Hi everyone, I'm back with a brief review of the Kefine Klean IEM. I received this IEM from Kefine, who kindly provided it for review purposes. Thank you to Collin Yang from Kefine and Ori Adar for introducing me to Collin.
These are my subjective impressions as an audio enthusiast.
Thanks to God, Collin Yang, and Ori Adar for giving me the opportunity to review the Kefine Klean. These impressions are based on my preference for a V-shaped to bright sound signature, so there may be a bias, as I find the Kefine Klean to have a mild V-shaped bright signature. Please don't use these impressions as a reference or guideline, as every ear is different and I'm only sharing my personal experience. Always trust your own ears first and audition if possible. If you find any mistakes, please feel free to leave a comment.
As usual, before I continue, I'll provide a brief description of an IEM that's already quite popular among audiophiles. The Kefine Klean is an IEM that was released around October 2024, and at the time, it was a highly sought-after IEM due to its excellent price-to-performance ratio. With all of its IEM shells made of aluminum alloy casting but only featuring a monotone matte black color, it seems Kefine knows how to customize its products to look premium while keeping production costs low by using the same black matte paint job across all its IEMs. That's great approach because black is a neutral color that I believe everyone can accept. The matte black color also seems to have been chosen to make fingerprints and scratches less visible.
The price is currently under $49.
Thanks to God, Collin Yang, and Ori Adar for giving me the opportunity to review the Kefine Klean. These impressions are based on my preference for a V-shaped to bright sound signature, so there may be a bias, as I find the Kefine Klean to have a mild V-shaped bright signature. Please don't use these impressions as a reference or guideline, as every ear is different and I'm only sharing my personal experience. Always trust your own ears first and audition if possible. If you find any mistakes, please feel free to leave a comment.
As usual, before I continue, I'll provide a brief description of an IEM that's already quite popular among audiophiles. The Kefine Klean is an IEM that was released around October 2024, and at the time, it was a highly sought-after IEM due to its excellent price-to-performance ratio. With all of its IEM shells made of aluminum alloy casting but only featuring a monotone matte black color, it seems Kefine knows how to customize its products to look premium while keeping production costs low by using the same black matte paint job across all its IEMs. That's great approach because black is a neutral color that I believe everyone can accept. The matte black color also seems to have been chosen to make fingerprints and scratches less visible.
The price is currently under $49.
Here are the specifications and features you'll get:
* Driver: 10mm DLC Dynamic Driver, dual cavity
* Plug Type: 3.5mm
* Connector: 0.78mm 2-pin
* Sensitivity/Impedance: 107dB@1kHz/32Ω
* Frequency Range: 20Hz-20kHz
* Silicon Eartips (three sizes)
* 2-Pin Earphone Cable, Silver-Plated Copper, 1.2m
* User Manual
* Hard Carrying Case
* Interchangeable Nozzles
To drive this IEM, I simply plug it into my phone and it only takes 3/15 volume to be loud enough, which means it's very easy to drive. For this test, I used the Moondrop Dawn Pro DAC dongle, with the stock, largest size eartips.
Unboxing + Physical Build
The packaging box is compact enough to fit a hard carrying case inside. The carrying case contains the eartips and the IEM cable. For the IEM body itself, the design is quite boxy but there are no sharp corners, and what is unique is the IEM Kefine Klean shell, besides being joined with glue, is also tightened with nuts, and indeed so far I have never heard of an incident of the IEM Kefine shell, especially the Kefine Klean being open, which means the IEM is quite solid. For the changeable nozzle, it is made from brass where the black filter for tuning is brighter and the silver filter is warmer.
For the cable itself, a 108-wire twisted SPC cable is provided which is quite flexible and not too thick. For the shape of the IEM itself, for me, it is quite comfortable and the material feels quite solid. For eartips, a regular bore version with decent quality is provided which is made of silicone with 3 different sizes.
* Driver: 10mm DLC Dynamic Driver, dual cavity
* Plug Type: 3.5mm
* Connector: 0.78mm 2-pin
* Sensitivity/Impedance: 107dB@1kHz/32Ω
* Frequency Range: 20Hz-20kHz
* Silicon Eartips (three sizes)
* 2-Pin Earphone Cable, Silver-Plated Copper, 1.2m
* User Manual
* Hard Carrying Case
* Interchangeable Nozzles
To drive this IEM, I simply plug it into my phone and it only takes 3/15 volume to be loud enough, which means it's very easy to drive. For this test, I used the Moondrop Dawn Pro DAC dongle, with the stock, largest size eartips.
