What an intriguing set! I’ve had open TWS before, but I don’t think I’ve had an open IEM, at least nothing memorable. In my headphone stable I have many, many open sets so was looking forward to how this would translate, and if some of the upsides (and downsides) of open sets would come with this IEM. Let’s find out!
The packaging is very much the new standard Kiwi Ears, it comes with the shells, two sets of ear tips, a small case, and a nice cable which has a 3.5mm SE, and 4.4mm balanced interchangeable terminations. The connector for this is at the bottom, just like the Astral, so you don’t accidently disconnect it when pulling the plug out of your source. Great design, and a great cable all around. I did try this set with some other cables however found the stock to more than good enough.
I usually don’t talk much about the design and drivers, however given this is an open set I’ll talk about it a little more. The Septet boasts an open design, with a 10mm DD handling the Bass, 4BA’s, 1 Micro-Planar, and 1 PZT. This is brought together with a five way crossover, and 3 tuning tubes. The Linsoul website states that they’ve been working on this for nearly two years, and that each driver has full ventilation in the open back design. Quite interesting, and very ambitious!
Design wise it’s quite understated, there is a small kiwi ears logo on each shell, black body and brown outer to match the brown cable. I like it.
While I did find a decent fit with the tips that were included I changed over to some of my own for a better fit, I preferred these with a deeper fit so try to find tips that allow that if you pickup a set. With a shallow fit I found that the set could be a little bright, a deeper fit brought them back to natural.
For testing purposes I had a little over a week with this as my main driver, I was away with work and didn’t have much to do at night so I had some extended sessions with this one. I took my many DAPs with me, and it worked admirably across all of them. Similar to the Astral I found that it scaled up well and preferred it out of my more expensive DAPs. It needs a bit of power to sound right, out of some dongles I had to push the power up and it sounded a little off, would highly recommend a decently powered dongle, or a DAP to pair this with. My main pairing this week was the Luxury and Precision P6 Pro 10ae Silver, but also had a decent amount of time on the HiBy R4 for streaming. Sounded great out of both, but a clear preference for the R2R goodness of the P6 Pro.
Music wise I was a little all over the place this week, we had a decent dose of Radiohead, Paul Simon, The Doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival, some Mahler symphonies, Lady Gaga, Linkin Park, Tool, and The Beach Boys, along with some random shuffles. All up, a decent mix of genres.
Bass:
Surprised me a little, for its open back design it’s no slouch. It reaches deep and where the track calls for it the stage gets filled out. Pretty tight and precise in how it delivers. Not a bass head set, but not bass light like I thought it may have been.
Listening to Tool – The Grudge the bass fills out a stage which expands beyond my ears and out in front of me, but it doesn’t bleed into the other frequencies at all. It doesn’t aim for a punchiness like some sets, but it delivers a full sounding bass region. All up I was impressed. It’s present, ample, but not trying to take over the show.
Mids:
Natural. The mids are very clear in how they’re presented here, with plenty of detail. Perhaps a little warm leaning (although this could be partly due to my sources). With the open back design nothing falls over anything else, so where you have lots of instruments that live in the mids they all have their own place in the stage, and all remain coherent. The set has a decent amount of body to the sound but due to the open back design everything sometimes sounds a little far away. This generally just means that I was listening a few at a few db more than I usually would, still well within a safe range but worth a callout.
Vocals are very clear and coherent; I liked male and female on this set equally. Depending on the depth of the fit there was sometimes a little bit of sibilance, deeper fit gets rid of it. I’ll stop mentioning it now but always go with a deeper fit with this set.
Listening to Lady Gaga – Vanish Into You her voice is simply amazing on this set, with the music supporting the delivery of her voice, bringing all of the emotion straight to your ears and heart.
All up, great mids that can sound a little distant if you’re playing at lower volume.
Treble:
Open (lol). Probably the standout for the set, the open design, along with the drivers that are playing the region, makes it quite special. The set is smooth, and it’s no exception up here. I didn’t find it bright, but open, airy, detailed, and smooth would be my best description for this region. Pick any decent treble focussed track and you’ll be impressed.
Soundstage and imaging:
The stage here is quite impressive. It extends out beyond my ears, and out in front of me. Imaging is decent. With all of that it remains coherent and quite musical. You do get a little bit of sound leakage due to the design however it’s nothing compared to an over ear open back.
Subjective thoughts:
I really like these. My favourite tracks were mid/treble focussed. Silversun Pickups album Swoon was amazing on this set and really highlights everything that’s great about it. It did bring a lot of what I like about open backs to the IEM space, and for the most part it succeeds. My only nitpick would be the distant sounding music sometimes, I think it’s a by-product of the open design and solved by turning the set up a few notches. At its price point you’re getting something pretty special here, Kiwi Ears are trying lots of different things at the moment and for each one I’ve tried I have nothing but praise.
Overall:
Recommended. It brings a lot of the great things about the open back design and shrinks it down into an IEM. The different drivers work wonderfully well together, and you get something quite special all up. Is it for everyone? Possibly not, IEM’s are often appealing for their portability and while I had no issue with the open back design it wouldn’t suit some people. For everyone else, particularly those of us with many sets, the Septet deserves a place in your collection, it’ll certainly be staying in mine! I’ve been listening to Lady Gaga – Mayhem while writing this and it’s such an enjoyable listen, her vocals sound truly amazing on this set.
| Category | Score (/5) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bass | 4.0 | Pretty good, fills out the stage when called upon. Enjoyable. |
| Mids | 4.5 | Natural. Vocals can be very special here. Sometimes a little too distant. |
| Treble | 5.0 | The star of the show, beautiful and smooth. |
| Soundstage | 5.0 | I really wouldn’t ask for more. |
| Imaging | 4.0 | Decent. |
| Build & Fit | 5.0 | Comfortable design, really nice cable. |
| Value | 4.5 | A unique set in a busy market. |
Overall Rating at $269: 4.6 / 5
Aussie Audiophile 
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