Kiwi Ears made a splash last year with its excellent, budget-friendly Cadenza earphones. But before that, the company was making waves with its flagship Orchestra in-ear monitors. Those earphones, while well-received, were priced out of reach of many listeners at $500. This week, the company returned with a re-worked version of its flagship with the Kiwi Ears Orchestra Lite.
Even though it says “Lite” in the name, it strikes us as the better buy overall. With eight balanced armature drivers per side, a well-balanced tuning that’s perfect for both music and gaming, and a particularly beautiful design, this is an impressive set. If you’re looking for a pair of IEMs that can improve your listening experience no matter where you’re jacking in, the Kiwi Ears Orchestra Lite are worth considering.
We would like to thank Linsoul for providing the sample for this review.
Specifications
- Current Price: $249 (Linsoul, Amazon)
- Type:In-Ear Monitors
- Drivers: Kiwi Ears Customized Balanced Armatures
- 2x Highs
- 4x Mids
- 2x Lows (Knowles)
- Impedance: 16Ω
- Sensitivity: 112dB
- Cable: 4-core 7n Oxygen-Free Copper
- Cable Termination: 3.5mm Stereo Cable
Kiwi Ears Orchestra Lite - First Impressions and Key Features
Kiwi Ears is a company that describes itself as being driven by the pursuit of extraordinary audio. So far, its releases have been well received, so it’s safe to say that it's onto something with its handcrafted, musician-centric approach to earphone design. . The original Orchestra was well-received, and its recent Cadenza even more so, but with such a high price, many listeners were forced to write it off. With the Orchestra Lite, it hopes to change that.
The Orchestra Lite shares much of the same DNA with its older counterpart. Like it, the Lite uses an array of eight balanced armatures per side. Two BAs are dedicated to the highs, four to the mids, and two Knowles drivers cover the lows. The mid and high drivers are custom designed; Kiwi Ears doesn’t disclose who the manufacturer might be, so I suspect this may be where some of the savings here is coming from.
The tuning this time around is less of a straight line from the bass to the mids. Instead, we have a U-shaped tuning that emphasizes the sub-bass, upper mids, and treble registers. This tuning is engaging and fun without being fatiguing. I’ll get into this more in the listening section, but Kiwi Ears did an excellent job of making these earphones sound balanced, resolving, and fun.
The earphones use resin shells in a traditional Universal IEM (UIEM shape). They’re on the larger side, which is expected given this amount of drivers. Their shape is a good fit for their size, crafted to nestle and slightly “hook” into the ear and stay in place. Kiwi Ears also provides three sets of silicone ear tips to help you find the proper tip. These are white, gray, and black and offer slight differences in fit and feel.
The Lite also comes with a very nice cable. It’s made of silver-plated OCC 7n copper and terminates in a 3.5mm, gold plated plug. It connects to the earphones with a standard 2-pin design, which means it’s easily swappable. I really like it, however, and don’t see any reason to swap it out. It’s soft, looks great, and is a good match for the earphones in overall quality. It’s also tangle-resistant, which is very nice.
Taken as a whole, these earphones are a good value at $249. They look great and sound better. Over my test phase, I’ve used them for both music and games and found them to be a very good fit. The only downside is that they don’t include a microphone in the cable, but if you need that, finding an alternative cable shouldn’t be too difficult.
Kiwi Ears Orchestra Lite - Fit and Comfort
With so many balanced armatures to fit, the Kiwi Ears Orchestra Lite is a larger earphone and may be too big for some ears. I was able to get a comfortable fit in my right ear but struggled to achieve a lasting seal in my left using the included tips. I wish that Kiwi Ears had included an extra small tip size to account for their larger size and nozzle diameter.
With that in mind, I was able to swap tips and find a comfortable fit with the gray tips. The left ear piece never felt completely solid if I was moving around but it allowed me to enjoy stationary listening and gaming sessions.
