Optimal damping for superior enunciation from crisper starts & stops was indeed ER's calling card against its old rival, my Final D-8000. I had called the original Binom-ER 'on the level' with the Japanese. That put it one rung below HifiMan's more adroit, linear and informative Susvara. In its current incarnation, ER showed up Final's tuning to be looser around the edges. That meant less precise diction, quite as though its membrane stretched across its frame with less tension to feel slightly detuned by contrast. ER's 'tauter tension' aka more effective damping led directly to Britain's famous PRaT, shorthand for pace, rhythm and timing. Oleh's seemingly counterintuitive approach of mostly concealing his big membranes behind plates and damping liners ratcheted up music's innate drive or kinetic energy. It played more in the pocket. It talked more rhythmic smack. It grooved and jived harder. That meant less bloom with its attendant fuzz and soft focus. In the two-year interim since I'd last heard the first ER against the very same D-8000, Oleh had clearly pushed on and up. Now the old rival found itself outclassed on precision and articulation. It also was slightly more voiced/contoured for a fresher upper midrange. ER felt more linear and true.

Audirvana Studio ⇒ Singxer SU-2 USB bridge reclocked by LHY OCK2 ⇒ Kinki Studio THR-1

Against HifiMan's Susvara which had previously occupied the next rung up, ER now pulled even on subjective resolution. Then it showed greater body and warmth. That was the key tell. Whilst I'll call them close enough on linearity and detail recovery to rank as equals, Susvara struck me as a bit leaner, cooler and slightly bare-boned by contrast. We might call that its echo from the electrostatic camp. It makes ER's small character the planarmagnetic essence. Of course both are the same balanced-drive general planarmagnetic types. Within that now rather broad camp, they're technically superior specimens at the top of that class. 'Technically superior' is geek talk for highly detailed, neutral and linear. Textbook we might say. Just so, flavours remain. Here the Camerton struck me as texturally more generous and fleshy. The HifiMan played up the fresher speed-first card. Given close cost parity then Oleh's far posher build, more luxo finishing, radically easier load and more pleasing balance with high-feedback op-amp outputs like this FiiO when used as headfi amp, my book must call ER the clearly more attractive choice over Susvara.

FiiO R7 1TB SD transport ⇒ USB-C ⇒ Soundaware D300Ref USB bridge ⇒ Cen.Grand DSDAC 1.0 Deluxe ⇒ Cen.Grand Silver Fox

With that bit of housekeeping handled, a quick juxtaposition to Raal 1995's Immanis triple-ribbon headphone was in order. Those soundstaged larger, packed more explosive peak dynamics and ripped micro flutters, superior separation and greater textural nuance in general but particularly so in the bass. When we look into how these ribbons work, they clearly enjoy an unfair advantage of excursion, airflow and control where our amp drives every molecule of their fully conductive aluminium, not just a voice coil bonded to a non-conductive carrier. If we want ribbon virtues, we should get ribbon transducers. Just forget about going mobile. Now it's time for moviedom's as-you-were moment after a superior officer's entry had a team at stiff salute. With his stern inspection over and all worries over getting chewed out behind us, we can relax into ER whilst involving my third setup with Laiv Harmony DAC and Enleum AMP-23R.

From true sub bass to the highest treble, with ER the entire bandwidth shows up in full. It simply presents so evenly that nothing steps out. No aspect gets counted first. The only way to be absolutely sure that indeed naught is given short shrift is cueing up familiar tell-tale tracks for their exceptional HF incidents, infra bass below music's typical end stops and other look-here acrobatics. Such tracks then turn into Aha! moments because extension and power check all the boxes in either direction. It's then that we appreciate linearity and balance as backbone virtues. They don't shape a tune into a pre-formed mould. They allow it to unfold without preferential skewing. Whatever it fancies at that moment, our attention is free to zoom into. However, ER presents no shiny 'flypaper bits' to glue themselves to special notice. And it's when isolated attributes don't flash us that we're at ease to retire the inner watching critic. We're now far more apt to meet a performance on its own merit; as a whole. It simply tells a story in sounds; sets up a mood; stimulates inner pictures. We're not tempted to dissect or reverse-engineer the production or its means.

Oleh's tuning has pushed the planarmagnetic core qualities of weight, density and macro impact towards more exactitude and articulation without abandoning the tech's core identity in the process. That's key. Just as a valve amp sonically indistinguishable from a transistor amp is a neon question mark—why bother?—so would a planar that bends its MO too far into non-native turf. If we want a dynamic or e-stat can, we ought to get one. As such there's no extreme e-stat separation to risk drying out connective tissue or thin out image density in the name of ultimate transparency. There's no nervy hot top end, no forward upper midrange, no lack of bass reach, weight or displacement. There's no speed-first tendency towards minor ghostliness, no lead foot on dynamic swings to artifice adrenaline. This remains an organic comfort sound just with higher detail magnification and diction than typical for the genre. Because of the nearly sealed loading, underlying warmth remains. Because of the light weight and plush pads, wear comfort is indeed very high. Should you prefer darker leather, there's an olive grey. There's even a black-anodized build where silver doesn't suit. The Basic pads sound darker and bassier. I preferred the airier full-perf Classics as shown above.