Xenns Mangird Top Review

I've given Mangird IEMs a lot of slack in the past, with tuning choices that were either pretty poor, or just solid enough, but perhaps a tad dark or missing treble for my tastes. Or in other cases, they have good tonal balance, but lack technical chops to present complex parts of music well.

I think I can finally give Xenns the benefit of the doubt now. The all-new Top gives the product name a run for its money. I really enjoy the Xenns Top for what it is, and I'll spend a little bit of time here telling you why.

First off, this $530 IEM was shipped to me by Linsoul for review. It is available on their store at www.Linsoul.com.

The Top comes in a huge box for an in-ear. I actually thought it was an over-ear headphone at first, but it just comes with a lot of little accessories spread over a lot of unused space. That said, the box is well protected with the extra large foam inserts! 

The first thing that gave me notice was the exceptionally nice leather zip case it comes with. It looks like one of those fancy Dignis cases, but the added bonus is inside, where there's a nice cloth molded insert that keeps the IEM nicely protected. I was pretty impressed with this whole case setup, and it matches my green iBasso DX240 quite nicely.

The IEM comes with a equally nice looking and extremely light and flexible 2-pin cable. The head of cable is a 3.5mm termination that I did not even realize until later that it was a removable modular type. They did a great job of slimming down and reducing the length of the modular cable system for this, that it looks just like a normal 3.5mm jack, and not one of those long modular types I am used to seeing.

In addition to the normal set of tips and accessories, Xenns also included a key chain souvenir in the box.

Sound Impressions

The Top is a bassy in-ear with a big sub-bass boost with a downsloping bass to low mids, followed by a slightly forward mid-range that is relatively smooth and balanced in the upper mids and treble with a bit of treble extension to boot. This was something I thought was thoroughly missing in many previous Mangird products, and the added treble here really helps exemplify a lot of the drum-heavy jazz music I listen gives a little more space to the overall sound.

The IEM is comprised of 1 dynamic driver and 8 balanced armatures. Its packed full but remains quite small and very comfortable to wear.

What surprised me most here was the bass. Its big and bold, yet for the most part, it's controlled and decent. It's not a mid-bass focus, which helps but it still booms. In GoGo Penguin's Kora, which has a heavy dose of bass, it can feel a little blobby, as with so much bass added to this IEM, it can sound a bit overwhelming a little bit one-noted, even if it really isn't. That said though, in this specific track, the bass explosion added with the treble extension here, gives the hi-hats and cymbals a very, very sweet textured sound that really sounds great when you are listening to this song on this IEM in the dark, and just enjoying the song. It gives off a lot of raw emotion in this instance, even if there's a bit of a flaw in the ability to fully texturize the bass notes in this song. The level of decay can be a bit overwhelming perhaps.

But, with that said, I really do enjoy the extra bass emphasis on this one. It sounds really great on a lot of the tracks that demand it, and there's enough quality here that I am not complaining. It's not quite as resolving as the dynamic driver and bass quality of the Empire Ears Odin, but it does quite well where it stands at its price point. 

I was pretty impressed with the level of coherency on this IEM. Most IEMs are coherent, but few sound smooth and not fully disjointed when you go to a multi-driver setup. In many cases, a lot of the ChiFi I hear is not as coherent as the Top, which makes me enjoy this more. Despite it's big bass sound, it doesn't feel totally disconnected from the rest of the spectrum in music. 

At times the Top can sound fairly wide and layered. Other times it can sound a little cluttered. In a lot of my calmer jazz tracks, I feel like this IEM really shows up with good presentation and precision. In a busy rock song with an arena-type sound, like Crystals and Hunger from Of Monsters and Men, I found the big bass boost in this IEM to get a bit claustrophobic and focusing too much into that range, and not letting some of the other instruments sing with it.

But I can't deny that this is a fun IEM to listen to. It doesn't necessarily compete with similarly tuned IEMs with more technical chops, but it does quite well for being a fun, enjoyable and nicely tuned IEM.

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