ASG-1S Review

Copyright 2013 Aurisonics, Inc.

Pros

• Luxurious aesthetics
• Ergonomic design
• Impacting bass
• More balanced sound signature vs ASG-1
• Vocals are incredibly detailed and prominent 

Cons

• Sound is coloured
• Sounds best with EQ
• Treble is a tad soft without EQ to help bring it out more

General Overview

The ASG-1S are a set of limited run IEM which are handmade by Dale Lott (Owner and CEO of Aurisonics for those who don’t know) and cost $499.99 a pair. Each pair of ASG-1S have polished shells and chrome plates as well as their own serial number. Sound-wise, the ASG-1S are set apart from the regular ASG-1 as it is tuned differently with a tuning Dale calls “signature” tuning so they don’t sound exactly the same as the ASG-1(rev 1 or rev 2). Being a separate product, the ASG-1S will most likely have their own set of revisions in the future separate to the ASG-1.

Aesthetics

Generally, my first impressions of a pair of headphones start with the sound, with the ASG-1S, it was a totally different story. When I first opened the ASG-1S  I stared at them for at least 30 minutes because of the gorgeous finish on these. The polished shell is just about clear as glass except for the sound bore and the housing of the drivers that still remain frosted like the ASG-1. While the main highlight of the ASG-1S’s aesthetics are definitely the polished shells and the chrome plates the cables were what really caught my eye on the ASG-1S. Now for all those who read my revised ASG-1.1 review, you may remember that I mentioned I really hated how the cables turned green (caused by the copper in the wire oxidizing).

Overall Sound

The ASG-1S, like the regular ASG-1’s were designed as stage monitors and the tuning reflects that. When Dale designed the ASG-1, his main goal was to create stage monitors that would play back a vocal’s voice as others hear it which is why the ASG-1S do sound coloured. I am sure everyone has noticed that your voice sounds different when you hear it coming out of a pair of speakers, the ASG-1S were tuned to counter this effect. This tuning makes the midrange to sound veiled and toned and while this is rather evident it is nowhere near the severity of the original ASG-1.1 which had a radio like tint on the sound. The ASG-1S have a really warm and intimate sound signature with prominent bass backing up the emphasized mids and distant treble.

Tonal Difference Between the ASG-1S and the ASG-1.2

The ASG-1S have handpicked drivers which give the ASG-1S a improvement in sound as the bass is a little more tame which means they shadow the midrange and the treble less giving the ASG-1S a more balanced sound.

Treble

I find the treble to have a reasonable improvement over the ASG-1.1. Even though the drivers are the same, I found the details of the treble on the original ASG-1 was constantly overshadowed by mids and bass even when I used EQ to bring out the treble it would tend to distort the tone of the treble by a bit. The tuning of ASG-1S seems to fix this problem as the toned down bass allows the treble to shine through a bit more. While that is the case I still find dull and lacks the edge that makes it sound a tad grainy at times. Without EQ to balance out the sound signature the treble usually sounds and audible without any real loss of quality or detail but using EQ to balance out the mids allows the treble to show a little more sparkle.

Practicality of the Toned Down Treble

Besides contributing to the overall tuning of the ASG-1S there is also a very practical reason for toning down the treble, sibilance. Now I’m sure we all have had personal experience with feedback where a microphone has been placed too close to an output source which results in an extremely harsh high pitched tone being outputted. Now imagine this happening during a recording session, if the treble was left at regular levels would have this sound played full blast directly in your ears.

Mids

The ASG-1S puts a lot of emphasis on the mids as the ASG-1’s were originally designed for vocalists. The ASG-1S are tuned so the mids, specifically vocals, will be the most prominent sound when listening to just about any track. This tuning makes the mids, but more specifically the vocals, sound really close and intimate but also make the mids feel a little bloated and a little out of line the treble and when combined with the bump in the upper bass it gives the mids a slightly coloured feel as tones entering the bass range are being pushed to the front of the soundstage with the mids. While the mids themselves are more then capable of showing details there are some occasions where the tuning on the bass overshadows and colours these details, which is why I generally use EQ with the ASG-1S. Using EQ to bump down the mids bump expands the soundstage and brings the mids and the bass back in line with the treble and allows the mids to shine a lot more and be much more revealing as they no longer struggle for dominance. Like the ASG-1, the ASG-1S does extremely well with acoustics and percussion instruments and makes it very easy to distinguish between nylon and steel strings as well as reproducing the decay of each instrument.

Bass

The bass of the ASG-1S is noticeably tighter then the ASG-1 but it doesn’t break away from the overall loose relaxed bass of the ASG-1. The ASG-1S has very strong prominent bass and does a real good job at accurate but loose bass reproduction. The ASG-1S has no problem delivering a punch strong enough to satisfy most bass heads without completely overshadowing other details. The bass on the ASG-1S does a real good job reproducing the decay of bass guitars and drums. Subbass reproduction is really prominent on the ASG-1S and really lives up the Aurisonics slogan “Rattle your teeth bass”.

Final Thoughts

The ASG-1S is extremely an elegant pair of IEM and the tuning offer a significant improvement compared to the ASG-1.1 while performing the same task. Of course the question that arises whether or not the ASG-1S is worth the extra $200. Objectively speaking, the aesthetic treatment itself is worth $200 if we were to look at the aesthetics so the special tuning is an added plus but the extra $200 is also enough to let someone buy an ASG-2 which makes the decision much harder to make. Currently I do not have an ASG-2 to make a sound comparison with but I will update this when I do.