My review of the Performer 8
So, it is here. The much anticipated and much debated Aful Performer 8. Did Aful do it again? Did they produce an even better Performer that will disrupt another segment of the iem market?
They certainly hit the magic price point…at $369, right between the Moondrop Blessing 3 and the Dunu SA6 Mk2.
8 drivers…1 dynamic, 2 mid BAs, 2 treble BAs, and a custom tweeter BA, plus the sophisticated crossover system from the P5, upgraded for the additional drivers, and an even more complex and considerably longer set of 3D printed tuning tubes. A very similar attractive package with almost identical, though just slightly larger, shells, and an excellent cable slightly less heavy than the P5. (though still only single ended…when will they learn? Some of us would really appreciate the balanced option) and what appears to be a leather bat box style case. I replaced the cable with a kBears Graphine plus Copper-Silver 4.4mm balanced. And I am using SpinFit W1 silver tips or the KBear K7 blues, both of which work well with the P8.
So it comes down, as always, to sound…what kind of listen does the Performer 8 provide.
I am pretty sure that the Performer 8 will require a follow up review after a longer listening time. I have only had it not quite a week, and as Aful says in their little instruction booklet, the dynamic driver is not even “warmed up” yet. I think they mean “burned in.” The implication is that the performance of the dynamic driver will improve after the first 100 hours of so of normal listening. I don’t have more than 20 hours on it so far.
And I can’t compare the P8 to the Blessing 3 or the Dunu SA6. I don’t have, and am unlikely to ever have, either. As it was I had to promise myself that I would not buy any more iems for a year (or no expensive ones at least) in order to convince myself to spend $369 on an iem (over $400 by the time I added a balanced cable).
Even at this point though, I can say that to my ears the P8 sounds completely different than any other iem that I have ever heard…and that includes the Performer 5. But you might want to watch until the end to get my full assessment.
The P8’s bass is not the deepest or at least not the most rumbly I have heard, but it is a sound that goes beyond solid. Incisive. Authoritative. Not to be ignored. On a well recorded track, the notes do not just slam and thud…each hit or pluck is clearly articulated, with a sharp attack, a blooming deep textured main note, and a realistic decay before the next note sounds. Notes do not run into each other and blend into rumble…they remain whole and sound together to form a swarm of bass notes like buzzing bees. It is really something to hear on tracks like Bass Drops from Nenad Vasilic’s Bass Room or Poem of the Chinese Drum from Hoc-man Yim, or even on in Geoff’s Castleluci’s voice on I See Fire, and it certainly contributes harmonics to the richness of the mid-range as well.
And there is considerable energy in the mid-bass so that acoustic bass and cello, for instance, seem to go all the way down to the floor. You might not suspect this if you just look at the graphs (more on that later), but I assure you, whatever they did with that dynamic driver and the long thin bass tubes in the shell worked. The bass is simply stunning.
Then I would be tempted to say that the mids, vocals and instrumentals, are forward…except that they are not. They are actually well in balance with the bass, but they are what I might call “super-present” The clarity and articulation of the voices, both male and female, is startling. They are right there! when close miced, and suspended in a appropriate space when in ensemble. Listen to the the harmonies on Home Free’s Stargazer Lilies, or the constellation of male voices on My Mother Told Me from the Polish sea shanty group Perly I Lotry. Or one of my favorites for this kind of thing, the harmonies between Alison Kruss and Robert Plant on either of their albums. Listen to the smoky intimate voice of Diana Krall on Cry Me a River or the silk over rough fingers texture of Carol Duboc’s voice on Smile from the Album of the same name (and while you are at it, take a moment to admire the intricate interplay of the instruments behind the voice).
And, speaking of…Cello, flute, violin are all just, like the voices, right there! You hear every nuisance, it seems every single vibration individually, and they never do bleed into or cover each other…they just sing together in perfect harmony, to produce as close to a live performance as I have heard. Listen to Guy Fishman’s raw cello on Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in D Major. Or the amazing interplay of bluegrass instruments on Bela Fleck’s Virtigo. Try the interplay of cello and fiddle on the new Haas album from the Haas sisters.
If you love guitar or piano…the Performer 8s present both with such clarity and detail that it is impossible to think of anything else and listen at the same time. The music demands your attention, and rewards it so throughly that it was hard when I was trying to a/b iems for this review. I did not want to stop listening to the P8. Lately for guitar I have been listening to Tom Caufield’s albums, as well as Erik Tingstad and William Coulter. For Piano try Hope Floats by Jennifer DeFreyne of any of the Brooklyn Duo’s work. The PianoGuys new release, In the Stars, is also impressive.
The treble, besides its contribution to the vocal and instrumental band, simply soars. The high notes on the flute or violin, or in the occasion vocal that goes that high are sharp enough to pierce the ceiling…or your eardrum…but they do not. They go right trough cleanly and painlessly, and touch something in your brain. Listen to Christian Svarfvar’s violin on Johan Ullen’s Infinite Bach or Jenny Oats Baker’s fiddle on Ashokan’s Fairwell from the Lyceum Philharmonic. Or listen to Bodhi’s flutes on Surrounding Mountains. The high notes and high harmonics make the P8 perhaps less suited for casual listening…since as I have said, they demand your attention. I find, for instance, that I can not read and listen to the P8 at the same time. Those high notes require that I put the book down and listen to the whole of the music to keep them in balance. But what a treat when I do!
So is the Performer 8 a “bright” iem. Yes it is. Quite bright indeed. Is the Performer 8 a mid-centric vocal and instrumental iem? Yes it is. With more detail than I have yet heard. Will the Performer 8 satisfy all but the hardest core bass heads. Yes, I think it will. Quality over quantity. The Performer 8 is simply so well balanced that you don’t feel any emphasis on any band, but you also never feel any lack. The whole spectrum is just wow!
