Campfire Audio has built its most ambitious IEMs yet, packing them full of features and feeling

Popular Science...

Portland, Oregon’s Campfire Audio launched in 2015 as the logical continuation of founder and lead engineer Ken Ball’s ALOaudio. ALO, or Audio Line Out, was a company obsessed with the signal chain. And Campfire Audio emerged to produce hand-assembled in-ear monitors capable of transforming what the bespoke cables and boutique portable amps were transporting. With the 2016 introduction of the Andromeda [an IEM whose 10th anniversary edition we’ll have more to say about in the future], Campfire Audio’s distinctive industrial enclosures were established alongside a layered and lucid house sound, the result of acoustic chamber experimentation focused more on overall organic timbre than eking out every millimeter of transients. However, that all changes with the introduction of the Chimera—a summit-fi statement that sets out to add all possible technicalities and physicality to the spaciousness-first foundation.

The Chimera is a $7,500, nine-driver platform for quad technologies, including Campfire firsts. Its architecture combines an all-new 10mm True-Glass dynamic driver for lows and low-mids, a dual-diaphragm balanced-armature driver for midrange detail, two high-frequency BAs, four Sonion EST (electrostatic) super-tweeters, and a shell-embedded 10mm bone-conduction driver for low-frequency resonance (the first time Campfire has integrated such a component). A targeted pressure value, acoustic routing, vintage ceramic-film capacitor, and a “Master Track” final-stage tuning damper in the nozzle contribute to dynamic control and coherence. Early impressions from CanJam Singapore suggest this complexity doesn’t stand in the way of articulate texture in a gently U-shaped monitor that, with the right eartips, is fast while weighty, precise but more about rich presence, and never preoccupied with injecting itself into the audio. And, at 5.5Ω @ 1kHz with a rated sensitivity of 94dB SPL @ 1kHz/14.6 mVrms, the Chimera isn’t difficult to drive from a range of DAC/amp/DAPs to achieve full expression of its 5Hz – 20kHz frequency response.

Further helping justify the cost are the materials, including CNC-machined billet magnesium finished with a durable PVD coating, a carbon fiber-brass Damascus faceplate, machined brass nozzle, custom fasteners and vents, 2-pin connectors, plus an ALOaudio Valence-6 cable featuring copper + silver-plated copper conductors and 4.4mm balanced termination developed for maximum synergy. There’s also a black leather zipper case, two-pocket mesh Breezy Bag, ear tip selection, and various cleaning tools.