The MOONDROP x Crinacle DUSK has been a hotly anticipated release for, well, a year now. It has undergone several iterations from the time the MOONDROP Blessing 3 released, including a change in the driver configuration too, and has had several teasers along the way thanks to frequency response measurements released publicly over the course of said year. One such release mentioned the use of DSP or digital signal processing alongside the DUSK as-is, which led people to speculate that perhaps the new DUSK was coming with a few tricks up its sleeve. MOONDROP had been working towards DSP cables during this time period too, including two standalone Type-C cables as well as IEMs that only ship with a Type-C digital cable. These have app-support too, allowing users to change the tonality of the IEMs thanks to having an EQ profile that is saved onboard the cable itself. Add to this the convenience factor of having an integrated DAC/amp and being able to directly connect your IEMs to your phone without needing any adapter or portable DAC/amp, and you can see why this was a recipe for excitement. The MOONDROP x Crinacle DUSK made a final pre-release showing at CanJam New York earlier this year and received near-unanimous acclaim for its tonality off the digital cable. So why are reviews and impressions mixed now?

A lot of this has to do with the implementation of the digital cable itself. I knew going in that the MOONDROP Link mobile app was not great in the best of ways. It's not easy to even install easily, and those on iOS are out of luck to begin with. The app, once installed, is also not very stable and support for the digital cable ranges from being flawless sometimes to having missing features at others to outright crashing for some. I am not sure what combination of factors results in these issues being reproducible as I have had no problems with this cable after having gone through some struggles last year with the standalone MOONDROP Free DSP cable already. I also know things have improved since then when it comes to allowing more flexibility in making the EQ profiles from scratch, but more work needs to be done. The good news is that, despite the DUSK's digital cable having support for five EQ profiles that need the app to toggle through them, the default profile is arguably the best of the lot anyway and comes preloaded to where the app and related issues are not necessary to deal with at all. Unfortunately there is also the part where the actual hardware used is not perfect with the DAC itself having potential artifacting and noise during typical use. It is more noticeable in some scenarios over others and I will still go as far as to say this is not a dealbreaker in my opinion, but it does sour upon what could have been a monumental release that helps more people realize how EQ is a great, free tool to use.

I suppose in a way the new DUSK still manages to do this with its less-than-perfect DSP implementation as people have realized the potential of EQ with the digital cable helping make for one of the best tuned IEMs on the planet regardless of cost. You can also do this with the analog cable and thus skip all the digital cable hassles too! I'd argue those with the original MOONDROP Blessing 3 should also give it a shot as you will get close enough to the set's potential this way despite the different drivers and how they were used together. If anything, the biggest takeaway for me here is how easy it can be to get IEMs 95% of the way there by analog engineering alone and then how hard it is to get that last 5% achieved. Some end up doing this via exotic drivers and lots of hard and innovative work which inevitably results in IEMs that cost 10x as much as the DUSK, if not more. Going for a DSP cable helps get that 5% in a more reasonable manner, albeit you still pay for it in other ways. Perhaps MOONDROP could have done better on the cable and the app, but this would have either resulted in a higher cost or a delayed release, or both. The MOONDROP x Crinacle DUSK is not a perfect set and yet is important enough to possibly herald in a new age of DSP IEMs and people adopting EQ. I personally found the digital cable to be worth using given the convenience on offer, and it's not like the DUSK suddenly becomes unusable without it either. The DUSK gets a conditional recommendation accordingly—it came 95% of the way to achieving an Editor's Choice award but that last 5% barrier was harder to cross than anyone involved in this collaboration possibly realized.