But the sound of the Perfromer 8 goes well beyond the sound signature or balance of individual frequencies. The way it represents harmonics is nothing short of spectacular, and contributes to a sound that is vivid…so alive, so rich and commanding that it continually surprises you…continually highlights something you might not have heard yet in the music to delight you. The Performer 8 creates a musical space that is, in my experience, unique. When I listen, I am no longer wherever I happen to be, I am there, in the music, in the space where it was created, even if that space was only ever in the mind of the musician or the mixing engineer. This goes beyond soundstage…which is spacious, or instrument placement, which is accurate, to a harmonic whole, an sound space or sound scape that is simply impressive! Impressing. Emersive. Again, demanding your attention, rewarding every moment. Listen too something like Perpetual e-Motion’s Flying Tent, or the interplay of cellos on 2Cello’s Celloverse, or an orchestral work like Strausse’s Die Fieldermouse from the Vienna Philharmonic’s 2022 New Year’s Concert album. This is not close miced ensemble…it is a classical orchestra, so turn up the volume so the opening bars are concert loud, and then surrender to the sound of the auditorium. Or, in a similar way, surrender to the ambient soundscape, with its nature sounds, of Gathering Dawn from Bodhi or the even more natural sounds of Rejuvenated from David Arkenstone.
Perhaps it is something like focus in photography. I am a photographer and I appreciate a perfectly focused image that shows, say, the breast feathers of a bird…every shaft and barb right out to the finest tips, but many of my photos are just slightly out of focus…not enough so most people would notice…you can still see the feathers in more detail than we are used to…but, when you compare a perfectly focused image, there is just more there…more to draw the eye in, to satisfy our love of texture and pattern. That is the way it is when comparing the P8 with all my other iems, including the P5. The P8 is just better focused, and revels the finest nuances, every shaft and barb, of the music, and that is a delight to my ears.
The Performer 5 was a great iem, but it was, so to speak, nothing special (well maybe except for the price). It was an incremental upgrade from $100 or even $150 or even $200 iems, but it did not do anything different than they did…it just did it slightly better…enough better to justify the jump in price and considerably more. The Performer 8, to my ear, is something special. It carries you out of the realm of the ordinary iems I have heard so far and into new acoustic territory. I am not kidding. That is what I hear.
Or to put it another way: Compared to the P5 and any other iem I have heard, it is like with the P5 you are listening to the music through a wide open door or window. With the P8 you are right in the room! It is not something you notice while listening to the P5, but you certainly do notice it when you switch to the P8. Going back to the P5 just slightly diminishes the music!
Now as I say, this might just be how “mid-fi” $300 to $1000, iems sound. That clarity and presence might be there in the Blessing 3 or the Dunu SA6, or the Kiwi Ears Orchestra for that matter…but I have not heard those iems. To me the Aful Performer 8 is a continual surprise and pleasure…and at a price I can (barely) afford or justify. If the sound of an iem gets any better than this, I don’t really want to know…I can’t afford to know.
And before I go, a word on those graphs. I don’t do graphs, I don’t have the equipment and am not about to buy it, but I am learning to read them. There are some comparison graphs out there that show both the P5 and the P8. Don’t believe them, or at least don’t take them at face value. Here is one from Gizaudio’s
squig.link (Thank you Timmy). From this graph you might think the P8 has way less bass and treble energy than the P5. However my impression is that the bass on the P8, while of a totally different quality than the P5, has about the same volume…the same amount of energy. If you then normalize the graphs at 80hz instead of 500, you get this…which is a much better representation of what my ear hears when comparing the two.
The same bass (though again not the same quality), elevated mids on the P8, (or scooped out mids on the P5) and smoother, slightly more energetic, and more extended treble on the P8. That’s closer to what I hear.
When I was in the optics industry I always told people that you can use measurements to help explain the performance of a product, but you can not use measurements to predict how a product will perform in front of you eyes…or in your ears in the case if iems.
To conclude. Is the Performer 8 worth $369? Sort answer, to my ears, and for critical concentrated listening, it is. It is just a delightful revelation of sound and an almost pure pleasure. And think of it this way. It has the bass performance and rich texture of the Kiwi Ears Quartet ($109) (yes there is some debate on this iem but that is the way my ears hear it), the flowing present realistic mids, vocals and instruments, of the Letshuore Gallieo ($109), the precision and clarity of the Letshuore S12Pro but with more musicality ($135 on sale), a better sense of space and stage than my CVJ Mei ($59), and build quality and accessories and technical innovation to equal my Aful Performer 5 ($189 on sale). So I could have, maybe even should have, just spent the $369 on the Aful Performer 8 and been done with it…and I would have gotten the unique sense of space and presence that only the Performer 8. in my experience, provides as an added bonus…and I would have saved money in the bargain.
Though let me say once more, and then I will done, the Performer 8 is not an easy listening iem. There are lots of those out there. The P8 demands your full attention…for those times when you want to get everything, every nuisance and every delight there is out of the music. I don’t think this will ever be my, or your, favorite casual listening iem. And the P8 is totally unforgiving of poor recordings and poor mixes. It will highlight everything wrong about a recording just as it highlights everything right. If a recording has muddy bass, you are going to hear really muddy bass. If a recording has weird peaks in the treble and raspy vocals, you are going to hear every peak and every rasp. However, with good recordings, and those times you are willing to give yourself up to the music, the Performer 8 will reward every moment.
So Yup. Aful has done it again. Proved that their advanced technology and acoustic know-how can produce an iem that will provide a whole new experience of music at a price more folks can afford or are willing to pay. Perhaps another disrupter! This is, I am thinking, a very good thing!
What will Aful do next? Maybe my wallet will recover in time to find out. And maybe not.
