The Bass: A Steak Cooked to Perfection – Rich, Evenly Tender
Riccardo, the founder of Forté Ears, commented that he wanted to create an IEM that could provide a full-sized headphone experience, the Hifiman HE1000 in particular. The Diablo BA drivers and their intertwining with other technologies and tuning surprised me with how detailed and deep the bass can reach. Macbeth makes a satisfying bass dive that massages the ultra-lows with thick, abyss-like vibrations.
Both the ultra-low and sub-bass are generous in quantity and presence. Yet, they don’t create lumpy fluctuations but keep an even thickness and quantity, allowing airy and expansiveness to enter. Interestingly enough, the bass texture, the evenly tender meatiness, and the way how the bass vibrates and decays, are very similar feelings to a large planar driver – not those from a planar driver IEM but a full can planar headphone. Just as Forté Ears wanted to achieve, which I find he really did.
The catch is that although the bass is significant, neither the bass nor the reverbs don’t get overwhelming despite its extremely vivid presence. It’s bold and powerful, yet extremely delicate and smooth at the same time. Agile and tight but not rigid or stiff. Macbeth’s bass has a flowing, airy grooviness. It doesn’t get shake up the ground aggressively, which makes Macbeth incredible, along with the fact that they’ve achieved such bass by only using BA drivers.
The Vocals: The Flawless Cohesiveness
While Forté Ears declares itself independent from Eletech, I could trace one significant trait that both brands share, which is the texture. Eletech cables are known for their high-resolution, silky texture – a texture that is smooth not because they’re buffed off but due to the highly refined and even texture grains that make the texture feel so smooth while preserving the resolution. The Macbeth is same in this sense. The vocals are almost aggressively high in resolution yet the texture is extremely smooth, silky, and blissful.
If you’ve listened to the Eletech Illiad (Review link) or Eletech Sonnet of Adam (Review link), the Macbeth is the embodiment of the charms that these cables had. Another key point as well as the strength of Macbeth’s vocals is its massively large scale. What differentiates Macbeth’s vocals from other IEMs with “massive vocals” is that they don’t sound bulky or dull. Macbeth’s vocals don’t sound like they are reverberating within its earpiece chassis but expand beyond that, simply feeling “large” as the word itself, offering a headphone-like experience.
Vocals are placed gently forward from neutral but do not detach or bulge out from other frequencies. Macbeth keeps the mid-range in continuation with the overall sound and nailing to set a seamless transition as the sound moves from the sub-bass to the lower mids, causing no dips or fluctuation in tone or texture nuance. The extensive consistency that persists across the entire frequency range makes Macbeth sound like a single driver, a massive planar driver in particular, delivering an extremely cohesive and steady sound presentation.
The Highs: Embodiment of Eletech’s in-house Silkiness
Macbeth’s way of dealing with trebles is to keep them prominent, fatigue-free, and natural. The trebles stand out crystal clear with a strong presence, not staying only as a mere sidekick for the lower frequencies. The treble texture plays a significant role in making this possible. Macbeth’s treble has the perfect al-dente texture – not stiff or solid as a rock, like some of those IEMs that focus on strong, linear penetration. Though the trebles aren’t mushy or lack tightness either. This results in the trebles creating a flowy, airy, and natural atmosphere, with a crisp and refined texture but never metallic or overly tacky.
Macbeth’s lows and mids showed Forté Ears greatly prioritizes cohesiveness and naturality. Macbeth’s trebles analyticity and separation are outstanding. Trebles evenly expand across the upper headroom with absolute stability across the treble range. It once again gives me the impression that the treble is being played by a very well-tuned planar driver but with a thoroughly natural tone, moistness, and most importantly, without the shoutiness commonly found in planar drivers.
In terms of resolution, Macbeth provides one of the very best treble details that could be retrieved from the music source. Of course, Macbeth doesn’t exaggerate or over-highlight the trebles to make it “super-natural,” but within the natural extent, this is probably closest to how much an IEM could bring out details from highs and ultra-highs.
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