Ice Lab Lumira Review: Flagship Dynamic, But with Tweeters?!
Ice Lab is one of those brands that aren’t particularly in a hurry to release new IEMs. Rather than chasing frequent releases or flashy gimmicks, the brand has been focusing more on refining the sound and build quality of its products. At least, that’s how I’ve come to appreciate Ice Lab over the past three years of using their IEMs.
We’ve seen this from the Ice Lab Prismatica, which gained popularity for its 360-degree holographic soundstage, and the flagship Spectrumica, which I still consider to be one of the finest IEMs available within its price range. Ice Lab seems to spend considerable time developing and refining each product before making it available to the public.
Now, Ice Lab has prepared something more affordable, named the Lumira (Product link) – a name associated with light, continuing the brand’s Light series that began with Prismatica and Spectrumica. Lumira is positioned as the entry model of the family, priced at around $399 internationally. I first tried the prototype in Hong Kong, followed by another demo session with the official ones. Now that the final product has arrived, let’s get into how Lumira sounds and what Ice Lab has managed to accomplish at this price.
Packaging / Accessories
Lumira comes with a fairly generous accessory package. Other than the earpieces, the box includes a brown leather carrying case, a storage pouch, three pairs of interchangeable faceplates, a screwdriver, three pairs of Symbio eartips, three pairs of Nostalgia Audio XWB eartips, individual earpiece pouches, and a metal warranty card.
One of the interesting additions is the interchangeable faceplate system, which is a first for Ice Lab. The faceplates are attached through three small screws, allowing users to swap between different colors. It’s a rather classic approach to interchangeable faceplates, and I quite like the mechanical feeling it gives to the earpieces.
The design reminds me a little of Acoustune, especially with the exposed screws and machined metal construction. Ice Lab has been using a similar design language for its previous products and accessories, and it’s nice to see the theme continuing with Lumira.
Earpieces (1/2): Design / Driver Configuration
Lumira carries over Ice Lab’s familiar metal shell design, with finely machined grooves running across the earpieces. The shells are fully made of aluminum, keeping the construction sturdy while remaining comfortable to wear. The grooves and removable faceplates add plenty of detail to the appearance without making the earpieces unnecessarily complicated.
The driver configuration is 1DD+2MPD, utilizing one 10.3mm dynamic driver and two micro planar magnetic drivers. While this may look like a fairly simple hybrid setup, the driver arrangement is quite interesting.
Unlike many hybrid IEMs that use their dynamic drivers solely for the lows, Lumira uses its 10.3mm dynamic driver as a full-range unit. The two micro planar drivers are then assigned to the highs and ultra-highs, supplementing the dynamic driver’s upper-frequency performance.
Dynamic Driver (2/2): Not Just a Woofer But Full-Range
The dynamic driver uses Ice Lab’s Multi-Array Magnetic System (MAMS), featuring a composite metal-dome diaphragm with a BOPET surround. Lumira also incorporates a multi-chamber acoustic structure, including a ductless front chamber and a semi-open rear chamber. These are some rather elaborate implementations for an IEM at this price.
Another detail worth mentioning is the two unusually large and elongated air vents on the earpieces. There aren’t many IEMs I’ve seen with vents of this size. Besides giving Lumira a distinctive appearance, the venting system also helps relieve the air pressure that can build up when wearing sealed IEMs.
Lumira Specifications
- Driver configuration: 1DD + 2 Micro Planar
- Dynamic driver: 10.3mm full-range DD
- Diaphragm: BOPET surround with composite metal dome
- Magnetic system: Multi-Array Magnetic System (MAMS)
- Acoustic structure: Multi-chamber, semi-open rear design
- Shell material: CNC-machined aluminum
- Frequency response: 10Hz – 40kHz
- Impedance: 60Ω @ 1kHz
- Sensitivity: 113.6dB (500mV)
- Connector: 0.78mm 2pin
- Stock plug: 4.4mm balanced
Custom-grade Stock Cable
The stock cable is another part of Lumira that I’m quite pleased with. It comes with a custom-grade coaxial cable using 27AWG silver-plated 6N OCC copper for the main conductors, accompanied by a separate shielding layer made of 22.7AWG silver-plated LC-OFC copper. The cable uses standard 0.78mm 2pin connectors with a 4.4mm balanced plug.
The wires are adequately thick yet surprisingly soft and manageable. The cable also pairs very nicely with Lumira in terms of sound, bringing a full-bodied, dense presentation that goes along well with the earpieces’ sound characteristics.
It’s nice how Ice Lab matched the color and surface texture of the cable hardware with the aluminum shells. The earpieces and cable look like one complete product rather than two separate items put together. The overall matching is so pleasing that I haven’t felt the need to swap out the stock cable for something else.
Next Page: Sound Impressions / How does Lumira Sound?