CrinEar Daybreak

With the supplied tips, it was difficult to find the right one; it took several days of testing.
But once you find the right ones and feel comfortable with them, the sound quality is wonderful.
For my personal taste, the bass is present and the vocals are very beautiful; each instrument is clearly heard in the space.
The carrying case for the IEMs is awesome.

I have to admit that this is my first adventure in hi-fi kit. I am a live sound engineer to trade and also an iPhone user so naturally I own a pair of AirPod pros. Quite honestly I find the ‘Pro’ name in this context offensive. I’m not slating the functionality but the sound quality is anything but pro. I’m not going to blame Bluetooth as there are good sounding wireless in ears and headphones that I have heard. But they all lack the spacial cues of wired. With the daybreak in ears they tick all the boxes. Everything about these exudes thought and quality. I’m not going to go on about the unboxing suffice to say the packaging is perfect. It had me a little worried because all I care about is sound quality and comfort. There is no reason for concern. The sound quality is exceptional. Listening to a lossless version of Pink Floyd ‘Marooned’ on my iPhone through a FiiO DAC quite literally gave me goosebumps. In my opinion The Devision Bell is one of the best sounding albums of all time and is a go to for me in my professional life as well. The first 2 things I noticed in equal measure was the accuracy in sound and the spacial cues. I’ve never heard anything close to this on ear buds. Even if I’d payed twice as much I’d still be gushing over these. I am absolutely delighted with this purchase. I don’t know how anyone wouldn’t be.

Daybreak was my first IEM. It was like cataract surgery for my ears. My favorite musical has never sounded so crisp. I can finally make out that subtle acoustic guitar and beatbox in my favorite tracks. Thank you Crinacle!!

Best IEM I've owned so far

have not been invited to review the dongle from the bundle so I’ll give my impressions here.
Daybreak are great, good comfort, build, sound is also very nice, compares well to my Mega5EST, with less bass but more controlled and more accurate, very happy with that. I hope the build issues are fixed (glue) and it will hold up, time will tell but nice to see this young company addressing issues quickly.
Protocol max is more of a mixed bag. It sounds good yes but not so powerful compared to even smaller and cheaper options, still powerful enough for all IEMs. More marginal with demanding headphones if you need headroom for EQ (HD600).
Issue with linear volume on IOS, where you need to be almost maxed out to have volume and then volume adjustment is too coarse, so probably apple users not the priority here.
PEQ function is very clunky to operate, with only one preset at a time and you need to be connected to your pc to even deactivate it. So basically not practical if you use it with more than one IEM. I know it’s a rebadged unit from another manufacturer, and it just feels like a quick add on on top sold a a defining feature but in real life it’s not great. Hope that can be changed in updates.