Sound
One of the headphone’s features is its tuning filter system. Whether you want to listen to rock, pop, hip-hop, classical, jazz or house, the Alfa Genus V2 has a filter to bring the best out of your favorite genre. With a simple change of one of three included filters, you are in control your music. I quite like the possibility to tune your IEM based on your preferred sound signature or the music you’re listening to but the filters are so small you have to pay attention what you’re doing. I wouldn’t advice changing the filters on the go as you can easily drop and lose them. I’m not surprised to see Rockjaw is offering extra pairs of replacement filters on their website ($7,24/€6,49). My advice to Rockjaw is to add a filter container in the next revision of this monitor, just like the Trinity and RHA T10/T20 models have. It would make a lot of people happy.
For those of you who haven’t read the first review I’ll repeat that the filter system works with color codes. Silver means enhanced bass, black has a treble focus and gold has the most natural/balanced sounding signature. In the V1, the black filter had foam inside but in the V2 it does not. In the V2 the gold filter now has the foam, where the V1 didn’t have it and hat really impacts the V2’s sound signature compared to the original.
Sound wise these earphones surprised me even more than they did last time. For the price range they’re in you get a more than decent sound stage and detail retrieval. Depth and balance still aren’t the monitor’s strongest points and sound still is more inside your head but that – again – is only very normal for the price they’re going for. Like the V1, this V2 is very easy to drive and it doesn’t need amplification at all. That means you can forget about amp synergy issues and just focus on the music. Should you want to modify the V2’s sound in any way, there always are the filters to fall back to as well. I haven’t heard any hiss coming from any source with the Genus V2, and that’s always good. I especially like using the V2 with the Fiio X7 (review next week) and Cayin N5 DAPs (Review in the coming weeks).
If you’re in to a lighter and more neutral sound signature where the treble tones get all the focus, the champagne colored filter is the one for you. The difference with the V1 using this exact same filter is huge. The added foam really holds back the mids and bass even more, making the sound very light and treble focused. In the V1 the mids and especially the bass section still had a stronger presence, which made the overall presentation a lot more musical to listen to. The champagne filter in the V2 makes the new sound signature a lot more extreme and treble focused. Personally I prefer the champagne filter of the V1 as the V2’s is a bit too extreme for my taste.
The silver bass filter was the one I liked most in the V1. It gave the bass more body and it strongly improved the mids while keeping the same level of treble. I last time mentioned I wished Rockjaw had made the bass tighter as bass got a bit bloated, loose and ran into the mids. It now seems Rockjaw was listening and they improved all of this. With the new silver bass filter you get a more balanced sound and the bass doesn’t get the extreme focus it had in the V1. With the new filter you now get good bass, full bodied mids and soft treble. Overall it’s a very musical presentation and it’s extremely easy to listen to.
In the V1 review I stated the black reference filter made the V1’s mids sound muffled. In the V2 the filter foam has disappeared and it has cleared up the V2, maybe even a bit too much for my taste. There still are more mids than with the gold filter and treble still gets less focus but just like last time I find the black filter to be rather confusing to my ears. As a result the silver filter still is the one I like most. It might not be the most detailed and certainly not the most treble focused one, but it does deliver the most balanced sound signature and it has the most musical presentation of all the filters. Of course it all depends on your personal preference and that’s what makes the filter system and the Alfa Genus so great: you can tune it just the way you like it. DIY’ers can even experiment with different types of foam to get an even better sound signature from the V2’s. What’s not to like?
Conclusion
Rockjaw’s website states: “DUE TO OVERWHELMING DEMAND WE HAVE SOLD OUT OF THE ALFA GENUS V2 WITH MICS. PRE-ORDER: EXPECTED 22ND FEBURARY”. That is a good indication they’re doing it right and I’m not surprised by this at all. The Alfa Genus V2 is cheap, looks great, is comfy and it lets you tune the sound based on your personal preference. What’s not to like?
Rockjaw didn’t just change the name: the new V2’s cable is better, the housing is smaller and the filters have been optimized. Overall I do think it sounds better than the V1 but at the same time I still think there’s margin for improvement, especially in the sound stage category and with layering and timbre. I’m just afraid it would make the Alfa Genus more expensive and there are a whole lot of top quality universals in the sub $99 segment already. I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of Rockjaw yet though, and I’ll be keeping an eye on them for sure.
Thank you Joe for sensing over the sample
