Elysian Acoustic Labs - Annihilator 2023

+1 I prefer it over my annihilator and mest mk2

It's the Elysian annihilator

As expected of any hollow resin shell iems but I feel like they're quite high quality. Wouldn't feel confident dropping it though.

https://preview.redd.it/mfe7nhgbdmnf1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=506709efb3de3d31c874f4e78b603b59a4db16c7 By far, the annihilator and not a lot of things are as good.

I mean the day the elysian annihilators driver configuration and tuning which is a price you pay for is offered at 50$. I think price always carries a level of return that you inherently purchase. But it must hurt knowing you haven’t listened to a expensive iem and compared it to something much cheaper.

Yup. When it comes to treble, Annihilators are on a league of its own. I heard the Hex gets close though but 3x the price + 3x the wait time = no thanks lol I'll probably buy on the secondary market if it appears... problem is they get snatched superfast, just like subtonic storms but I heard the storm and it's not my cup of tea.

Annihilators have the best treble I’ve ever heard. It’s a very sweet sounding treble.

Ok so this if from my personal experience.... I have several iem range from sub 100 until 500 some I lent to my friends or I just keep on my house...I have several friends which audio hobbyist they have audio store so I have opportunity to try before I buy one..so someday I want buy 1000usd iem, read reddit and head-fi forum then go to my friend store...so I tried moondrop chu2 compare to my kadenz yes the quality is very different, compare again with letshuoer s15 the s15 better than my kadenz for my taste...so when I put monarch mk3 it's blow my ear, damn this iem so amazong and I decide to bought it....then several weeks later my friend call me then say I have 64audio tia demo and annihilator just come....with fully excited I'm going there when I tried both of them, I dont feel WOW like I tried monarch mk3 the first time then at that time I realize, mk3 is my peak and I cant tell the significant difference between mk3 - annihilator and tia So thats why I like to try and buy several 100-500usd iem and sometimes sub100 too because I can tell the difference and I can choose whats signature I want..like a week ago I choose simgot ea500lm rather than ew300 because I found the sound more aggresive because mostly my iem is warm and neutral.... So from my story, I have limitation and taste for me, spent 1000 iem in monarch mk3 is one of the best choise I ever made and beyond that price point my ears cant tell fhe difference so..but back again thats my experience and opinion....

My perception of bass is strong so Annihilator has enough bass for me and beyond that the songs just become boomy unless bass is vented like in Grand Maestro you can hear elevated bass yet songs never become boomy as ut is vented. So Grand Maestro is my absolute bass head IEM. Empire Ears Legend Evo in my opinion the bass bloats the low end

Out of all the sets I’ve tried to date, it’s probably the Elysian Diva. I think that the bass, even though it’s all BA, is phenomenal on the max setting. Very elastic, bouncy and textured. The vocals are some of the best I’ve heard, period and the treble is nicely extended without being harsh in the slightest. I would choose the Annihilator 2023 but I felt the bass was lacking in that set for the money being asked. But the treble on the Anni 2023 is by far my favorite, while not objectively “the best” it was stunning to my ears.

> if I have the FR graph for the Annihilators then I can easily just EQ my Hexas such that the EQed Hexa graph matches the Annhiliator graph This is a super common mistake people make. That does not work. For several reasons: 1. The graphs are smoothed 2. The graphs are not completely accurate anyway 3. The graphs may be measured at different insertion depths 4. The graphs are measured on a simulated ear, not a real human ear and certainly not *your* ear What you actually need to match is FR at the eardrum. Not any eardrum, *your* eardrum. That needs to be done by ear. And that's something hardly anyone actually has the skills to do. So while technically it's accurate to say it's all just FR and you can do pretty much anything with EQ, it does leave out that for the vast majority of people, it's effectively impossible. It's not even something you can just pay an expert do do for you, because they have no way to hear what you hear. What's more likely to happen (especially if you use AutoEQ) is that you'll make any peaks/dips in the treble [worse](/r/headphones/comments/1ivy4u7/how_measurement_error_hurts_eq/).

IEMs are not an investment. That said, there is one iem i can attest to that has long term value: the Elysian Annihilator 2021. Many are familiar with the Annihilator 2023. It’s an excellent iem and I used to own it myself, but the Annihilator 2021 was the original king that started it all, when Crin first reviewed it. It has more holographic imaging, is slightly more detailed, and has a better treble extension for my ears. There are less than a hundred sets of the Annihilator 2021 out there today. It’s quite sought after in demand. If anything, it’s worth more now than the original MSRP of 3000USD. I’ve received offers exceeding 4500USD already, especially because my particular unit is the very unit that Crin himself measured and reviewed.