First impressions of the Aurvana is that it reminds me of the UE super.fi. However, it is designed to be plugged directly into your ears (like the Etys) instead of over-the-ear (like shures/westones). They only supply silicon rubber tips with it, and from the looks of the pipe, there will not be a foam tip or flange tip in the works. Instead of using a standard straight pipe like other canalphones, it's mushroom shaped design to hold the tip in place. Also, the tips do not really 'hold' on tightly to the canal pipe, I came quite close to having the tip stick in my ear after gaining a good seal and pulling the earphone out too abruptly. The silicon rubber tips are quite uncomfortable, harder than the soft tips that shure gives with the E4s and softer than the hard tips supplied with the E2s. Closest I'd say, they are like the ones supplied with the EX71. Not very impressive.
The seal is not that bad, they supplied two sets of each size, meaning 6 pairs in total. Isolation is average, nothing compared to Etys, Shures or Westones. Closer again to the EX71. Microphonics is horrible. Very very bad. I'd say even worse than the original ER4. With the phones in your ear, do not move, do not breath... I think the problem is the thick cable, someone on the design department probably thought, "ah, a thick cable is very audiophile, so we must have one". I'm not exaggerating when I say even my breathing on the cable induced heavy rasping in the ear. Totally distracting from the music.
Going to sound. Soundstage was not existant, even for a pair of in-ears. Everything came from a single point, the only way I got left and right channels was to use a channel identification track. Otherwise, most everything came practically in mono. Playing the first track of the Stax CD (the one with the guitar in the back right, the woman whispering in your left and the door on your right). It was obvious that the earphones could not produce depth. The guitarist was seated firmly on the right (not right back) and the times when the german guy was moving left and right, front and back sounded very much like coming from a mini-compo placed on my head.
In terms of tonality, the midrange and treble was muddy. It reminded me a little of the Shure E2, but worse. I think even the MX500 had a better midrange. The bass was loud though, it lacked a real 'omph' but it was there thumping away in the foreground. Again, I liken the sound to the EX71, very close. Definitely better, but very close Not 150 dollars better than the EX71 though. Most of the time, I could not enjoy listening to the Aurvana, the microphones were simply too distracting. Especially when I listen to them in a quite place. On an MRT/Bus, it doesn't seem that bad, but it was awful in the office. Vocals were quite in-your-face, exciting at first, but very tiring after a while.
If the soundstage was bad, the instrument separation and placement was even worse. Having the vocals sit right in the middle is a good thing. Having everything else try to squeeze into the same space as the singer is not a good thing. Listening to stuff like the Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Sessions or Portishead live in NYC, I could not get the sense of space that the recordings had. Classical was even worse, better off listening to 92.4. It was not that bad on zero7 or lamb, but then again that genre is a whole different ball game.
Overall, It think it's over priced, if this cost $50SGD, it would be reasonable and I'd probably buy it as my first in-ear. In fact, if it cost less than 100SGD, I'd recommend friends to buy it simply to get a step up towards real IEM heaven. But at $200ish, I'm happy with my E2, ER6 and UM1 thank you very much.
