Disclaimer: This post is part of our Picture Sunday series, in which we take a brief look at upcoming reviews. You can find all previous posts here.
It is not that long ago that we have featured AAW’s first planar magnetic IEM, the Nightingale. Yet, we’re back with another post about one of their products. Another first, kinda. The Canary is AAW’s first monitor that uses Sonion’s electrostatic tweeters. Well, aside from the Pola of course, which is a collaboration product between AAW and Shozy.
The Canary uses not one but two estat tweeters, which are powered by one transformer. That’s not the only uncanny thing about Canary though. If you look at the driver configuration you’ll see that it uses a dual isobaric dynamic driver setup. Both these drivers fire into a chamber which then guides the sound via a tube to your eardrums. The dynamic and electrostatic drivers are accompanied by another set of four balanced armatures.
AAW implemented a four way passive and acoustic crossover system that uses their TruXross+ tech. Another first for AAW with the Canary is the flat impedance curve technology, which guarantees an almost linear input impedance no matter the output impedance of the source. What does that mean? You can hook Canary up to any product you have in your inventory without worrying about mismatching impedances – neat!
Canary not only sets new standards for AAW, no it also sets the bar high in terms of packaging, content and display for the entire industry in my opinion. AAW packed the Null Audio Hakone silver and copper hybrid cable to come with your Canary. If you’re not familiar with this cable let me just tell you it retails for 300 USD alone. But that’s not why I think they are dominating the packaging game right now. Canary also comes in a sexy blue leather case, that’s big enough to hold four DAPs and the Canary inside. In fact, the entire way of displaying the Canary and unboxing experience is just incredible in my opinion. Everything has its own place in the box and is neatly stored in there.
Sound wise Canary does everything right. There’s no annoying peak in the treble, it has good warmth but definitely isn’t too warm either. The dual dynamics definitely know how to do their job right, as they can pump out some quality bass and thunder if needed. For me Canary is also my first estat CIEM, and I was very curious to listen to it. The treble brings excellent speed and air to the sound, which makes Canary a real pleasure. It is free of sharpness and sibilance, has good richness and sparkle. What more could you want?
Canary has brought me a lot of joy so far, and I can’t wait to get into more detail in the full length review, so keep your eyes on Headfonia if you want to learn more about this Singaporean bird.
MrDrone
Those AAW Canary look like Custom IEMs. I have checked the AAW website and they are marketed as Universals. Can you clarify?
Linus
Hi MrDrone,
it indeed is a Custom IEM. AAW doesn’t seem to have them on their website. They are available for 2,499$ US. I guess you can e-mail them about it. Null Audio sells them here: https://www.null-audio.com/collections/custom-in-ear-monitor/products/aaw-canary-isobaric-electrostatic-custom-in-ear-monitor
Hope that helped.
Cheers