If I had to use a single word to capture all of what I am about to say…. Transcendent.
The technical ability the MAD24’s achieve seems impossible to me. I am forced to believe what I hear and I can’t describe it any better than saying it’s a transcendent experience, every time. The sound is in my head, in my ears, in my room, behind my eyeballs, deep, close, far, wide, up, down, here, and seemingly everyone all at once. How? It’s gotten to the point that everything, it doesn't matter what, sounds holographically layered. Is it also odd to say that I’ve now fallen asleep with music playing through my MAD24’s a handful of times. I bring that up because the sound is both vivid, and relaxing at the same time. They have never been fatiguing, they have never been harsh, they have never been so laid back they are boring. They are highly engaging and really present music in a way that feels like discovery every time.

Placing dual subwoofers in your home theater creates a full, more even bass - this is what the MAD 24’s bass reminds me of with its four subwoofers per channel. The bass is meaty, thick, full, even, masterfully articulated and BAM!...punchy when you least expect with grip and finesse and it can be driven harder than your ears drums can handle before it breaks up. There have been moments in songs where the bass has gotten low enough to convince me that my head or chest is feeling the vibration as if being produced by a home theater subwoofer.. I then have to snap back to reality and convince myself it's not possible. Tight and controlled are understatements, but necessary in attempting to describe how detailed the bass is on the MAD 24’s. Unreal.

While the DJ’s and ravers I’m convinced exist within the MAD24’s have fun with their bass party there is a phenomenon happening with the twenty other drivers creating layers of separation and depth that can only be heard to be believed. Every frequency of reverb becomes a layer so one note with reverb sounds like you’re seeing the entirety of the note with supreme detail and depth. This effect which I’ve never encountered prior to the MAD 24’s creates complete images of what you’re listening to and allows transcendence to commence, getting lost into music you’ve never needed a map for. MAD 24’s do this in their spare time it seems. They do not tire of displaying all of the details with careful balance and well defined placement and tone.

I'm not sure separation is much different than layering in my mind, but I need to mention that the soundstage is everywhere all at once. The miracle of engineering a twenty four driver array can place sounds with such resolution all over as far as you can imagine and as intimately as you would want all instantly at the same time and maintain the level of detail in each of the sounds without breaking a sweat, or getting tangled up is a breathtaking experience. I often wonder now, if the artist who produced the music knew it could sound this good. There is a certain ability i've come to visualize as a large sound stage in which you can pick and choose which sound you prefer to observe, or you can step back and listen to the whole. Its almost as if you can walk around the sound stage taking your time while you observe all the detail for any of the instruments or sounds with no pressure to move on to the next(This is the “relaxing” feel I mentioned). I attribute some of this to the May/Biss stack which is extraordinarily holographic as well but the 24’s are engineered with such a massive soundstage that it's a synergy I do not want to live without.

The dynamic range is humongous. From the massive bass slam and grippy texture of the sub frequencies to the harmonious complexity of twenty mid and high drivers the MAD24 can apply interesting techniques to fill the vast emptiness of space time with different levels of output per driver in their own time domain - I have to believe this is the magic and sweetness to the MAD 24. Dynamics here involves output per frequency, output per driver, and location of sound. I want to emphasize “location of sound” since these IEM’s are determined to place sounds in locations, it’s one of if not the most enjoyable feature. The way MAD24 has been implemented takes advantage of all of these attributes and paints an exhilarating picture when you close your eyes and watch the paintbrush strokes.
I also want to make it a point to mention that I have the urge to drive the 24’s to my ear drums limits as the harder you drive them the sweeter they become - really allowing you to take everything I said above to its full potential and limit. I listened to them for two weeks, absolutely pushing them to the loudest levels I could stand and everything just got better, except my hearing - that feels like potential permanent damage.
Fortunately the 85db recommended limit to keep you in the audiophile game for longer so you don't destroy your hearing happens to be a sweet spot where dynamics really shine. It’s highly recording and source dependent but the Grand Symphony of full sound stage and dynamics strikes again and offers several distinct volume levels, and locations for each of the instruments or sounds.

When I close my eyes and try to better capture the dynamics in visual form you can think of it like this. In a rock song (Listening to Seether ATM) - every drum beat and cymbal clash is its own straight line consisting of 100 dashes. When that drum is silent the line is flat. When the drum or cymbal hit, imagine the center of the line spikes up like a frequency spectrum analyzer - the center dash spike is the peak dynamics of that drum hit, the dashes to the left and right of the center also raise in conjunction but they don't quite match the volume output of the center dash’s peak height. The subsequent dashes that define the note have their own levels also and when you get to the edges of the note’s dashes you get a tight and controlled ever so slightly rounded edge that keeps that particular note nice and contained .The rounded edge may be coming from my May/Bliss stack - but its displayed well on the 24’s. You get this all for every bass kick, every cymbal, guitar pluck, all while the vocals are separated in their own spectrum, and bass is digging deeper and deeper continually, surprising how well defined it is across the range not to interfere with the dynamics of all the other notes.


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