Unboxing + Physical Build
The packaging box is compact enough to fit a hard carrying case inside. The carrying case contains the eartips and the IEM cable. For the IEM body itself, the design is quite boxy but there are no sharp corners, and what is unique is the IEM Kefine Klean shell, besides being joined with glue, is also tightened with nuts, and indeed so far I have never heard of an incident of the IEM Kefine shell, especially the Kefine Klean being open, which means the IEM is quite solid. For the changeable nozzle, it is made from brass where the black filter for tuning is brighter and the silver filter is warmer.
For the cable itself, a 108-wire twisted SPC cable is provided which is quite flexible and not too thick. For the shape of the IEM itself, for me, it is quite comfortable and the material feels quite solid. For eartips, a regular bore version with decent quality is provided which is made of silicone with 3 different sizes.
Here are my impressions of the sound signature, which, in my opinion, has a V-shaped Harman tuning, with a neutral, balanced to bright sound with the black filter. While the silver filter feels slightly warmer, the treble isn't as bright as the black filter. For this review, I used the Moondrop Dawn Pro DAC streaming Tidal through the UAPP app using the largest supplied eartips. The differences between the two filters are as follows:
Silver Filter
The upper mids feel more relaxed, and the treble isn't as sharp as the black filter. Overall, the sound is warmer. If you're sensitive to intimate upper mids and bright treble, this filter is a good choice.
Black Filter
The upper mids are more forward, and the treble feels sharper, making the overall sound brighter. I prefer the black filter because I feel the sound produced by the dynamic driver is more open and has a higher resolution than the silver filter.
For the rest of the review, I will focus on the Kefine Klean with the black filter.
Silver Filter
The upper mids feel more relaxed, and the treble isn't as sharp as the black filter. Overall, the sound is warmer. If you're sensitive to intimate upper mids and bright treble, this filter is a good choice.
Black Filter
The upper mids are more forward, and the treble feels sharper, making the overall sound brighter. I prefer the black filter because I feel the sound produced by the dynamic driver is more open and has a higher resolution than the silver filter.
For the rest of the review, I will focus on the Kefine Klean with the black filter.
Bass
The bass is more dominant in the subbass. The subbass feels quite deep and rumbles, with a tight and punchy midbass, but not overly meaty. The note weight isn't heavy but still manages to produce a decent amount of impact. The note weight tends to be lean, but that doesn't mean the bass is lacking rather than the bass is present but not overpowering. It's quite well-controlled and more than enough for my taste, which prefers balanced, clean bass. I found the black filter to have a slightly snappier bass, but it was still quite fun. The silver filter had a slight bass bleed into the midrange, giving the sound a warmer feel.
Midrange
The low midrange, especially male vocals, had a weight that suited my tastes. The sound felt quite natural. Even with the silver filter, I found it to be quite natural, with a touch of warmth the vocals felt thicker, but never overshadowed by the bass. In the upper midrange, female vocals feel more forward, and their emotion is more engaging and energetic with the black filter. As far as I'm listened, they don't feel too shouty. The note weight is just right. Female vocals are clear, sweet, and quite forward to my ears, but not to the point of being shouty; they're still quite intimate. In my experience with the silver filter, the vocals still feel quite lush, more laidback, but honestly, I much prefer the black filter; it feels more open and dynamic.
Treble
The treble with the black filter is presented with a fairly open, crisp, sparkling, has nice good extension, feels airy enough. Unfortunately, I still noticed some sibilance on some songs, but it's minimal and tolerable to my ears. Meanwhile, with the silver filter, it feels less sparkling, but the good thing is there's no sibilance and it's still quite open to my ears.
The bass is more dominant in the subbass. The subbass feels quite deep and rumbles, with a tight and punchy midbass, but not overly meaty. The note weight isn't heavy but still manages to produce a decent amount of impact. The note weight tends to be lean, but that doesn't mean the bass is lacking rather than the bass is present but not overpowering. It's quite well-controlled and more than enough for my taste, which prefers balanced, clean bass. I found the black filter to have a slightly snappier bass, but it was still quite fun. The silver filter had a slight bass bleed into the midrange, giving the sound a warmer feel.
