Moondrop RAYS Review – 1DD+1Planar Gaming IEMs
Moondrop starts its gaming series of peripherals with a brand new pair of HiFi gaming in-ear monitors, the Moondrop Rays. With a professional HiFi acoustic design featuring a 10mm dynamic driver and a 6mm planar driver, the Moondrop Rays delivers rich sound with enhanced spatial performance.
Users can accurately pinpoint their enemies and defeat the competition with style. It has been co-tuned with professional players, promising a purely high-end gaming experience. Moondrop Rays comes with a USB Type-C termination with a HiFi Decoding USB Game sound card. It supports DSP function, allowing the users to fiddle around and find their perfect sound.
With a one-click application, users can share and download different DSP profiles created by users worldwide or create their own. Freely control the output with an easy-to-use application interface(Web app also available). The built-in microphone has an NPU hardware-level AI noise cancellation microphone, never miss any communication with your teammates.
Moondrop Rays is a revolutionary product in the gaming market. Co-designed with professional players, Moondrop Rays helps the user to upgrade their game with its precise sound reproduction.
Professionally Designed HiFi Acoustic Architecture
Moondrop has years of experience in designing premium-sounding HiFi in-ear monitors. To cater to the huge gaming industry, Moondrop’s R&D team has done extensive research to analyze and optimize the needs and requirements of professional esports players. They have developed the latest Moondrop Rays with a professionally designed acoustic structure.
Just like premium quality IEMs, Moondrop Rays bring together a dual-driver hybrid setup featuring one 10mm dynamic driver and a 6mm planar driver. The pair redefines your gaming experience with its true high-fidelity sound response.
Co-Designed with Professional Esports Players
Moondrop has partnered with professional esports players to optimize the Rays for over 20 mainstream competitive games. This includes famous titles such as Valorant, CS: Go, APEX Legends, etc. Unlike traditional gaming earphones, Moondrop Rays produce better clarity and allow users to clearly and accurately pinpoint their opponents on the battlefield.
All the tuning configurations by professional esports players are included in Rays’ built-in tuning sharing and downloading community. Users can access those configurations and experience game audio like the professionals do. Users can also share their tuning configuration with others in the application community.
Brand-New Tuning Interface
Users can customize and debug their tuning on the Moondrop Rays through a brand new professional tuning interface. It allows for parameter adjustments such as filter type, frequency point, gain, and Q value.
This is a full-blown parametric EQ function that is available at your fingertips. This enables players to achieve more accurate tuning and tailor the output to their liking. This web-based and application-based EQ is very easy to use and provides a one-click EQ function with pre-defined EQ Presets. Built-in DSP function helps you store the EQ settings.
Bundled with HiFi USB Gaming Sound Card
Moondrop Rays comes bundled with a high-performance gaming sound card that features a four-layer gold sinking circuit and high-precision component design. Compared to traditional 7.1 gaming sound cards, this HiFi card offers high-resolution clarity with more accurate positioning, better imaging, and a punchier dynamic range.
Hardware Noise Cancellation Microphone
The new audio DSP chipset features an embedded NPU that runs an advanced AI vocal enhancement algorithm for effective environmental noise cancellation.
This technology surpasses traditional ENC and improves vocal clarity during communication. In competitive titles such as Valorant, CS: Go, etc., communication plays a vital role. With this built-in AI, ANC technology enhances your communication with your teammates.
Ergonomic 3D-Printed Resin Ear Cavities
Moondrop has designed the Rays ear shells in collaboration with HeyGears Technology, a pioneer brand in the 3D Printing industry.
The shells are made using high-quality skin-friendly resin material. The shells are ergonomic and promise a super comfortable wearing experience for the users.
Enhanced Gaming Experience With Impressive Spatial Performance
With its premium dual-driver structure, Moondrop Rays delivers an ultra-wide frequency range with low distortion and high clarity across the band. It produces an accurate transient response with rich audio details and enhanced spatial positioning.
This makes the Moondrop Rays a perfect choice for gamers as enhanced Spatial positioning helps in precisely determining enemy position on the map.
Unboxing
Features
- Moondrop’s All-New Gaming IEMs.
- Co-Tuned With Many Professional Players.
- Built-in DSP Gaming Sound Card.
- Dynamic Driver+Planar Driver Hybrid Design.
