In red dressed like a fine wine is Clariar’s i430. Because the idea that a company descended in part from Acoustune DNA could do properly by balanced armatures is clearly aging well.
Tuned to sit alongside Clariar’s eldest i640 and be a reliable reference at a three-figure tag, i430 excels at accuracy, staying true to the way music is played back. One could swear there’s more than a bit of Symphonium Audio’s Helios in i430’s tuning. [See Product Desc. For More]
Then there’s everything from its Singapore counterpart in terms of all-aluminium construction and four balanced armatures, with a few proprietary tricks for implementation the Clariar way.
A self-developed physical low-pass filter installed in the acoustic path, and a rear cavity in a 3D-printed enclosure, ensure bass is prominent, fast, deep and controlled regardless of your preferred genre.
Despite costing half of i640, i430’s crossover doesn’t skimp and is built with high-quality parts, with everything made proudly in Japan. So we raise a little glass to the traits that make up good Head-Fi, Clariar achieving while adopting a BA topology: cohesivess, tonal balance and a natural, even-handed approach to music making.
Already a company that proves it’s not a one-trick pony after i640, but with a lot of ideas and tunings to work with balanced armatures, Clariar now have two children to pride in. View the rest of their collection here, or our other IEMs here.
