Product page: https://vision-ears.de/erlkoenig_en

MSRP: €2,900 ($3,200)

Driver configuration: 1BA + 1DD + 1EST hybrid

Allow me to monologue for a bit.

If there was one recent trend in the IEM market that I would have considered as a cancer to the hobby, it would be the popularity of those damned Sonion electrostatic tweeters. The gawking masses absolutely loved that word: “electrostatic”, and would go to great lengths to claim this unobtanium even if it turned out to be mere fool’s gold in disguise. The Sonion ESTs were hard buggers to use, and more often than not manufacturers would stumble in designing a circuit complex enough to make full use of their low sensitivities and awkward compatibility with BA drivers. And what I’ve seen is manufacturers churning out hybrid after hybrid under the pretense of “good enough”, which all ultimately meant a near-complete disregard for higher frequency response in favour of the marketing boost that came with the EST’s inclusion.

And it was my long-standing expectations of these whacky not-electrostatics that were ultimately subverted by the Germans.

Monologue over, let’s go back to the Elysium. The Elysium’s sound came as a total surprise to me, in that… well… there was treble. And not only that, it was actually pretty decent treble too, no weird spikes or dips that are all too common in EST implementations that ruin the tonality and timbre of hi-hats. The Elysium sounded… like a regular BA-tweeter IEM. And with my previous experiences with similar types of IEMs, that’s the greatest compliment I can give to it right now.

The Elysium has the interesting tuning choice of using the dynamic driver as a bandpassed midrange driver as opposed to the traditional woofer, much like the JH Lola. That means the Elysium uses BA woofers instead, and while you would think I would lambast it for being so since I’m a “BA bass” hater myself, it’s pretty alright. Definitely would’ve preferred a DD presentation, but I’ve heard worse. Cough Lola cough.

Technicalities and tonality are great and fall in line with what I’d expect out of a $2,000 IEM. But of course, this is Vision Ears. If you’ve already decided to buy one, I’m pretty sure “saving money” isn’t on your bucket list.

Anyways, to conclude. The Elysium is the IEM to show me that the Sonion ESTs do have a place in the market in that, when it is well-implemented, it can be just as good as the standard BA tweeter array. But at the price it’s more a luxury concept than anything concrete, but that’s simply how the market goes. You just need that one product to show everyone that no, this new-fangled toy driver can, in fact, do some great things. And it’s with the Elysium that I hope more companies would realise that EST hybrids are not doomed to a life of poor treble response and even poorer treble extension, and instead trickle down to similar implementations but for cheap.