In this review, I’ll look at what Yanyin can do with 10 BA drivers housed in the Carmen IEMs. The unit costs $849 USD.
Disclaimer: Linsoul is not related to Headfonia. They sent me the Yanyin Carmen free of charge to be featured on Headfonia.com.
Yanyin
Fuzhou Yanyin Technology Co. Ltd. is an IEM producer located in Fuzhou, China. It was founded in 2020 by a group of audio enthusiasts. The logo of Yanyin contains the Latin letters “R” and “D” which signify the company’s dedication to research and development. By employing in-depth acoustics know-how Yanyin strive to offer high-quality IEMs for a fair price.
Overall Yanyin IEMs have been crowd-favorites and an open secret in the IEM enthusiast community as a good choice for well-tuned products. Yanyin don’t try to wow with unorthodox driver configurations or other gimmicks with relatively simple multi-driver implementations being their specialty. Many of their IEMs have switches to fine-tailor the tuning.
Yanyin’s most popular product seems to be the Canon II which Yagiz chose to award with the “Headfonia Recommended” badge.
I’ve also spent considerable time with it and for the longest time, it was my favorite in the $300 range. The flagship of the Yanyin line-up is the Moonlight Ultra, a $1,289 tribrid design with electret super tweeters and a four-way crossover—also a “Headfonia Recommended” award recipient.
Yanyin Carmen
The Yanyin Carmen is the demi-flagship of the product line-up if we sort them by price. The pitch here is nothing I haven’t seen before – ten “next generation” BAs per side ensemble with four Sonion armatures handling the lows, two Sonion midrange armatures, two Sonion tweeter drivers, and finally two custom armatures of unspecified origin for super-highs. A four-way electronic crossover does the frequency division and is helped by physical dampening filters in the nozzle. This time Yanyin offer only one tuning with no switches for us to fiddle with.
According to Yanyin, Carmen is built upon the research that resulted in the Moonlight series of IEMs. Unlike most other Yanyin IEMs which use a dynamic driver for the low frequencies, the Carmen has a four-BA module which overcomes the traditional limitations of armature bass. Often all-BA IEMs can offer a technically proficient bass but this driver type has considerable acoustic output impedance which causes it to shift in performance if a perfect seal and insertion depth aren’t achieved. The Carmen can be bought from Linsoul and other retailers.
Features:
- 10 balanced armature vented shell acoustic formula
- 4-way electronic crossover
- 4 output ducts
- Medical-grade resin shell
- 5Hz-25kHz frequency response
- 10-ohm impedance
- 109dB/mW efficiency
- 129dB/V sensitivity
- 0.78mm 2-pin flush connectors
- 1.2m single crystal copper, 22AWG 140 core cable
- soldered 3.5mm, 2.5mm and 4.4mm jacks available
Casing
The Yanyin Carmen comes in a curious-looking white cardboard box with intricate geometry. There’s a cardboard band that keeps the whole thing from coming apart, it also carries most of the product branding on the top and the basic manufacturer specs on the bottom. Sliding the band off frees the two cardboard drawers that slide out diagonally from the hard cardboard shell.
The top drawer houses the Carmen IEMs, a polishing cloth, the cable, and a plastic bag that holds the only set of included ear tips. This time Yanyin have opted for the “sticky” liquid silicone tips which generally work quite well for me. As usual, there are three sizes to choose from. The lower drawer holds the paperwork and a flat fabric carrying pouch. No wonder the box is so slim as there’s no hard carrying case included. The included accessories are quite well-made but relatively bare even when compared to IEMs that cost a fourth of the price of the Carmen.
Build Quality
As with other Yanyin IEMs, the Carmen sports a dark fully acrylic ear shell with a translucent faceplate. On the faceplate, we see the Yanyin logo on the right side and the word “Carmen” written in silvery cursive. Under the lettering and the logo, there’s a portion of sparkling violet particles that give the faceplate an illusion of depth. The design looks decent but it’s nothing I haven’t seen before in much more affordable IEMs from say ZiiGaat or Thieaudio.
In terms of size, the ear shells aren’t exactly petite but don’t reach the size of full-fat tribrid flagships. Most of the volume of the shell is in the depth dimension, so even smaller-eared folk should be okay with the Carmen. The nozzle is made out of metal and has a nice retention lip that securely holds the ear tips. There’s a mesh grill over the nozzle to prevent earwax ingress.
Like with other Yanyin IEMs, the cable we get has a soldered jack for which the termination is chosen upon purchase. A Yanyin rep told me that it is done to lower the overall impedance of the cable which will be higher with an extra contact surface the swappable jacks have. With its 10-ohm impedance, there’s some wisdom in this choice. The Carmen has flush 0.78mm 2-pin inlets which seem decently well-made without any looseness.
The 1.2m cable uses single crystal copper conductors which proudly shine through the translucent isolation. From the jack we get a 4-wire paracord-style braid which enters the Y-splitter and then continues as two twist braids all the way to the ear hook and 2-pin connector. Both the jack and the Y-splitter are milled from an unspecified alloy in a raw metallic finish. My common sense tells me that it’s probably some kind of aluminum but the metal is a bit warm to the touch like titanium. I didn’t want to do a scratch test to be sure. All in all the cable is very high quality and feels at home with an IEM of this caliber.
Comfort and Ergonomics
When it comes to comfort, the Yanyin Carmen is a clever design that wears much smaller than it actually is. It’s due to the fact that the ear shell isn’t wide and should feel at home in most ears. The nozzles are slightly above 5mm in thickness which is the new normal with multi-bore designs. The retention lips on the nozzle should make sure that there’s no risk of losing tips even when there’s plenty of ear oil in the mix.
Overall I find the Carmen to be very comfortable for a 10-driver design and I can easily wear it for a full day. The ear shells are back-vented so insertion is easy and doesn’t create pressure build-up. There’s also no audible driver flex but tapping on the ear shell makes a faint ringing sound. The cable kept out of the way and wasn’t especially prone to microphonics. My sample came with the 3.5mm single-ended termination but the high sensitivity meant that I never found myself yearning for the 4.4mm.
Isolation
Provided you’ve achieved a good seal, the Yanyin Carmen isolates pretty okay. The company specifies 26dB of noise reduction but you know how it is – low-frequency rumble still manages to creep through even the best earplugs. Overall the isolation is pretty much in line with every other vented shell IEM I’ve tested which means that commuting and sitting in an open-plan office is fine as long as there’s music playing. With no music, you’ll hear most of the louder stuff.
Sound Signature and Technicalities
My main testing system for the Yanyin Carmen was the Topping x Holo Centuarus driving the DROP + SMSL HO150 and two portable rigs – the (trans)portable FiiO Q15 and the cheerful Snowsky Retro Nano.
Rated at 109dB/mW efficiency, 129dB/V voltage sensitivity, and 10 ohms, the Yanyin Carmen should work fine on most setups. The IEMs are a bit sensitive to noise and some setups might run into issues with having too little usable volume control before things become too loud. On my desktop setup, a 5Vrms DAC driving an amp at -12dB gain meant that my volume knob constantly sat at 9’o clock. The Snowsky dongle was kept at low gain and at the 24th volume step.
After trying aftermarket cables and Spinfit CP145 eartips to improve the sound I found that both the stock cable and tips work quite well. Both my pure silver and silver-plated copper cables introduced minuscule changes to the tonal balance but never provided a clear upgrade from the stock cable. The Spinfit CP145 tips worked better in terms of comfort but the sound didn’t change a lot. I wouldn’t fret too much about upgrading the stock accessories that come with the Carmen.
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