The Meteor is a collaboration IEM between Nightjar Acoustics and Symphonium, two teams that are also the part of the design and manufacturing team of the all-new Subtonic Storm, which I hope to review in short time as my personal unit arrives soon.
In any case, I was loaned out the Meteor from Precogvision and will be returning it back to him whenever I feel like it. Since this was a loaner, I did not have the original box or packaging, so I can't comment too much on that.
This red IEM features a miniaturized shell design that is very reminiscent of their popular Helios product that was reviewed a while back. The smaller shell makes fitment easier on my ears, however, I still had some trouble now and then and went through dozens of different tip options before finally settling with a pair that made this seal properly and stay in my ears. The angle at which the nozzle enters my ear canals, as well as just where the cable connector angle hits the IEM relative to my external ear shape makes the fit on these a little challenging for me.
Sound Impressions
The Meteor has a warm and balanced sound that leans slightly dark. It is one that I would call rich and smooth, but not muddy, nor tonally incorrect. It is rather pleasant and one that works well with my rock music collection.
I mainly enjoyed listening to the Meteor with my alternative rock music. I've been on some Wallflowers trip lately - and the band led by Bob Dylan's son Jake, sounds quite good here. It gives the overall tone of the sounds more muscle, and does not come across as bright in any sense.
In normally brighter tracks, like Norah Jones' music, I also found the tamer upper-mids and treble to work in great unison here. It reduces the sibilance that can sometimes come across on certain songs and it gives each of her tracks a steady warm sound.
The Meteor has surprisingly good imaging and separation for being a bassier, and darker tuning. I was impressed by this part of its technical performance. This tonal balance, however, does shield itself a little bit from being clear and as resolving as I'd like, but it can still hang with IEMs in its price class. It does not go well against the MEST series, which has a warm and dark tuning as well.
I noticed this good sound staging and imaging in Tingvall Trio's newest record Birds. Positioning of the three different instrument players here was done well, and I didn't feel like there were notes smearing into one another. The warmer tonal balance does create a bit of a fuzzier sound in some ways, and it's not quite as crisp as I would hear on some other IEMs I normally listen with.
Final Thoughts
The Meteor is a good IEM. It's not great, and it's nowhere near bad. It's solid. I wish it fit me better, as it would be a really nice, lightweight, attractive looking warm, feel-good, cozy sounding in-ear to have around. I was expecting it to be more mushy than what I ended up getting and that's quite a good thing. Symphonium has not really disappointed with their lineup, and if it weren't for fitment options, I'd probably own one or two of their sets now.
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