Ikko OH10 in-Ear Monitor, Detachable Design in-Ear Headphone/Earphone,10mm Dynamic Drive + Knowles 33518 Balanced Drive Dual Hybrid

Product Information

The Gems are able to deliver a punchy low-end, although no one will accuse them of being bass-heavy. When the music calls for it, they provide the goods to nod your head or tap your toes. All the while they remain clear, fast, and snappy sounding. It’s an engaging sound signature that reminds me of the experience of listening to good monitor speakers, rather than massive subwoofers. While playing Rain by Simply Three, the violins sounded very clean, although loses the texture and layering at some levels but overall presentation came out to be very good. IKKO Audio is a very young company, established just a few years ago, and it has already left its footprint in the audio industry; it makes mainly IEMs and headphone DACs and Amplifiers. I think it is accurate to say that in just a few years where others would do steps IKKO has done jumps.

I already wrote that OH1 and OH10 have the same sound signature; but what about their differences? Let me start by saying that whatever differences exist they are small. One’s first impression is that OH10’s presentation compared to that of OH1 is more polished and slightly more accurate and correct. Paying a little more attention, you realize that the sound of OH10 is more full-bodied, what we use to call “meatier”, better defined, and a little more cleaner and transparent. Furthermore, both OH1 and OH10 have a very big soundstage, both in width and depth, a very nice image, great dynamics and excellent separation; I really cannot detect any difference between the two in these departments. In a way, you can say that OH1 is intended for a quality everyday listening, while OH10 is intended for a dedicated high quality listening. Spectrogram is super clean and is not showing weird driver behavior. You can also see their hot zones better; the treble appears sharper and more present in some areas. Easy to drive, given 18 ohm impedance of the Ikko Oh10 any mid range dongle like the Shanling UA2 for example should be enough to drive it to its full potential.

All the mystic stuff aside, there may be something in there that pertains to the OH10. Perhaps these IEMs do have the ability to ‘heal the soul’ or bring ‘depth and clarity to emotions.’ I certainly feel that way when I get lost in the music I love, played on gear that excels. The OH10 shine like finely polished hematite.

Full-sized headphones: Hifiman Susvara, Hifiman HE1000SE, Audeze LCD-4, Erzetich Phobos, Erzetich Mania, Quad ERA-1, Fostex TH909, Kennerton Wodan, Kennerton Magni, Vali, M12S, Ollo S4X Reference Fit: Very good for me. Housing shapes are just about ideal for my concha shape and size. While once worn they are incredibly comfortable while keeping a relative static position, like sitting or just walking around, primarily due to their weight I recommend not to use them during dynamic activity like running or similar as they might fall off. Moving the focus from the low-end to the treble regions is what differentiates the sound signatures between the Obsidian and the Gems. What’s remarkable is how well IKKO sustained the regions that were not the primary focus. With the Obsidian, the tamer treble maintains enough presence to ensure clarity, and with the Gems, the low-end magnitude is sufficient to balance out the far more resolving and open upper registers. Lows-Depending on source these can dig really deep down low end wise. I never had any issues(with amp) when it came to bass leaking into the other ranges. These will provide a nice thump though I wouldn’t call them bass head worthy. A least without EQ.Driver(s): Φ10mm Titanium Polymer Diaphragm Dynamic Driver + Knowles 33518 Balanced Armature driver IEMs: 64Audio A18s, A12t, & N8, MMR Thummim, CA Andromeda 2020 & SuperMoon, ThieAudio Prestige, Monarch (OG) and Monarch Mk2, Subtonic Storm, AKG N5005, Oriolus Szalayi, SoftEars Twilight, Dunu EST 112, Penon Serial, Letshuoer EJ07M (Resin) and S12, Ikko OH10, Etymotic ER4XR & ER3XR, Technics EAH-TZ700, Fearless Audio Provence, Sony XBA-N3, TRI OG i3 & Meteor, HifiBoy OS V3, Tin OG P1 & T3+, Hidizs MD4, CCA C10, BQEYZ KC2, TRN M10, etc

Resolution and detail retrieval is actually pretty good. But again, it will not compete when comparing to planar IEMs in this price range. Bass: Djuro – Drop that bass (01:15-01:30), extends a bit lower on the N3 but with similar rumble. Punch quantity is a bit higher on the N3, but is looser, more textured and with similar speed. But still cleaner on the N3 You can use basically anything to drive OH10 as it is not sensitive to hiss, and not overly power hungry either. The overall presentation of the IEM is balanced-neutral, so any source works well with it. I used Lotoo Paw 6000, Astell Kern SE180, and iBasso DX300 the most while writing this full written review. It should be noted that I have absolutely no affiliation with IKKO, I am not receiving any incentive for this review or to sweeten things out. I'd like to thank IKKO for providing the sample for this review. Every opinion expressed is mine and I stand by it. The purpose of this review is to help those interested in IKKO OH10 Obsidian find their next music companion.The IKKO OH10 bring the rumble down under! Do the OH10 bring the rumble down under? Yes, yes they do. Thank you for asking. Midrange Hiroyuki Sawano – Pretenders (01:18-01:47), a bit more quantity on the N3, similar speed but tighter on the OH10 while texture is better on the N3. Cleaner and more detailed on the N3 with better tonality as well. Hiroyuki Sawano – Pretenders (01:18-01:47), fun because of the quantity but also clean because of the tightness and speed. Texture is good as well. It was pleasing to know that even small USB-C dongles and portable Bluetooth gizmos were able to awake subterranean bass notes in no time, OH10 were always engaging and hard smalling no matter the source, yep, I’ve heavily head-banged even out of a smartphone.

OH10 doesn’t scale much with source, performs at more or less at same levels as pointed above in the review. With this Lotoo Paw S1 dongle DAC, OH10 has the same excellent thumping bass performance, same kind of recessed mids and treble too showing same traits as discussed above. Soundstage is less wide than N6ii w/E02 module. OH10 through S1 has less space between instruments, and in turn sound less airy than what is the case with N6ii w/E02. That is a given considering the gap between capabilities between the DAP and dongle. But, in the end, OH10 sounds very good from S1 dongle DAC.

TL;DR: recap

Even though the highs of OH10 have substantial energy, and even though I like brightness here, I somehow found the highs here a bit unnatural and sometimes a little too much energetic. Sharp notes, airy treble. Details are reproduced well, but sometimes sharpness compromises a bit of details. Lower treble has slightly more emphasis here. Trebles have a slight bit of grain as well. But on the other hand, its quite good for listening to classical orchestra. I enjoyed listening to masterpieces of Mozart and Beethoven on it while working. Comfort: Here is where it struggles the most, as the heavy shells make the comfort pretty bad and is too fatiguing for me to use for over an hour. Hiroyuki Sawano &Z (02:18-02:57), tonality, details and clarity are better on the EST112. Too much bass and recessed vocals on the OH10 but better timbre on it. Overall, the frequency response of OH10 resembles quite a lot the Harman target curve that works phenomenal with fast and punchy music.