Driver setup, driveability, fit, aesthetics, price etc. –
The Penon 10th Anniversary. Release date around May 2023. Currently $499. 2 dynamic drivers, 2 balanced armatures, 2 electrostats with a 4-way crossover.
All acrylic shell. Pretty enough faceplate. Fairly average size. The nozzles are medium length but wide. Not wide enough to be problematic for most people but will limit the number of eartips that will fit. Easy to drive. 2 pin cable.
Bass and lower mids –
There’s two small 6mm “chrystaline plated biofilm” DDs delivering the low end. It’s the same bass set up as the Penon Fan2. The Fan2 has an almost analytical low to mids. A fast, precise and detailed bass range. The Anniversary shares those qualities but sounds more concentrated on the low mid bass, less range maybe. It’s hard and impactful but not big. It gives a very focused pummelling, like a toffee hammer on your eardrum. Covers subs to mids fine but lacks weight or heft so doesn’t provide much warmth or body to the rest of sound. Whereas the low end speed, impact and detail is the identity of the Fan2 here the bass just doesn’t add much to the overall presentation. It’s a bit sterile for me and though I could change how pronounced it was with eartips it never changed the inhospitable character. It’s all sharp elbows rather than a resonant weighty thump. That said other reviewers have described the bass as much fuller and warmer, and the frequency response does kind of look that way. So there you go.
Mids and vocals –
Into the realms of the Sonion BA. Mids are pretty insistent, not dropped back. Clarity and precision is the thing here. Everything is clarity. For the price this is a very technically capable set. It’s not the most soulful midrange or vocals. Male and female vocals are rendered precisely and fairly intimate but there’s no great sense of real physical presence. That’s a rare trick to pull off though. The mids lack a warmth of bass to support them but still have plenty of quality and precision, albeit they’re slightly impersonal. Every time I put the Anniversary on I was always impressed by the precision and detail, and it outstrips most of the hybrids I’ve heard in that respect. I listened in comparison with the Sound Rhyme DTE500 and the Penon is a noticeable step up in resolution. It’s a slightly strange one though for Penon whose “house sound” mostly has warmth with detail for the lows and mids to have something this precise yet uncharacteristically characterless as the set to celebrate the culmination of 10 years.
Treble and air –
The upper range is divided between a Knowles BA and Sonion ESTs covering the highest frequencies. The treble is probably the most pleasing area of the set. It’s not massively extended and doesn’t have a pushed airy sheen and sparkle to the sound, but sounds natural and clean. I’m assuming that more natural timbre is the ESTs. I sort of wish it was showcased better with a warmer presentation underneath it.
Detail, separation, imaging and stage –
Detail is excellent. Great microdetails to sounds and instrument lines. Very good macrodetails shining a light into the corners of the music to pick up hidden stuff. They squeezed every bit of technical detail out of this set. Separation of instruments and placement of instruments very sharply done. It’s not fantastically adaptable in that it will divide the sound up whether it wants to be dissected or not, but for the most part it is to the benefit of the song. Stage is medium. The space the music is presented in is pretty much a plane left to right without a lot of up and down. There’s space enough for all the clear separation and imaging. Staging is pretty static though, doesn’t swell or contract depending on the openness or intimacy of the song and production.
Tone, timbre and dynamics –
The tonality overall is quite bright and sharp, again probably stemming from the way the bass is so compact and feels, though not exactly separated from the mids, like it’s doing its own thing. So there’s not a great sense of natural or physical timbre to voices and instruments. That’s more an observation than a criticism as the technical details more than make up for it. Dynamics, the ability to get across the quiet lulls and crescendos and the build and drama in music, isn’t great. There’s some lack of emotion. I switched to short open JVC Spiral Dot tips and they brought out better dynamics in the mids and vocals. Brought some volume peaks forward and livened things up. But killed the bass. I’m not keen on the bass I’d still like it to exist.
Tuning, summary, and general thoughts –
The tuning isn’t flat. It’s a bit of a V but mids are pretty forward and treble isn’t overly heightened. Perfectly coherent. It took me a while to decide how I feel about the Penon 10th Anniversary. I really like the Penon Serial and Fan2, different tonalities though they are. I really like Penon. I kept coming back the Anniversary to establish how I felt about it. I admire this set. I think it’s very impressive. I don’t love it. It is an excellent piece of technical tuning. A stand out in terms of clarity and detail even at its $500 price tag. But it’s nothing beyond that. It lacks personality. However I might well be an outlier as most other reviews are describing something quite different. If you’re interested in these you need to balance these criticisms and observations against all of that. And maybe just ignore everything you’ve just read… Thanks for your time. Stop spending money.