Kiwi Ears Orchestra Lite - Listening Impressions
The Kiwi Ears Orchestra Lite are well balanced earphones. They have a slightly warmed bass region with good sub-bass reach and fine-tuned treble that removes the clarity veil and draws out guitars, snares, drums, and atmospheric effects.I listen to a wide variety of music but tend to lean heavily into rock and metal when left to my own devices. On the flip side, I regularly tap into my post-classical playlist on Spotify, and the tuning works very well on both. They’re not bass cannons, so hip-hop may sound a bit thin if you live and breathe bass, but I still enjoyed a revisit of Dr. Dre and Eminem for this review.
Likewise, I found these to be a very good set for gaming. They offer enough resolution, clarity, and body to be enjoyable for immersive MMORPGs, single-player RPGs, and shooters.
As an all-BA set, these definitely have the balanced armature crispness to them. I personally like that quality, but if you’re sensitive to it, this isn’t the set for you.
Bass: Kiwi Ears provides a full-bodied bass here. It reaches deep, with a shelf at about 60Hz. D.R.E.A.M. by Jonny Craig has an opening sub-woofer line that makes for a perfect test for bass extension and presence and the Orchestra Lite nails it. The bass isn’t over-powered and wouldn’t be something I would recommend to bass heads in particular. But what it delivers has plenty of punch and impact for kick drums and explosions, and is very rich in texture and speed.
Mids: The mids are well-done on this set, delivering natural yet relaxed vocals. They lack nothing in detail, but both male and female vocals are slightly stepped back. There is an emphasis on the upper mids which plays better to female vocals. Adele is noticeably more forward than Jonny Craig, for example.
The upper mids are particularly enjoyable. They deliver enough detail to create an immersive listening experience. Guitars and other instruments in this range have an added brightness that highlights the detail retrieval of these drivers. The upper mids and treble work in tandem to propel the Orchestra Lite’s resolution to the forefront. I wouldn’t label them as the most detail rich set, but what’s here is enough to create an engaging listening experience that doesn’t feel rolled over.
Treble: There is very good treble resolution on this set. Cymbals have realistic character and decay, which indicates that the upper harmonics are coming through cleanly and are well balanced to deliver such a realistic sound. The treble is a bit forward, which helps give a better impression of detail but they aren’t sharp or fatiguing. A good example of this is Long Nights in Jail by Dance Gavin Dance. Very good clarity on this one.
Technical Performance, Soundstage, and Imaging: The technical performance on this set is quite good. Layering is well done. It’s not the most spacious — planar IEMs still hold the throne there — but you can clearly make out what’s happening on each layer of your music and games. This is an asset for gaming, too, because you’ll be able to pick out important audio cues like footsteps that might otherwise be drowned out.
The soundstage is about average for this price, which is to say that it doesn’t sound constrained and won’t distract you from your listening. At the same time, it’s not the most spacious listening experience. The soundstage feels natural but didn’t blow me away.
Imaging is good, but like soundstage, isn’t going to wow you with exact soundstage positioning. The stereo imaging is clear, which enhances the sense of space in your listening. In games, I was able to pick out forward or rear directionality, too, which is exactly what you need for competitive first-person shooters.
Gaming: The Kiwi Ears Orchestra Lite is a good set for gaming. There is enough detail and resolution that you’ll experience an immersive audio experience. This is especially true in games that emphasize audio in their design, like Battlefield 2042, or that have sweeping soundtracks or immersive 3D audio. The layering is sufficient to make sure you’ll substantially more than the average gaming headset and be able to leverage that clarity advantage if your skills are up to snuff. The soundstage doesn’t compete with open-back headphones, of course, but they respond well to spatial audio algorithms like Dolby Atmos.
Overall Impressions and Final Thoughts
The Kiwi Ears Orchestra Lite are very good earphones that embrace balance. Emphasized lows and highs are pulled back just before they become sharp or boomy. They’re not the most detailed I’ve heard in this price range (planars deliver better detail overall), but offer enough to sound resolving and enjoyable. In a way, they feel safe. But that safeness also makes for a set that’s very enjoyable even if it’s not the absolute best at any one thing. It’s the whole package, and, yes, the look that sells these earphones.
Overall, Kiwi Ears has done a great job with these. They’re well tuned, beautiful, and work across a variety of genres and types of content. For the money, they’re a safe buy that seems almost sure to please.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes.
