Fit and Comfort

Seen above is the right channel of the SeeAudio X Crinacle Yume Midnight IEMs installed into an artificial ear mold, and I am using the size M silicone ear tips included with the IEMs. This is my typical combination for personal use too, and helps illustrate the nature of the fit one can achieve with these IEMs. Indeed, I have average-sized ears, and the ear mold above represents my own experiences well enough as a proxy. The semi-custom design of the shells shaped with the ear concha in mind for ergonomics works out well if you have medium or large ears, but those with smaller ears may struggle irrespective of the ear tips used. If you are on the cusp, I found the likes of the final Type-E ear tips handy with these. In general, the soft curves and design make for 2-3 points of contact with the ear at least, which adds support and keeps the IEMs in place. The single vent on the side also makes for decent passive isolation without affecting the seal, and they weigh next to nothing at under 5 g each, making for no sense of physical fatigue, either. Note that the newer cable is of course much better in use, so you can ignore the older cable image here that is kept for record keeping only. The cable cinch/chin strap could still be improved though since it doesn't really remain in place to secure the two cables headed to the IEMs, but otherwise this is a set that is self-supporting.

Audio Performance

Audio Hardware

SeeAudio is clearly one of the very few audio companies to exclude dedicated pages worth of marketing on the driver tech and tuning, instead just mentioning the aforementioned collaboration between its audio team, HiFiGo, and Crinacle for taking the original Yume as a base and reworking it to make what is the new Yume Midnight. There is very little information on the actual changes or the drivers themselves to begin with! All I know is that the Yume Midnight uses a hybrid driver configuration with two different driver types, with a single liquid silicone diaphragm-based dynamic driver (DD) of unknown size to cater to the low frequencies and two custom-tuned unnamed balanced armature (BA) drivers for the mids and highs. The so-called L.S.D. dynamic driver is reported to be quite stable across any temperature changes in the acoustic chamber, and in turn promises a uniform, reproducible, and strong bass response. There is also a deliberate placed, precisely engineered cavity between the dynamic driver and sound guides, which SeeAudio calls its low frequency filter conversion (L.F.C.) tech for a more consistent phase response with a DD and BA hybrid design, and it helps the BA drivers play to their strength in the respective frequency bands. This cavity structure has been modified in the Yume Midnight from the Yume to allow for further frequency response extension without compromising detail.

Driving the hardware is slightly harder than average for IEMs with a rated 32 Ω impedance (at 1 kHz) and sensitivity of 106 dB/mW, once again at 1 kHz, presumably measured at the drum reference point. In practice, it should still be fine with most mobile devices, and a portable DAC/amp will suit your needs perfectly for when you find yourself without an available 3.5 mm audio jack on the go. The better source and a DAP may be considerations, useful in avoiding potential hissing and clipping with some sensitive IEMs, which these are not. If not using them on the go, the shorter cable included with IEMs might be a potential handicap when connecting to a PC as the audio source, and a cable upgrade may be called for as-is.

Frequency Measurement and Listening

I will mention that I have a general preference for a warm-neutral signature emphasizing a slightly elevated bass and smooth treble range with detailed mids and good tonal separation. I also generally prefer instrumental music over vocals, with favored genres including jazz and classical music.


Our reproducible testing methodology begins with a calibrated IEC711 audio coupler/artificial ear IEMs can feed into enough for decent isolation. The audio coupler feeds into a USB sound card, which in turn goes to a laptop that has ARTA and REW running and the earphones connected to the laptop through the sound card. I begin with an impulse measurement to test for signal fidelity, calibrate the sound card and channel output, account for floor noise, and finally test the frequency response of each channel separately. Octave smoothing is at the 1/12th setting, which nets a good balance of detail and noise not being identified as useful data. Also, the default tuning was used for testing, and no app-based settings were chosen unless specifically mentioned. Each sample of interest is tested thrice with separate mounts to account for any fit issues, and an average is taken of the three individual measurements for statistical accuracy. For IEMs, I am also using the appropriate ear mold fitted to the audio coupler for a separate test to compare how the IEMs fare when installed in a pinna geometry and not just the audio coupler. The raw data is then exported from REW and plotted in OriginPro for easier comparison.


The IEC711 is such that you can't really compare these results with most other test setups, especially those using a head and torso simulator (HATS). The raw dB numbers are also quite contingent on the set volume, gain levels, and sensitivity of the system. What is more useful information is how the left and right channels work across the rated frequency response in the Yume Midnight, or at least the useful part. The left channel was separately tested from the right one, and colored differently for contrast. I did my best to ensure an identical fit for both inside the IEC711 orifice, so note how the two channels are identical in the lows and mids and lower treble before the slightest of deviations between 5-6 kHz. Even this wasn't really felt in person, and the seemingly larger discrepancy past the coupler resonance frequency of ~8 kHz is best taken with a grain of salt. As such, I am quite pleased with the channel matching on this sample. Measurements taken after 30 hours of testing, including with these playing a mix of various songs as well as white or pink noise and sine sweeps, showed no difference. There was no perceived burn-in effect thus, and none was measurable either. The response with the artificial pinna in place matches the ideal scenario in the coupler well enough, including with the typically seen resonance shift, to where it's also an indicator of how good the seal was when installed in the pinna simulator.


This is the average frequency response for both channels of the Yume Midnight plotted against my personal target taken from VSG.squig.link, which also gives you an idea of my personal preferences to better correlate any possible biases. The tuning of a set of headphones or earphones does not have to match my target as long as it is tuned with some direction, makes sense, and is executed well. After all, no one set will appeal to everyone, and having different options is what makes this hobby so interesting and hard to quantify. With the Yume Midnight, all involved parties recognized that the Yume's tonality had little complaints and that the primary focus had to be on the technical performance. Regardless, this gets a sub-bass boost, which has become somewhat typical of Crinacle's collaborations, and treble response is also extended, which I certainly appreciate.