- New Professional Tuning-Interface.
- Rich Sound Profile with Enhanced Spatial Performance.
- Zero-Latency Experience.
- NPU Hardware-Level AI Noise Cancellation Microphone.
- Memory Tune Storage.
- Comfortable Wearing Experience.
- Medical-Grade 3D-Printed Ear Cavities.
- USB-C Universal Interface.
Specs
- Driver Configuration: 10mm Sapphire-Plated Diaphragm Dynamic Driver +6 mm Annular Planar Magnetic Driver.
- Impedance: 30Ω±15%.
- Sensitivity: 120dB/Vrms.
- Frequency Response: 7Hz~39kHz.
- Effective Frequency Response Range: 20Hz~20kHz.
- THD+N: ≤0.05%.
- Connector Type: 0.78mm 2-Pin Connectors.
- Termination Type: USB Type-C.
- Price: $99
Sound
The Moondrop Rays comes with a tuning that fairly offers a neutral sound with subtle boosts to the bass and treble. Its exceptional resolution sets it apart, with each instrument and vocal occupying its own space.
Lows
The Moondrop Rays’ bass hits deep with good presence and weight. The bass drum hits aren’t exaggerated like in more V-shaped IEMs; however, its bass emphasis gives it a very satisfying, thick, and warm tonality.
I never found the bass quantity lacking. The amount of rumble and impact should be enough for most non-bass heads. Bass hits are textured and well-articulated. Different bass hits do not come off as a bloated mess and are played back with good control.
The warmth introduced into the overall tonality gives bass guitars and deep horn instruments a larger-than-life sense of authority that gives jazz tracks a “wow” factor. This warm tonality on the lower end bleeds into the lower mids at times, but is still well-controlled for the most part.
In terms of bass quality, the texture is excellent and the body is full, providing a satisfying and engaging experience. The bass attacks are clean and well-defined. The bass is balanced and doesn’t overpower the other frequencies.
Mids
The Moondrop Rays mids are decently articulated and have decent resolution. The lower mids have a very bodied presentation, in no small part due to the warmer tonality on the low end. This gives male vocals good rumble and authority while allowing them to playback vocal techniques with good texture and resolution.
Piano keys and acoustic guitars are less forward than the rest of the mids, however, they still maintain a good sense of resolution. They are never drowned out; they are merely less audible when compared to the rest of the sounds in the frequency response.
The upper mids are presented with good air and resolution. Percussive wind instruments were played back with good articulation, and female vocals were presented with very good energy and contributed to a very exciting sound signature.
Male vocals sound rich and warm but are still clear and articulate. Female vocals sound natural and vibrant but never shouty or sibilant. The midrange overall is very detailed, textured, and immersive. Each instrument and vocal is distinct and well-defined, with no muddiness or congestion even in complex tracks. The Moondrop Rays’ midrange balances neutrality and warmth, making it both expressive and easygoing.
Highs
The treble region of the Moondrop Rays is very airy and energetic. Cymbals and percussive wind instruments are presented with good energy. Individual cymbal strikes were played back with good detail, making different cymbal strikes and types easily distinguishable from each other. This overall energy added by this treble tonality contributes to an engaging and impressive listening experience.
The Moondrop Rays’ treble imparts an airy and spacious character to the music, lending it an open and precise quality, delivering ample detail and clarity.
Technicalities
The Moondrop Rays’ instrument separation and imaging are top-notch, producing a perfectly defined soundstage where each element’s position and distance are perceptible to the listener.
Its forward stage positioning thrusts the listener into the heart of the music, creating an immersive experience. While the width and depth of the soundstage are impressive, it’s the height of the image that truly dazzles, adding extra dimensionality to the listening experience.
Gaming
On your PC, open this link in any browser: https://hub.moondroplab.tech/
Sum-Up
The Moondrop Rays is specially designed for gaming. Let’s you upload different tunings for different games thanks to its amazing web-based software. Rays is one of a kind as USB-C connected IEMs, tailored for gaming in the first place.
If it’s good for gaming, is it also good for quality music listening? The answer would be a NO if this were an analog connected IEM, but because of the onboard DSP and tuning options, our answer is a big YES.
Gaming or listening to your favorite tunes, Moondrop Rays can do it all.