Campfire, a headphone brand founded by a fever wire brand, made its name with Andromeda. Recently, with the changes in the headphone market, Campfire has also reorganized its product line. In addition to the classic and undefeated Andromeda and Solaris, it has re-launched new products. The lineup includes the Trifecta, which uses three dynamic drivers, and also provides male models and customized sound series. Recently, a new hoop-iron hybrid headphone Bblack Star was launched. This time, the agent Jianning provides the Black Star. Trial machine for experience.
▲The shell is made of brushed stainless steel, and the side panels are PVD coated with acrylic logos.
The previous generation of Campfire’s product line also had a Dorado that was similar to Black Star in terms of price and technology. However, the author believes that Black Star’s concept and technology are more like creating a relatively affordable Solaris. After all, it is different from using a single 10mm Dorado has a dynamic coil with a single balanced armature, while Black Star uses a 10mm dynamic coil with a mid-frequency balanced armature and a dual high-frequency balanced armature monomer. The configuration is almost the same as Solaris, except that Black Star does not use the Knowles dual cavity. The balanced armature monomer is a customized monomer, and the moving coil monomer is a dual magnetic circuit monomer instead of an ADLC-like diamond coating.
▲The Black Star case also has tuning holes on the front and rear that are similar to those on Solaris.
And don’t forget that Black Star’s casing is also on par with Solaris. It uses a brushed stainless steel casing, but the side panels don’t have complex three-dimensional engravings like Solis. Instead, they use a simpler black PVD-treated side panel without three-dimensional engravings. Inlaid with an acrylic Campfire logo, you can also see that the Black Star’s outer shell has tuning holes similar to Solaris, located on the front and rear sides of the shell. The nozzle is a multi-hole shape that is common in Campfire recently.
▲Although Black Star uses the same number of cells as Solaris, the technology of the cells is relatively inferior.
Although the unit configuration and shell design of Black Star are similar to Solaris, the more than double price difference means that the technical specifications must be different. It should be that Campfire does not intend to deliberately obtain Hi-Res Audio certification. The frequency response of the two headphones is listed in the book specifications. is 5Hz-20kHz, but the Black Star’s 9 ohm impedance with 94dB@1kHz: 9.429mVms sensitivity is different from the Solaris Stellar Horizon’s 4 ohm impedance with 94dB@1kHz: 9.145mVms sensitivity, not to mention the Solaris Stellar Horizon n also has a better total harmonic distortion of <0.5%, while Black Satr has a total harmonic distortion of <1%.
▲The wire used is Time Stream’s silver-plated copper wire
Although the test unit was tested this time without a box, the matching wires are still two standard original Time Stream silver-plated copper wires. One is a common 3.5mm stereo plug, and the other is an increasingly mainstream one. The 4.4mm balanced cable is also packaged with a handmade storage bag from Portugal. The headphone body is protected by a breathable mesh storage bag to prevent scratches caused by knocking the headphones inside the bag.
Because the Black Star uses a stainless steel shell, it is a lot heavier than the headphones that are generally made of plastic, resin, aluminum alloy and other materials. You can clearly feel the weight of stainless steel when you hold it in your hand. However, because the shell is quite compact, it will not be too convex. Out of the ear, supplemented by the around-the-ear wearing method, the earphones will not feel too heavy when worn in the ears, nor will there be a pulling feeling on the earplugs and the earphone shell due to the weight after wearing them for a period of time.
▲The nozzle is multi-hole design
This time, I mainly paired it with my usual Sony NW-WM1AM2 player. At the beginning, I still habitually used 4.4mm balanced cables, but the first time I discovered that Black Star is a headset that is quite easy to obtain volume. The volume of the player has exceeded the volume I am accustomed to, so I simply turned off the high gain. Even so, the Black Star still has a certain player noise floor. This is also a situation that rarely happens to the author in headphones of similar level; and transformed into For single-ended cables, I still think Black Star needs to be switched to low gain, which is more appropriate, and at the same time, the background noise of the player can still be heard when there is no music.
Back to the characteristics of the sound, I think the same original Time Stream cable is used with NW-WM1AM2. Compared with using 4.4mm balanced terminals, the sound of 3.5mm single-ended is relatively normal. When used with 3.5mm terminals, I think the sound is better. The field performance is somewhat like the illusion of semi-open earmuff headphones. The position of the vocals is slightly open but not pushed far away. However, if a balanced cable is used, the position of the vocals is quite wrong. It is not extremely set back, but lacks cohesion.
▲Compared with Sony Black Brick, the spatial interpretation of Black Star single-ended connection is more reasonable than that of balanced connection.
If used with a single-ended instrument, Black Star gives me the feeling that the expressive power of the instrument is higher than that of the human voice. It is a relatively exciting and lively instrument, while the vocal of Black Star is looser and less infectious, but it is not dull or simple. The three-dimensional effect of the human voice is not as good as that of musical instruments, but it is not flat yet. However, if you switch to 4.4mm balanced terminals, the performance of the human voice will recede again and become flat.
After all, I don’t have enough other cables at hand for comparison, but I think that if the original cable is used as a benchmark, Black Star is not a headset suitable for high-thrust devices. At the same time, the performance under single-ended connection is relatively balanced and normal. However, I also tried to connect the Black Star to the headphone jack of the Xperia 5 V for listening, and found that the driving power and details of the mobile phone were slightly insufficient for the Black Star. Perhaps it would be better to use a low-gain 3.5mm single-ended connection with a high-end portable player. The most suitable way to listen to Black Star.
▲Black Star can be said to be an instrument-first style that is completely different from Andromeda tuning.
Different from Andromeda’s strong vocal expressiveness or Supermoon’s more three-band balanced characteristics, Black Star presents a looser style with instruments performing slightly higher than the vocals. At the same time, it is easy to achieve fullness with lower driving force. The listening volume is somewhat similar to the style of earmuff headphones, but based on personal preference, I would still prefer Supermoon.