The tonality of the Yume Midnight is still mostly neutral with a bass boost, with a sub-bass boost of ~11 dB from the lowest SPL value in the mids. This is not just warm neutral thus, and one of the reasons I can see it following the SeeAudio Bravery in being fairly appealing to many. The dynamic driver hits harder than the all-BA nature of the Bravery, though, making the Yume Midnight arguably even better in this regard. It's still not a basshead IEM, and primarily because that 11-12 dB elevation actually does not feel as much in practice. Perhaps the FiiO x Crinacle FHE:Eclipse will appeal to you there if you want more bass. The added bass boost may have indirectly affected dynamics over the Yume, which I haven't heard myself, so I can't fault this for being negligent on bass technicals even though it adds positively to bass guitars and drums rather than EDM. Classic rock and roll music is quite good with these that I would almost get the Yume Midnight just for it, but there's always that nagging feeling of why is the bass elevation not feeling as much coming to affect the technical performance with the Yume Midnight, which we will see is going to be a trend of sorts.

Notice that the SPL gain starts at around 200 Hz going down, so the bass bleeding into the lower mids is not really a thing. This cleaner transition to the mids also makes for an elongated range to appreciate vocals and instruments alike, and thus automatically gets on my personal favorites list. Male vocals are barely forward-facing, but not in the sense of getting lost with drum harmonics, which ties back in with rock music on the Yume Midnight. Instrument separation is also excellent, which makes imaging and soundstage being so-so all the harder to stomach. There was a slight haze in precisely identifying drums from guitars even in a 3D space, let alone between different segments of the same. The soundstage also felt narrower while being tall, almost to the point of being stretched artificially. It's not genre-specific, either. My usual mix of songs and a few new ones all showed similar promise. The haze also affected detail retrieval to a degree, but this remains a well-resolving set of IEMs to where I can see a use case for both audiophiles and music monitoring.

The transition to the upper mids starts off well, and despite the graph looking otherwise, the pinna gain was appropriate enough to me. It's still on the lower side to where this can be good for fans of harder hitting music, but can come off wanting for some lovers of jazz and pop music. This is easy enough to EQ to your desire though, with the Yume Midnight generally responding well to EQ courtesy relatively low distortion. Female vocals are, as you hear them with the Yume Midnight out of the box, somewhat backward-facing relative to instruments. The treble response following is quite interesting in that whatever SeeAudio did to extend it all the way feels less-than-perfectly executed, including with a slightly hollow timbre. The dip past the pinna gain region adds some sparkle subsequently, but I was again left wanting more detail. It's non-fatiguing at least, but I am not fully convinced the goal of making this a technically superior IEM relative to the market was achieved, once again noting that I have no experience with the original Yume, so for all I know, that thing was deader than a doornail. I was satisfied with the Yume Midnight for pop music more than orchestral with instruments, such as cymbals and piano keys not getting their due, but would still not recommend this set over a few others for both.

Comparisons

The obvious comparisons to me began with the SeeAudio Bravery and FiiO x Crinacle FHE:Eclipse. I had only just listened to the FHE:Eclipse, so having these two recent collaboration efforts from Crinacle clarified how different they are even if they do not appear as much different above. The Eclipse is much bassier than analytical, and arguably has better technical performance in the lows at the very least. The Bravery is a weird one by comparison. I can certainly see the remnants of the SeeAudio house curve in both, and this tuning with Crinacle has ultimately made the Midnight a more appealing set to me, although the Bravery has far better accessories in my opinion. The Eclipse is more deliberate about what it does, but I'd ultimately still take the Midnight over both the other two and recommend it to an average end user more than the others, too.


The $200 market has had a lot of recently released competition, with the likes of the MOONDROP KATO in particular being the biggest competition to the Yume Midnight purely from a budget. It's certainly more of a warm-neutral set. It ultimately comes down to your tuning preferences since the KATO is smoother and more dynamic with a natural timbre. The DUNU FALCON PRO is a more technical set relative to the Yume Midnight in my books, but differs even more so tonally by being a warm bassy set many found somewhat bloaty. I don't necessarily agree with that, but even DUNU will acknowledge that it just did not hit the success levels it wanted. The Ovidius RX-100 is actually the closest to the Yume Midnight in both pricing and tonality, and even technicalities. But such is the cruelly competitive IEM world that the Ovidius RX-100 was even more a case of a whisper in the wind that never got the attention I thought it deserved. It's seemingly on the tail end of its production run, too—this is more me being stubborn about including it than anything else. The real competition, and ultimately what I suspect many will choose over the Yume Midnight for the money, is the 7Hz Timeless. This set came out of nowhere from the 7Hz brand, became a massive success with its excellent tuning for a planar IEM, and is similar to the Yume Midnight in being bass boosted and tuned well for all but some issues in the treble region, where it's a mix of brightness and potential sibilance that keeps it from being an easy recommendation for me. This one is tough, but I'd still go with the KATO myself, though I can see the Yume Midnight as a candidate because it is more easily adopted by the more mainstream audience than the KATO and an easier fit with minimal channel imbalance issues compared to the 7Hz Timeless.


This one is another indulgence of mine and not really a comparison. If you did purchase the Yume Midnight and perhaps won the lottery, consider the LETSHUOER EJ07M as an upgrade. It is also tuned very well, but has better technicalities. It costs more than twice as much as the Yume Midnight, but gives you a better fit and accessory set for the money, too.