If you are somewhat familiar with Elysian Acoustic Labs then the $399 price point for the Pilgrim may seem extremely low by comparison to anything else the brand has put out to date. But I should also remind you that this is not like Elysian suddenly woke up and decided to take a loss on something and provide a set of IEMs for the betterment of the audiophile community. Those who expected this to sound like a baby Elysian Annihilator or Diva may end up finding the Pilgrim to be a very different set, it's safer with tonality and thus misses out on the Elysian U-shaped house sound many adore. At the same time, if this was going to sound similar to those sets then that would have been a self-goal by Elysian, so I am not surprised the Pilgrim is going for a different tuning which will attract its own share of customers.

I will be remiss if I don't bring up the part where Elysian Acoustic Labs is still a small company, and this has brought with it complaints from customers about long delays with order fulfillment as well as the occasional lacking customer service. If the brand was solely in charge of the Pilgrim, then things might have got even worse in this regard given this is expected to sell in larger volumes. Thankfully, and as I understand, the Pilgrim is being manufactured by Effect Audio and there are larger batches being made ready as we speak. So hopefully, we should not be seeing a repeat of the likes of the Fatfreq Scarlet Mini, assuming large numbers of people end up purchasing the Pilgrim.

Here is where I end up conflicted though. The Elysian Pilgrim is certainly a good set of IEMs, although the $400 price point makes it a tough justification for what it ultimately offers. I dare say that if the exact same product was sold by a random brand without the reputation that Elysian Acoustic Labs has, the Pilgrim would not be getting the rave reviews from most others so far. Brand power is a big deal in the IEM market, and the Pilgrim is benefiting from it. In fact, there is already a Pilgrim:Noir coming out soon, if not already by the time you read this review, for $800! This is a collaboration between Elysian and Effect Audio with darker shells, an upgraded cable, and a re-worked driver configuration + tuning to where I can't say I am pleased about how the roll-out is being treated with the less expensive Pilgrim going out first and then no doubt people being made to feel FOMO about the more expensive, yet still affordable compared to other Elysian IEMs, Pilgrim Noir. As it stands, I also feel the $400 market is such that you have many excellent offerings already, some of which do better for the money depending on your music library and preferences. I have no doubt that the Elysian Pilgrim will still end up a commercial success, but I implore everyone to do their research first and make sure this is the set for you.