstream appeal. So what happens when a chifi company finally takes advantage of this “blueprint” that was effectively handed to them on a silver platter?

All of a sudden, the pan sieve is useless. All of a sudden, companies are churning out proverbial gold nuggets like water. Some minor modifications to the recipe here and there, taking some creative liberties where it mattered, creating something arguably better than mere proverbial gold.

All of a sudden… the gold rush ended.

By most accounts, you could claim that the S8 is tuned to Harman. You can tell that Moondrop asserts their “creative liberties” past 3kHz, tuning it to be less energetic in the upper-midrange regions which is absolutely a welcome change to me. Apart from that, the S8 is almost a dead ringer for Harman, signature-wise.

What truly surprised me was how safe the S8 sounded. And it wasn’t boring-safe like the Noble K10 was, oh no. This was “safe” in the sense that everyone I knew who heard the S8 with me could agree that it was, at very least, a great performer. Some may have issues with the usual weaknesses of Harman-tuned IEMs such as the thinner midrange or the shoutiness, but even so the thinness issue wasn’t as bad as, say, the AKG N5005, and the shouty mids weren’t as bad as the similarly-tuned Tanchjim Oxygen.

The S8 has everything else in spades: pinpoint-precise attack, highly-defined notes and resolution solidly in the realm of TOTL veterans. The expected weaknesses apply: the timbre & decay suffers and so I find myself wanting more body out of its almost-anemic notes, the bass response is still pretty mediocre even knowing that it’s a BA IEM, but at the end of the day the S8 was an extremely technical monitor that wasn’t afraid to flex it all.

I realised that I also haven’t formally talked about the Moondrop A8 before, so I’ll take this opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

The A8 is more-or-less identical to the S8 in tonality with one distinct difference: the bass. The A8 sounds like it has significantly more bass by virtue of contrasting the lower midrange scoop with the bass boost. It’s also this contrast that I assume contributes to the mild bloat that I hear in the bass notes; nothing egregious, mind you, but certainly a concern worth pointing out. The weight of the A8 is also a tad thinner than the S8, which doesn’t do it many favours unless you’re a stickler for fast, clear notes.

The S8 is not perfect and still has some potential dealbreakers, but it’s good. Scary good. Like, nothing-can-top-this-under-$1,000 good. I’ve said before that it’ll be checkmate when the Chinese finally know what the hell they’re doing tuning-wise because they’ve been aimless in that regard for a good part of the decade. For the longest time, the West could still hold onto the fact that they had the tuning know-how that the Chinese didn’t, and their price premiums could at least be justified in this last vestige of Western superiority.

Now, an established target curve seems to be the great equaliser. It’s time to wake up, else be left in the dust.

Moondrop A8

Grade: A

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Moondrop S8

Grade: A+ ★★

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Support me on Patreon to get access to tentative ranks! I probably won’t be writing Cliffnotes for every IEM, but you can expect them for the ones that stand out, either positively or negatively.

My usual thanks to my loyal supporters and shoutouts to my big money boys:

“McMadface”
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Nicholas
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Galactus

24 thoughts on “[Cliffnotes] Moondrop S8 (+ A8): Wake-up Call”

  1. thanks for your review,our products are following our own target response now,which named VDSF response,based on diffuse field and series of subjective experiments.

    1. Herbert, you are a freaking genius

      S8 tuning is very nice, I have been listening for two weeks now, very happy. I would prefer maybe a touch more warmth in the mids but it’s really exceptionally made and very beautiful with a very smooth and natural “safe” tuning

      Oh, and more cute girls. For music lover, cute girl is also very important.

        1. Is it possible for you guys to make a cheap/budget “revision” of this IEM, with the same tuning using cheap bellsing BAs (but no compromise on the crossover design)? Doesn’t need to be in a super fancy shell or packaging, could be like the CCA C16, and less than $200 for us poor peasants :D? If you manage something like that, it will be a killah.

  2. How’s the fit on the S8 compared to the A8? I liked the A8 while I owned it but sold it off because the nozzle was too short to let the ear tips stay in my ears.

  3. Based on your preference, you liked the OG Andromeda V1 right? If you could compare now, do you prefer the S8 over Andromeda V1?

    Would you also rate the Blessing 1 lower than A- now if you can assume what Blessing 2 is in-between Blessing 1 and A8 is?

  4. I own both iBasso IT04 and Moondrop S8.

    I purchased the latter in the hope it would be better in term of instruments separation and stage, but this is simply not the case.

    I heard mostly black and death metal and i like technical drumming (Mgla anyone?): the iBasso it’s a pleasure to listen, with a treble peaks that highlight cymbals and screaming voices. Both IEMs have similar resolution, but the IT04 has faster, punchier basses, and on fast played music it’s simply more engaging.

    I also found the IT04 more efficient than the S8, although on paper the Moondrop wins with 122Db vs the 110Db of the iBasso. I couple both with the HiBy R6 Pro where the IT04 requires a 26 volume, while the S8 wants 30 at least (both on balanced 4.4 output, 750mw+750mw).

    I admit that if the recording is perfect, and quite linear (say a Beck record on master Tidal quality), you’ll appreciate it, otherwise it’s a disappointing IEM, at least when switching to the IT04.

    I hate this, since i really want to like the S8: it’s smaller, better looking than IT04 (but has an awful cable, com’on, it’s a 700 bucks item) and on paper it wins hands down.

    The reality it’s the S8 is so neutral to the level of being boring to me.

    1. When accurate is boring, It’s best to look elsewhere in the chain for what bores you. Usually an interface or source issue.

  5. Got these a bit back and using small/medium ortofon/Grado tips (for deepest insertion) with an 8core silver litz cable and I couldn’t be happier with this IEM. Midbass/lower mids is where it belongs, blends to upper mids correctly and highs are where I ight where I think they should be though some may like then more enhanced. I’ve owned PP8, jh13fp, EE, Andro, etc, These are the most correct and when well voiced, as musically accurate as anything else.

    Their phase character gives them correct placement and timing where some others may play phase games for fun but ultimately lose out overall in the process. Get them voiced well and their goodness will be dependent on the rest of the chain.

  6. “nothing-can-top-this-under-$1000”, – yet the thieaudio monarch is 730 usd and ranked higher ?
    So which one of the two would you recommend to buy at ~750USD price point?

    1. don’t be like that bro. this was way back in Jan 2020 and you’re coming in July 2021. that’s 18 months difference.

      and if you still don’t know what to buy now, you ought to do a lot more reading. or you could just buy whatever is up there. you don’t need to read.

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