CTM Announce New Da Vinci Universal-fit IEMs

Clear Tune Monitors might not be as much of a recognisable brand as the like of Shure, Westone, or Sony, but they’re certainly not a brand to turn your nose up at. They’ve provided custom in-ear solutions for a number of bands including none other than Pearl Jam, Snarky Puppy, and Maná, so they really know their stuff when it comes to music reproduction. Now, they’ve come out with a new line of universal-fit IEMs called Da Vinci.
From the outside we can see that these 2 models share an almost identical design, and CTM states that the housings of the Da Vinci models offer an “aluminum enclosure with their Wave Integrating Sonic Element (WISE) at the core of its highly detailed and articulate sound“.

 

Da Vinci IX

First up is the IX, which, as the name suggests, offers 9 drivers per earpiece. We’re getting a rated frequency response range of 20-20kHz and an impedance of 46.8-ohm. That impedance might, at first glance, make it seem as though the IX might be a bit more difficult to power from portable devices, but thankfully the input sensitivity of 118dB @ 1kHz means that it really won’t require much power at all.

 

Da Vinci X

Again, as the name suggest, the X sports a whopping 20 drivers in total (10 per earpiece) with specifications that are somewhat similar to that of the IX. Whilst the impedance is slightly lower at 43.8-ohm, the sensitivity is also a tad lower at 117.2dB @ 1kHz. However, where the X does greatly improve upon the IX is in terms of the THD figure which is stated as being 0.25% for the X and 0.43% for the IX.

 

Pricing

With so many drivers stuffed into such a small space you might expect the asking-price to reflect the effort required, and you’d be right. The 9-driver Da Vinci IX will set you back $2000, whereas you can expect to pay $2400 for the Da Vinci X. This is of course excluding any shipping or relevant taxes.