John Darko
Campfire Audio is back with another new IEM model — one that plays at the shallow end of the price pool. The Axion was first teased at the Portland company’s ‘Multiverse’ event last year and is the first Campfire model to use an SDD: a silicon dynamic driver. It might look like a balanced armature driver, but it’s not; it’s a dynamic driver.
From the Campfire website: “This mainline iteration of Axion features further refinements to its tuning, resulting in smoother, more pleasing high frequency response, with a wonderful balance of lush mids and impactful lows.”
Axion’s earshell has been designed to make it easier to pinch-grip the IEM for better in-ear positioning. And the outward aesthetic, once again, is unlike anything offered previously by Ken Ball and co. For yours truly, Campfire Audio’s range of IEMs is like a tin of Quality Street: each model differs significantly from the next, internally and externally.
Campfire Audio has already supplied a frequency response graph for Axion, but with the often overlooked caveat that “FR curves…can’t convey technicalities like soundstage, imaging, layering, etc.”.
And whilst we’re talking measurement gotchas, I recommend you watch Cameron Oatley’s video.
Now comes the twist.
Axion’s cable features MMCX connectors at the earpiece end but a USB dongle at the other, allowing the IEMs to be plugged directly into any laptop or smartphone. Campfire is confident that the 32bit/384kHz D/A converter inside the dongle will offer “better power and performance” than the DACs found inside those laptops and smartphones.
The inline push-button remote control and its built-in microphone position the Axion as an affordable wired alternative to Apple AirPods for the day-to-day handling of music playback and phone calls. Buh-bye, lossy Bluetooth.
Axion’s price is similar to the AirPods to boot: US$249. Sign me up.
Further information: Campfire Audio
