Razer Moray

Razer hasn't made many IEMs over the years, and the last ones I remember had neon green cables, but now with {Moray}, they want to make a more professional product and have switched to IEM, in-ear monitors, which, for the most part, have a much more anatomically correct design, some might even call it ergonomic, and sit further inside the ear than traditional in-ears - but the price is definitely also a factor when calling something a "monitor".

There's more to what I consider to be the essentials for this type of product:

It's wired, and combined with in-ear, it provides better sound quality for passive noise cancellation. It uses a dual construction where a traditional unit takes care of the bass, while a more sophisticated Balanced Armature Driver takes care of the treble and midrange. The BA is somewhat more expensive to manufacture than a traditional dynamic unit, so the price makes some sense, but it can still be made a lot cheaper.

It has a moulded housing, a cable with a braided shield (to prevent noise radiation) and the conductor in the cable is pure copper.

In addition, Razer has received a THX certification, which means... er... a lot of testing. I'm having a hard time finding out what this specifically means, other than that it fulfils certain requirements regarding frequency response and distortion, but what those requirements are is apparently a secret - but they hold high standards and a lot of testing is done, we can see that.

Razer's marketing suggests that it is for streaming use, and that makes sense, the passive noise reduction is ample even with a noisy colleague, you avoid bacterial growth when using headphones for a long time, there is a wired connection so you have better sound quality and never run out of battery - and it is just significantly more discreet than a pair of large headphones with cat ears. In addition, the small hooked shape of the cable near the ear makes it fit really well.

The price is £130, but has been seen a little cheaper elsewhere.

The quality is surprisingly high, not only does it follow the usual MMCX standards for connection, but the unit itself is also classically moulded and actually fits well. The included tips are also good, both the foam and silicone ones, and there's a nice little case included too. I think I read somewhere that the foam tips attenuate up to 36dB, making them better than even the loudest gaming headphones on the market with active noise cancellation.

The impedance is 32 Ohms, so it must be strongly assumed that Razer has had them produced in an existing factory somewhere, otherwise it would have been a disproportionately high cost, and the fit, finish and such fits really well with many of the IEMs already on the market. In my opinion, it is therefore fairer to treat it as a true HIFI product rather than a gaming product, and during the test, a HIFI Audio iDSD Black Label was used, which is a combined headphone amplifier and DAC for desktop setups.

In general, I am really happy with the sound, it is very open, airy and well resolved compared to what you are used to with gaming sound, but you can also hear that it is not super linear, there is at least 10dB difference between the highest and lowest part of the frequency curve, and the treble is clearly manipulated. There is very clear speech, which makes me suspect that it is turned up well from 1500-2000Hz and beyond, but it's as if the treble has an over-emphasis in the meeting with the midrange, and then "fades out", and although it provides good speech recognition, it also makes the sound bright, but without the natural overtones. It's perhaps not surprising that speech is favoured in this way, and that Razer can claim that there is no listening fatigue, a phenomenon that typically occurs when exposed to distorted treble for long periods of time. But this also means that while they are really good for their purpose; streaming, they are less impressive for music as violins and other high-frequency instruments are not reproduced super optimally.

It's a fun product, not bad, but perhaps a slightly lower price point, as it's in an extremely crowded market, and a more HIFI-friendly profile would have been more optimal.