Midrange
The low midrange, especially male vocals, had a weight that suited my tastes. The sound felt quite natural. Even with the silver filter, I found it to be quite natural, with a touch of warmth the vocals felt thicker, but never overshadowed by the bass. In the upper midrange, female vocals feel more forward, and their emotion is more engaging and energetic with the black filter. As far as I'm listened, they don't feel too shouty. The note weight is just right. Female vocals are clear, sweet, and quite forward to my ears, but not to the point of being shouty; they're still quite intimate. In my experience with the silver filter, the vocals still feel quite lush, more laidback, but honestly, I much prefer the black filter; it feels more open and dynamic.
Treble
The treble with the black filter is presented with a fairly open, crisp, sparkling, has nice good extension, feels airy enough. Unfortunately, I still noticed some sibilance on some songs, but it's minimal and tolerable to my ears. Meanwhile, with the silver filter, it feels less sparkling, but the good thing is there's no sibilance and it's still quite open to my ears.
Technicality
The Kefine Klean has a soundstage that adequate for the price. Imaging is also quite good for its price point. Each instrument feels well separated in its place, with the top, bottom, left, and right positions quite well defined, depth feels good too but feels not deep, unfortunately layers can still feel blurry to me when playing fast and complex music like progressive metal but honestly for this price it still quite good.
Resolution and detail, especially in the black filter, from low frequencies to high frequencies, are excellent for the price. I didn't notice a significant decrease in detail on complex music tracks, but for the treble while is not bad, sometimes it still sounds a bit shrillness.
Conclusion
So, is the Kefine Klean worth it? For its $49 you get solid metal build quality, 2 sound options via the filter tuning nozzle where you can choose a warmer or brighter harman sound, technical performance is quite good for its price range, suitable for most music genre, and sufficient hard carrying case.
What are the downside?
For some people, the Kefine Klean is still too bright, even with the silver filter, as I learned from comments from Ex Kefine Klean users. For me, the Kefine Klean with the silver filter isn't bright enough to suit my taste. So, for those of you who are sensitive to treble, it's best to audition it as much as possible. Regarding the silver filter, there have been some cases of imbalanced sound, which is suspected to be due to the silver filter easily absorbing water in humid environments, so far the black filter seems durable enough to mantain their sound quality. Therefore, make sure you store the Kefine Klean in a relatively dry place. That's all, fellas. Thank you for reading. Cheers.
Want to check the current price or know more? you can find the Kefine Klean at the links below(unaffiliated links)
HiFiGo
The Kefine Klean has a soundstage that adequate for the price. Imaging is also quite good for its price point. Each instrument feels well separated in its place, with the top, bottom, left, and right positions quite well defined, depth feels good too but feels not deep, unfortunately layers can still feel blurry to me when playing fast and complex music like progressive metal but honestly for this price it still quite good.
Resolution and detail, especially in the black filter, from low frequencies to high frequencies, are excellent for the price. I didn't notice a significant decrease in detail on complex music tracks, but for the treble while is not bad, sometimes it still sounds a bit shrillness.
Conclusion
So, is the Kefine Klean worth it? For its $49 you get solid metal build quality, 2 sound options via the filter tuning nozzle where you can choose a warmer or brighter harman sound, technical performance is quite good for its price range, suitable for most music genre, and sufficient hard carrying case.
What are the downside?
For some people, the Kefine Klean is still too bright, even with the silver filter, as I learned from comments from Ex Kefine Klean users. For me, the Kefine Klean with the silver filter isn't bright enough to suit my taste. So, for those of you who are sensitive to treble, it's best to audition it as much as possible. Regarding the silver filter, there have been some cases of imbalanced sound, which is suspected to be due to the silver filter easily absorbing water in humid environments, so far the black filter seems durable enough to mantain their sound quality. Therefore, make sure you store the Kefine Klean in a relatively dry place. That's all, fellas. Thank you for reading. Cheers.
Want to check the current price or know more? you can find the Kefine Klean at the links below(unaffiliated links)
HiFiGo
35%OFF: SHOP HERE
Thanks to Aftersound FR
Source: https://aftersound.squig.link/?share=KEFINE_KLEAN_BLACK,KEFINE_KLEAN_SILVER,KZ_EDC_PRO