The Midrange - The midrange is the standout feature of what is one of the top 3 universal earphones that I have ever heard. Its almost as if the Lyra were specifically designed to make mid tones come alive with intimacy. Rich, detailed and smooth is what it is and no more does this shine that in indie, blues and acoustic genres. Sungha Jungs Acoustic fingerpicking album is littered with detail and sounds unbelievably realistic. Seasick Steve absolutely rips out jam after jam leaving a massive smile on my face. I threw all my favourite vocal tracks at the Lyra and I kept getting more and more impressed with the way the music was portrayed. Boccelli's power, Krall's subtlety, Everlast's Grit everything that made these artists there was present. There was no leaking from the lows into the mid range and instruments in this frequency were easy to pick up and identify. Mid detail was also excellent and again no sibilance was detected in the sometimes tricky upper mid range. It was when specifically testing the mids that I could put my finger on why I was enjoying the Campfire Audio Lyra so much. It was because they were sounding a lot like a very good set of speakers in a well built listening environment. In this hobby you might be familiar with people saying that x earphone sounds so good its almost like full size headphones. Well the Lyra come out and sound a whole hell of a lot similar in many ways to my full size Dali Lektor 8, its unreal and as far as I could tell its down to the mids and timbre / decay characteristics.

Lows - Lows are rich and textured. There is a fair amount of power sitting in them volume wise and when the earphone needs to go low it can keep up with some serious bass drops from the likes of Skrillex, Angelspit and Chaos Royale. What was extremely impressive was the ability for the earphone to display an tonne of sub bass when required yet the Beryllium driver being able to remain tight enough so that the low end doesn't just turn to complete mush and bleed into the mids. Other earphones seem to suffer from one of two issues, that its will go low and hard with the sub bass yet not retain composure and become sloppy, or, alternatively, will simply not be able to get low in the first place. Im sure the performance of the low end comes down to the material choice in the driver, its tight and for a dynamic it is fast and clear. Fans looking for a fully flat balanced sound should move on as the bass will most likely be put off but for people looking for relaxing and immersive sound you im sure you will enjoy the Lyra's low end.

Campfire Audio Lyra Review: Conclusion

You can probably tell by now that I am completely enamoured with the Campfire Audio Lyra earphones. They have made me fall in love with the hobby again and exited me in a way that I thought I would never get back. Having now done well over 300 reviews I thought I was getting a bit jaded. You see the site is genuinely a passion project to try and cut through some of the BS. I don't allow other writers to post here as it gives zero substance when you cant compare earphone and headphone reviews side by side (different people prefer different things making those sites worthless to me). Audiophile On is not my job and it doesn't exist to make money its purely here as a way to express my feelings and share my thoughts. This, I feel, allows me a certain amount of freedom to express my feelings on a product exactly how I see them. Numerous times long time readers have been amused to have seen me rip products to shred (Flare, Perfectsound, Meze and of course who can forget me calling out the serious BS on the part of HiSound). I don't enjoy writing those negative reviews, in fact it makes me pretty uncomfortable. Most of what I now get in, thankfully, is very good for the most part but but few ever really get my juices going in the way that the Campfire Audio Lyra has. You might notice above that I haven't mentioned any negative points on the Lyra and that is just because I don't see them anything would be nitpicking in the extreme. As a Shure 846 owner I don't think the Lyra are technically better than them (just) but I think I prefer the Campfire Audio more for enjoying my music and thats about as strong a commendation I can give them. Its frightful to think what the upcoming Campfire Audio Jupiter will be if it can retain the signature while adding BA refinement but for now if you are in the market for a highly musical and smooth earphone with unique and engaging speaker like sound I highly recommend the Lyra. Its great to be back and enthusiastic about audio again!