Here's a dirty little secret that you may not be aware of. As with B-stock finished goods, which are usually marked so for small defects to the fit and finish, there are also IEM and headphone drivers which are marked as B-stock by the factories making them. A lot of these are because the performance might not meet the standards set, be it with uneven coating of the diaphragm or just a misaligned assembly of the components. With dynamic drivers, we see this a lot when it comes to Bluetooth headphones where the best of the lot get earmarked for the likes of Apple, Sony, Bose etc. This is one of the many ways that smaller brands are able to offer their products at a lower cost, since a lot of the non A-tier drivers can be purchased for significantly less while not always performing significantly worse.

The reason I am telling you this is that INTUAURA made it a point to show me the drivers used in the Lakeview, and how they are even beyond the quality of the A-tier drivers used in many high-end brands. Indeed, these drivers are custom designed and manufactured for the Lakeview, and this is one of the reasons it is more expensive than your typical Chinese brand single-DD sets. Tuning is another reason, with arguably the stock analog tuning being less balanced than even some of the $20-100 IEMs on the market today. The INTUAURA Lakeview goes deliberately colored, aiming to put out a more dynamic and punchy set. It comes at the expense of sounding less clean in the mids though, and there are some treble quirks which could be improved upon. In fact, there's also the limitation of using a single driver for the entire frequency range, with larger planar magnetic drivers being able to do this arguably better. This is where DSP comes in, and how my time with the Lakeview went from being appreciative of the drivers and less so with the tuning to something I was getting increasingly fond of. You now get two tuning options, on top of the analog one, to choose from, and it's extremely easy to do by simply plugging the cable into the provided USB adapter cables, which are also dongles that have their own DAC/amp modules. Those who do not partake in EQ because it seems hard to do—it's really not, especially today with mobile apps and desktop programs to save EQ profiles on sources—now you really don't have excuses! I'd also say the Phantasm cable only improves upon the sound presentation of the Lakeview, in case you were wondering if the EQ "lowers the sound quality" for whatever reason.

Not everything is perfect though, and we see this mostly with the accessories. At $1500, the bar is quite high and many products aim to distinguish themselves by offering fancy storage cases, a lot of ear tip options, and a custom cable that matches the IEMs better. The Lakeview arguably misses on all of these, even if the materials used for the storage/carry case are premium enough. I also don't like that the DSP cable I liked best doesn't look like the IEM cable at all, and neither match these gorgeous blue shells/faceplates on the IEMs. Then there's the part where INTUAURA has many other IEMs that go with single dynamic drivers and DSP, so there will also be questions asked about the value proposition. Could you, for example, get a similar sound signature with the less expensive INTUAURA IEMs, especially seeing as how the next most expensive set costs under half as much as the Lakeview? I went through most of the lineup in Shenzhen and was able to pick out the Lakeview as the best one easily, yet you can certainly get more bang for your buck with the others. I believe the Lakeview is the only one to come with two DSP cables, for what it's worth, and it's certainly the most resolving and dynamic set too, let alone offering you a good sense of impact in the lower frequencies. I appreciate what INTUAURA is doing here, and this is the way to go to bring DSP to the masses. It also helps that DSP is not being used as a crutch here either, instead just improving upon what's already a solid foundation if I say so myself. INTUAURA also teased an upcoming set that has analog tuning already close to what you get here with DSP, meaning the brand is well aware of what good sets sound like and how to get there. The INTUAURA Lakeview isn't for everyone, yet anyone who's a fan of good single DD IEMs absolutely owes it to themselves to check this out. I also respect what the brand is going for and look forward to seeing what's next.