Moondrop Aria (2021) First impressions

Just when I was writing the Moondrop Blessing 2: Dusk review, Moondrop released the Moondrop Aria, which reuses the name of one of the past product that has been discontinued from them.

Nothing much to say with this opening, I just got this package this morning before going to E-Earphone so this will be a quick impression as well as measurements on the Aria.

Before going into the post, if you are new, please read this before having any comments regarding my writing or point of view‌.

For Vietnamese readers: Bài viết đã có bản tiếng Việt tại đây

Information:

Drivers: 1DD
Price: 80$
Purchase link: https://hifigo.com/products/moondrop-aria-2

The Moondrop Aria was kindly provided by HifiGo in exchange for my honest review

First impressions:

Moondrop Aria Frequency response - Can be seen from the Frequency Response Index

Yep, the Aria tonality is similar to the Moondrop KXXS, which means it would be similar to the Moondrop Starfield also.
That said, only the tonality is like that, the staging is somewhat different. A quick A/B with the KXXS today at E-Earphone and it's quite noticeable that the KXXS has better depth, instrument layering than the Aria
I would argue that the resolution is slightly worse also, though I need more time to confirm this being true or not.
Pricing aside, rather than an the obvious alternative to Starfield, I am thinking the Aria can be an alternative to Mooondrop SSR/SSP also with better tone but slightly worse depth (and similar width).

As a side note, since the first sample of the KXXS that I measured got some problem, so the E-Earphone sample (Sample 2) will be the representative of the KXXS graph on the database.
In other means, The graph comparison tools will default to Sample 2 upon selecting Moondrop KXXS graph.

With that being said, here is the comparison of the three. Starfield sample 3 was used since I own this unit.

Moondrop KXXS vs Moondrop Starfield vs Moondrop Aria - Comparison graph was generated from the Graph Comparison Tool

Review should be out next week. Meanwhile, here is my invitation to my Discord server. We have tea, so feel free to join ;)

Bonus: I feel like I am putting too much effort on IEM photography