Introduction
In early September, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself in the market for portable audio. I was taking the occasional walk and dropping by the office to work once a week, so I was interested in something I could bring in a pocket. One thing led to another, and I purchased the MoonDrop Starfields off Amazon for a little under $100. I was pleasantly surprised by the clarity and tonality, especially for female vocals, but the design was just so tacky that I ended up returning it to Amazon. Instead, I opted to work with Alisa at Shenzhen Audio to get a custom engraving on a Blessing 2 of my own design. This ended up costing me $320 before taxes, 2 weeks of finalizing the design, and just under 4 weeks of waiting before it arrived at my apartment.
Design
I ended up mulling over the design for this for quite a while, even before contacting Alisa; I originally started with a more dynamic pose, based on 大神ミオ and some rough sketches by STATO. To be honest, I wasn't really a fan of Mio or anything; I just liked her design in particular for this rough sketch.
I overlaid the rough sketch on a clipping mask over the Blessing 2 faceplate, but wasn't too happy with how it looked; due to the upside-down teardrop shape, this design left a lot of awkward negative space to the bottom-left. I sent this exact design to Alisa to start things off, but they needed an inked drawing and I figured I'd be better off starting over instead of working out the kinks for this particular design.
I sketched out quite a few other designs afterward, but couldn't quite find my groove until I chanced upon a particular stream by 米山舞. One of the frames in particular caught my eye, and I used it heavily as a reference. I drew it out and inked it in Procreate, taking some creative liberties to keep it a little simpler and distinctive on the faceplate.
If you're interested in submitting a design for them to consider, keep in mind that you'll need to have a reasonably thick, black line for inking, and if it reaches the edge (like mine) you'll probably have to go back and forth a bit to properly get it to line up. I ended up shooting over 40 emails to get mine to look just right. They'll supply a template if you just ask, and they put the design on the template for you to confirm, so there's little risk of unexpected issues. Surprisingly, lines as thin as 1 (solid) pixel will show up well.
Overall, I'm really happy with the final result; it looks reasonably tasteful and has a design inspired by one of my favorite artists. One day I'll hopefully be able to draft proper faceplate designs on my own, but alas.
They currently don't offer engraving on anything but their metal plates, but for the same price you can get wooden faceplates, which look quite handsome. They don't feature a hard bezel like the original metal faceplates, and look a little bit higher quality in my opinion.
Fit
There's only one really controversial aspect of the MoonDrop IEMs, especially the Blessing 2: the fit is not for everyone. The shell is pseudo-custom and fairly large, designed to nest in your outer ear, while the nozzle is a pretty wide ~5.5-6mm diameter. I found that they fit my ear almost like an actual custom IEM, which meant there was a small problem: even the smallest stock tips were irritating and gave me pretty bad soreness after just an hour of listening. I ended up buying SpinFit CP155S, which are slightly smaller than the stock tips and feel pretty comfortable in my ear. I also use the foam MIS-TIPs from MoonDrop, but they tend to work their way out of my ear when talking; I do find them otherwise very comfortable though, if a bit finicky to put in.
Performance
These IEMs are quite popular, and nearly everyone under the sun has already given their thoughts on the sound, so I'll just keep this brief: they sound excellent, especially on female vocals. The treble is a hair too bright for me, but it's not enough to dissuade me from listening to these for hours at a time. The bass response is also quite good, and easily reproduce as low as 30hz frequencies. I don't think they slam very hard though; it's certainly not as visceral as any headphones I have, though I'm not exactly sure what bass impact is supposed to feel like on a pair of IEMs.
One thing I noticed many people comment on is its soundstage; it's commonly described as "above average," "noticeable," "expansive." Without having listened to IEMs on both ends of the spectrum, I'm probably not particularly qualified to talk about this, but I think "above average" describes it best. I honestly don't think it's anything notable.
I listen to a pretty wide variety of genres, but this definitely excels in pop, especially that trendy Japanese city pop that seems to keep popping up on YouTube. I think for more critical listeners, the metallic BA timbre might be a bit unpleasant in classical recordings; it's somewhat noticeable to me, though I tend to get used to it after a while. To me, it most audibly manifests as a "metallic" (?) sound signature on piano and violin in nearly any given classical soundtrack, but it's slight. Carlos Kleiber's symphonic recordings feel especially noticeable in this regard, but it's not something that jumps out at me for other genres of music.
Closing Thoughts
For me, the Blessing 2 mostly lived up to the hype surrounding it. I'm still unconvinced by the soundstage, but as a total package it sounds great. With that being said, I'm unashamed in admitting that the largest factor in my purchase was having a customized faceplate, and sound came secondary. If this angers you, please write a strongly worded letter to your local officials.
I plan on listening to more IEMs on the higher and lower ends of the spectrum to have a more definitive handle on the sonic qualities relative to other transducers, but sadly that will have to wait. Almost no one talks about the design process anyway, which I feel is a more unique feature of the MoonDrop IEMs than whatever target they decide to hit. Thanks for reading!
