Moondrop Stellaris Review

Sound

First of all, the Moondrop Stellaris is a planar IEM, meaning that it would automatically sound unique and different from many conventional IEMs. Planar drivers tend to sound drastically different, at least in my experience. So the Stellaris, from the start, has a unique tuning which is difficult to be appealing to many audiophiles, because of a very specific sound presentation.

The Stellaris manages to do many things great, especially for a very low price range. In terms of technical performance, it’s quite strong in many aspects. The presentation however is suitable for specific people with specific sources, with specific genres. So be aware, it’s not an all-rounder by any means. 

Bass

As always let’s start with the lows. This part I think is the part that the Stellaris suffer the most. Sure, I’ve listened to other planar IEMs and they’re not particularly impressive when it comes to bass. So this is an expected result, but the Stellaris have a very flat bass response to the point where it feels unnatural and synthetic.  Something feels missing on many occasions. The focus here is on the mid-bass area, and even that one is not emphasized that much.

This helps the IEM have a spacious and airy feeling, but tonality wise it’s not natural to me. Attaching the foam tips improves the situation just a bit, but doesn’t provide a natural, full and breathy bass response nevertheless. The bass texture is missing in many songs that I’ve tried. I never expect a great performance from any IEM with this price point in terms of bass response. Yet, the tonality is problematic. 

The overall resolution of the bass is not bad, but there’s a certain lack of depth and layering in the bass department. Overall, bass lovers probably won’t be satisfied with the Stellaris.

Mids

From top to bottom, the Stellaris has very transparent mids with a good definition and emphasis. This section is quite resolving as a whole, and instrument separation is nicely done as well. Other positive sides are the dynamics and detail. The mids sound very life-like, lively and vibrant. The balance here is not great though, since the lower mids are less emphasized than the upper mid-range.

On the tonality side, things aren’t perfect, because of the lack of mid-bass texture and fullness. This crisp and clean approach in mids works nicely for some genres, and it creates a nice atmosphere and energy in live recordings. The most impressive part here is the overall transparency level. Considering this IEMs price and the cheap cable it comes with, I did not expect this kind of success in terms of transparency. It sounds perfectly crisp, and the separation of the instruments is good.

The timbre is problematic though, as most instruments sound tinny and metallic, without much texture or fullness. 

Treble

Once again, the treble section sounds very clean and energetic here. This is also the impressive part of the Stellaris together with the mids and the treble in terms of articulation. The resolution in this part is great as well. The treble is very transparent and vibrant just like the mid-section, and they’re quite emphasized. Don’t imagine a very aggressive treble monster, but a controlled approach with vivid highs.

Though, the lower mid-range sounds a bit dull compared to the very energetic lower treble. This creates a contrast with an unbalanced presentation. Some people would find this treble too bright, although I think it’s on the safer side of peaky. Yet, the contrast between lower mids and lower treble is present so that also adds to the tonality problem that Stellaris suffers.

The extension in the highs is not the best I’ve heard of course, but it’s fairly good for the money. With treble-oriented tracks, highs take over and take the spotlight with the Stellaris, which you can appreciate if you’re a treblehead. There’s no sibilance or piercing cymbals with the Stellaris, but it comes pretty close at times, so I would say it’s not a smooth treble, but on the edge. 

Technical Performance

The Stellaris feels like a technical IEM rather than a tonally correct one. This one has a very good technical performance for just 109$, but it doesn’t perform the best when it comes to coherency, tonality and timbre. 

The soundstage is pretty nice for an IEM of this calibre.  The width in particular is very impressive and also surprising to hear. The sense of space is there, and despite the flat and somewhat impactless nature of the bass, the depth is not terrible. Moondrop has done a great job to give this IEM a good 3D feeling, especially the wideness.

The stereo image is also quite good with great focus. It has great resolution and transparency with a black background. Merge those qualities with a great sound stage magnitude and you certainly have a high performer for a budget monitor. Especially the level of detail impressed me the most, as I didn’t expect that much detail at all.

And yet, as I’ve mentioned a couple of times in the article so far, it suffers from tonality problems, unbalanced presentation, and lack of texture. So there’s good and there’s bad. Technically it’s a great IEM for that price, but it seems it’s not tuned very well in terms of tonal balance.

Page 1: Intro, Package, Design, Build, Fit

Page 3: Comparisons & Conclusion