In this review, I’ll see what Maytak Audio brings to the table with their M6 custom IEMs. They start at $949.99 USD and upwards.
Disclaimer: Maytak Audio is not related to Headfonia. They sent me the Maytak Audio M6 free of charge to be featured on Headfonia.com.
Maytak Audio
The company hails from South Carolina, USA and is currently a one-man show with Gene Maytak being the man. Gene has extensive experience in pro audio and got interested in IEMs to get some hearing protection in loud working environments. After finding out that custom IEMs are made mostly by hand, he decided to learn what makes them tick and started taking them apart.
Fast forward a few years, and Maytak Audio is born with a range of four custom IEMs. M2, M3, M4, and M6 are each named after the number of drivers used in the construction. All but the M2 use a 3-way electronic crossover, and every IEM in the lineup employs exclusively balanced-armatures. They all can be customized to taste or other requirements, and all share the same basic set of accessories.
Maytak Audio M6
As the name suggests, the Maytak Audio M6 is a six-driver custom IEM. All six are balanced armatures and work from 3 bands of electrically crossed-over signals. It’s likely that the brunt of low-passing is done via physical filters in the nozzle, whilst high-passing is left for the electronic filters. The M6 has three visible nozzles, which meet at the very tip right behind the mesh grille.
Like many other IEMs, the M6 is vented, but in this case, we’re dealing with a pinhole-sized hole, likely to alleviate insertion pressure changes instead of augmenting low-frequency output.
The M6 is quite sensitive at 133dB/V, however, the voltage sensitivity is inflated by the 11-ohm load impedance. Converted to efficiency, we get a more down-to-earth 113.4dB/mW figure, which means that power requirements are rather meagre and just about any type of drive circuit will be able to provide enough power.
The high sensitivity figure does make the M6 quite susceptible to electronic noise like hissing, AC hum, ground loops or digital noise from poor circuit isolation.
Features
- 6 balanced-armature vented shell acoustic formula
- 3-way electronic crossover
- 3 output ducts
- 3D-printed custom acrylic shell
- 10Hz-20kHz frequency response
- 11ohm impedance
- 113.4dB/mW efficiency
- 133dB/V sensitivity
- 0.78mm 2-pin recessed connectors
- 1.25m single crystal copper, 8-wire, round braid
- soldered 4.4mm jack
Design, Build & Haptics
Casing
I appreciate that Maytak have not gone overboard with the unboxing with the M6. All we get is a smallish, plain cardboard box that houses the aluminum carrying case and some minor paperwork. Of course, low unbox therapy points, but I don’t have to wonder whether to throw out a kilo worth of glossy cardboard and foam inserts.
The plain boxing also lets the customer know that all of their hard-earned cash has gone into what matters.
The carrying case is substantial and made entirely of anodized aluminum. The lid has the Maytak Audio logo laser-engraved on it and the owner’s nom de guerre below it. Unlike the Timeless II case, the sound the lid makes when it’s unscrewed isn’t as grating, which my ears appreciate.
Inside the case, we find the M6 IEMs, a cleaning cloth, a brush tool, and a shirt clip for the cable.
Build Quality
The Maytak M6 uses 3D-printed acrylic for their ear shells with a couple of millimeters of shell thickness. This makes the IEMs quite light, but I guess a full fill would make them feel less hollow. In any case, my ears appreciate the light weight. When configuring, the acrylic can be chosen to be fully translucent or opaque, like on my pair.
There are also numerous options for faceplates, and I chose an audiophile crowd favorite – maple burl, which looks absolutely fabulous in real life as well. Does it imbue its woody qualities on the sound? Likely not…
I will say that the quality of the shell is impeccable, with no visible imperfections. The fit is also great as Gene personally examined the 3D files of my ear impressions. My audiologist didn’t have a biting block, so I wrapped my index and middle fingers in a napkin and bit into those.
Of course, the napkin was too thin (or my teeth were too powerful!), and I ended up with two nice bite marks on each of my hands. Now, don’t tell me I don’t go the extra mile for you!
Lastly, the cable. Long story short, it’s a regular stage monitor cable. There’s zero microphonics, and it does a great job of getting out of the way. At the same time, it probably won’t appeal to cable connoisseur sensibilities as it’s thin and has zero bling.
The input side is terminated in 3.5mm TRS angled jack, so for anything more special, you’d need to source your own cable that supports recessed 2-pin connectors.
Comfort and Ergonomics
This is my first tango with custom IEMs, so my impressions will be relative to universal IEMs. I will say that my ears had to be accustomed to the deep insertion, but after a day, the Maytak M6 felt like I was wearing nothing. The fit, of course, will depend on the expertise of your audiologist and on how closely you’ve followed the instructions provided by Maytak Audio.
If something does go wrong, I trust Gene to point it out by examining the impressions and giving valuable feedback.
Initially, I was underwhelmed by the cable that comes with the M6 as it’s quite thin and looks quite un-audiophile. After a few listening sessions on-the-go, I grew to appreciate its non-existent microphonics and that it generally keeps out of the way of me enjoying music.
I’ve encountered similar cables from other pro-oriented brands, so I can’t say that I was surprised to encounter it here. If you want a flashier cord, just order something with 2-pn connectors that can accommodate recessed plugs.
Isolation
Due to the fact that Maytak M6 use minimal venting and, like many other custom IEMs, opt for a deeper insertion depth, the isolation is excellent. It’s not exactly up to par with what you get from Etymotics, but overall, it cuts out noise better than most universal vented shell IEMs.
The impressive passive isolation offered by the Maytak M6 makes commuting and open-office work almost noise-free and allows the IEMs to perform subjectively better as the signal-to-noise ratio is higher.
Sound Signature and Technicalities
My main testing system for the Maytak M6 was the Topping x Holo Centuarus driving the DROP + SMSL HO150, Aune S17 Pro EVO, and two portable rigs – the (trans)portable iFi iDSD Valkyrie and the cheerful Snowsky Retro Nano.
Driving the Maytak M6 is rather effortless, with everything from a meagre 25$ dongle to having enough juice on tap to achieve plenty of volume. Care has to be taken in regard to gain – 133dB/V sensitivity means that from hotter sources, you might not have enough volume control legroom and be relegated to the bottom region, where most traditional potentiometers will have the worst channel matching.
The relatively high sensitivity also means the noisy sources will be easily revealed. Whilst an 11-ohm load facilitates high voltage sensitivity, it also means that the Maytak M6 are quite sensitive towards output impedance.
With loudspeakers, the rule of thumb is to keep output impedance 8 times lower than the load, so with the M6, this translates to 1.4 ohms.
One must also keep in mind that these are multi-driver IEMs with non-linear electric impedance, so high impedance drive will interact with them and cause shifts in the frequency response.
Overall, driving the Maytak M6 is a rather straightforward affair if the above considerations are kept in mind. Of course, whilst Snowsky Retro Nano had enough drive and was enjoyable to listen to, something higher-end like the Valkyrie provided a palpable improvement in almost every aspect.
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