Review: Hum Dolores – Studio

Package:

HUM again opts for simplicity rather than extravagance. Supplied with the custom Dolores comes a red Pelican 1010 case. Personally, I love the Peli cases, because they’re extremely robust and protect my gear from the daily threats of being thrown in my backpack.

Other than the Peli case, you will just get the Dolores and the Tara cable. All in all, you don’t really need more than your monitors and a protection case in my opinion. Would it be nice to have just a little more accessories in there? Definitely. Cleaning accessories for example would be good, as CIEMs need to be taken care of.

HUM Dolores

Build Quality:

The build quality of the Dolores is pretty much as good as it gets. There’s no bubble in the acrylic, no residue of glue on the entire shell, there are no sharp corners and the face plate closing is done very well.

HUM makes the canals a little shorter than what I’m used to from other manufacturers, they also try to increase comfort by making the nozzles a bit thinner than others. The Dolores still seals and fits very well, however I can manage to break the seal easier than with most of my other customs.

When I brought this up to HUM, they immediately offered me a refit, but I didn’t think it would be necessary as a good seal can still be achieved.

Sound:

The driver wars are long over now, and we’ve seen many companies pushing excellent designs using only a hand full of drivers. There’s the Tia Fourté, the Phantom, the Prelude and many others. Unlike most brands, HUM has always considered adding drivers to get to a better sound out of fashion. Now, let’s take a closer look together at how the Dolores performs.

HUM Dolores

Similar to tube amplifiers or Moving Coil cartridges in a turntable, HUM recommends giving the Dolores five to ten minutes of playtime to let it reach its optimum performance. Indeed it does need some warm up time to play at its peak. In the first ten minutes I found the treble especially to be harder edged and the bass to be thinner, that changed after the Dolores was fully ready to play.

Dolores is clearly tuned for a studio reference sound, with good balance, and a more forward treble region. Bass is relatively flat, with good extension. However, it doesn’t have the most solid sub-bass foundation, and here it lacks rumble.

Mid-bass has good body and presence, with a fine texture and resolution. Bass is well layered and shows great amounts of air in it. Upper bass is already going towards a more laid back approach and doesn’t color the lower midrange at all.

Lower mids are not in the focus of Dolores in order to realize the reference sound it is aiming for. Dolores has an overall thinner body and lighter weight in its presentation. Mid-mids are energetic, transparent and have high resolution. Instruments have a very precise sound and are separated with a high amount of air between them. Some instruments in the upper midrange segment have very good energy and bite. Especially electric guitar solos can sound very nice with convincing drive.

HUM Dolores

For a dual BA setup the technical parameters are outstanding. The imaging is spot on and every musician finds its place in the constructed stage. The sound stage stretches into good dimensions to a natural degree. It doesn’t create a mind-blowing wide arena, but rather a well sized concert hall. Dolores keeps the performers more up close to you, and doesn’t throw a holographic scene.

Highs are a bit conflicting for me. Their energy is very nice and they have excellent sparkle, but there is a tendency to sibilance. Which is more obvious with sources that tend to be brighter sounding. Cymbal crashes are pretty direct and bright.

The Dolores’ treble has the ability to bring out very fine details in the sound. For people who are not treble-heads, Dolores might be too forward in this aspect, others certainly could enjoy its good extension, energy and sparkle.

Sources and Comparisons on page three!