In-Ear MonitorOverreview

Symphonium Meteor

Four tiny armatures tuned to hit like a subwoofer and sparkle at the very top — if your ears agree with a shell that has no vent.

54 sourcesUpdated
$599Typical US price

Score aggregates reviewer opinions across topics.

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Symphonium Meteor

The short version

What to know.

A deliberately coloured, bass-led all-armature in-ear whose shape everyone agrees on and whose merits split the room. The measured curve is consistent across 28 test rigs: sub-bass at about the level of the common Harman target, extra mid-bass on top of it, an ear-gain region several decibels below that target, a recessed lower and mid treble, and a strong lift in the top octave. Most reviewers and owners enjoy the result — the bass is widely called the most convincing armature bass at the price, the air on top a rare treat, the aluminium shell small and well made, and isolation good. Five things divide them: whether the bass is tasteful or too much; whether the midrange is warm and natural or pushed behind it; whether the small, unvented shell disappears in the ear or builds pressure; whether a few owners' loose sockets mark a build problem; and whether the package is worth $599. Detail retrieval is the most common reservation, and a minority find the top-octave lift too much.

About this product

A collaboration between Symphonium Audio and fellow Singaporean brand Nightjar Acoustics, who made the stock cable — sold and reviewed under both names. It is Symphonium's small, all-armature set, in roughly half the shell of the $1,099 Helios. Not the later Giant ($699) or Titan ($999), both of which are vented; the Meteor is not. Not to be confused with the Moondrop Meteor, an unrelated hybrid.

Symphonium Audio made its name with the Helios, a $1,099 four-armature reference set that reviewers admired and many buyers found too big to wear. The Meteor, launched at CanJam SoCal in September 2022 with Nightjar Acoustics, answered both halves of that: an all-armature design in a shell about half the size, using a single-bore tubing scheme the company calls PHAT, at $599 — and tuned toward fun rather than reference.

The result is one of the more unusual sets at its price: balanced-armature drivers asked to do a big dynamic driver's job, with a heavy low shelf, a relaxed middle and a bright spike of air on top. Four years on it still has a loyal following and a vocal minority who cannot get past the warmth or the sealed shell — and the maker is still taking pre-orders for it.

A good fit for

  • Listeners who want a big, physical low end without giving up treble extension
  • Small ears — the shell was designed to fix the Helios's size problem
  • Electronic, hip-hop, rock and metal libraries, where the bass shelf and the air lift both pay off
  • Anyone who finds upper-mid-forward, Harman-style in-ears shouty or fatiguing
  • Buyers open to the used market, where it sells for about half its list price

Think twice if

  • You prize vocal clarity and want the midrange forward
  • You are chasing maximum detail at this price — several rivals resolve more
  • Unvented in-ears have given you pressure or seal trouble before, and you cannot audition first
  • You are sensitive to energy above 10 kHz
  • You want neutral: this is a deliberately coloured tuning and every source says so

The reviewer consensus

Agreement &
disagreement.

5 / 12topics divide opinion
isolationtrebletonalitydetailimagingsoundstagedynamicsbassmidscomfortbuildvalue
1 Strong agreement6 Mostly agree5 Divided opinions

Common ground7

  • It is deliberately coloured, not neutral: a big low shelf, a relaxed middle and a strong lift in the top octave
  • The bass is remarkable for balanced armatures — deep and punchy — whatever one thinks of the quantity
  • Treble extension and air are a highlight at the price, and sibilance is rarely a problem

Points of contention6

  • Bass quantity: convincing dynamic-driver-style punch, or mid-bass that thickens and overshadows the mix
  • Midrange: warm and natural, or vocals pushed behind the bass — and the test rigs disagree on how recessed it is
  • Comfort: tiny and invisible in the ear, or an unvented shell that builds pressure and fights for a seal

A closer listen.

12 topics · 5 divided
Left: criticalRight: positiveTighter lines: more agreement

Bass

Leans positiveDivided opinions
Reviewer sentiment30 supporting sources
CriticalNeutralPositive

Band: opinion spread · Dot: weighted average

Sources split on quantity more than quality. Nearly everyone is impressed that balanced armatures move this much air, and most call it deep, quick and kept out of the midrange. A sizeable minority — including three of the measurers — hear the mid-bass as overdone, casting weight over everything above it. The split tracks how much low end each listener wants in front of the mix, not experience level.

Measured

Twenty-eight rigs agree closely. Normalised at 500 Hz, the median curve sits about 9.8 dB up at 20–40 Hz — within a decibel of the Harman IE 2019 target — and 4.8 dB up at 100–200 Hz, which is 2.6 dB more mid-bass than that target carries. The 'ten decibels of bass' reviewers measure is therefore a normal-sized sub-bass shelf plus extra mid-bass, sitting over a pulled-back midrange. Animagus puts it the same way: "the 10 dB bass boost in Meteor boosts not only the sub-bass but much more mid-bass compared to Helios and Triton". Tips barely move it on a coupler (listener's eight tip variants span half a decibel), so owners' reports of thin or vanishing bass point to seal.

Where it splits
armature bass that genuinely hits like a dynamic driver — deep, fast and kept out of the mids71%

“The Meteor offers one of the best bass performances I’ve heard in the competitive sub-$750 price range.”

Headfonia (Yagiz)
too much of it — the mid-bass in particular thickens and overshadows the rest29%

“Meteor could’ve done with slightly lesser mid-bass boost and a bit more ear gain.”

twister6 (Animagus)
Link to this topic

The hardware

Specifications.

Checked

Design

Type
In-ear monitor
Drivers
4 × balanced armature4BAcommunity-sourced
Housing
Anodized AL6061 aluminium shell, T6 heat-treated

Electrical

Impedance
9.7 Ω
Sensitivity
111 dB/V≈ 90.9 dB/mW
Frequency response
12 Hz – 21 kHz

Connection

Cable
Detachable
Connector
0.78 mm 2-pin
Plugs supplied
3.5 mm, 4.4 mm balanced

Manufacturer-published figures, not measurements · from symphoniumaudio.com. Drivers not published by the maker — community-sourced from hands-on reviews: headphones.com, bytesbull.wordpress.com.

Follow the evidence

Sources 54

1–6 of 54 sources

Read with context

Limitations & method.

As of

What to keep in mind 6

  1. This is a read of where the reviews land as of October 2026. Most of the professional reviews date from late 2022 and 2023, and the $600 in-ear field has moved a long way since.

  2. The two owner-rating pools disagree: the shop behind the headline 4.8 has 21 ratings, while Head-Fi's 13 written reviews average about 4.2. Both are small, self-selected groups of people who chose it, so treat either as a mood rather than a measurement.

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