Dunu DK-3001Pro Review: An Epitome Of Balanced Sound!!!

Ever since I have persuaded my hobby of music listening I have been experiencing different sounding gears ranging from a beginner price range to high-end tier IEM’s. I remember my school days IEM’s used to be some bass-heavy ones, I loved the thumps during those days but as I explored more and more I developed a craving for a balanced sounding IEM, I searched from Tin T2 to BGVP DM6, Moondrop Kanas Pro and whatnot, some I liked very much but there was a craving which was not getting satisfied, a craving for balanced sound.

And then one fine day I read somewhere on the internet about Dunu DK-3001 Pro, it is being referred to as a balanced pair of IEM, the pair caught my eye in an instant with its smaller looking shells and a modular single pure crystal copper cable, I checked and it was available at a price of 469$ at Hifigo.com here.

So without wasting any time I just ordered a pair for myself, and a great service was provided to me by Hifigo, I received the package in just four days in India(Got it shipped via DHL). I was planning to complete my review for Dunu DK-3001 Pro in two-three weeks after giving it a burn-in period for about 100 hours, And today while writing this review I have spent around 200 hours with the pair(after the burn-in period).

So let’s begin before wasting any more time, but before I begin if you want to buy a pair of Dunu Dk-3001 Pro for yourself, Feel free to order from here on Hifigo.com and you can also check other products from Hifigo, they offer brilliant service.

About Dunu:-

Dunu is also known as Dunu-Top sound, It is a China-based earphone manufacturing brand, they offer a brilliant sounding pair of in-ear monitors with a strong and sturdy build quality. They have conquered the Chi-fi earphones market in the Mid and High price sections, they have products starting at around 150-200$ and their product range goes up to 1649$ with Dunu Luna as their flagship model. The Dunu Luna is the world’s first pure beryllium in-ear monitors, where not only the driver is coated with pure beryllium in fact the entire earpiece is made up of Pure Beryllium material.

Dunu Dk-3001 Pro is a five driver hybrid pair of in-ear monitor from the brand which offers a single beryllium dynamic driver unit working together with four Knowles balanced armature drivers, it is said to be a purely balanced pair of in-ear monitor and today in this review we will find out how true that quote actually is.

Packaging and Accessories:-

Whenever you search or look at the images available online, you will see that the Dunu DK-3001 Pro comes loaded with accessories, and yeah it comes with a bunch of good accessories included in the package. The packaging itself is quite simple and elegant, it comes in a rectangular white colored cardboard box packaging, it is actually a slim cardboard sheet with an X-ray type image of DK-3001 Pro earpiece printed on the front with a bunch of other branding logos like Knowles, Spinfit, Comply Memory Foam printed there too.  On the backside of packaging, we see a teardown look at the earpiece, along with the technical specifications of the pair.

When we pull the inner packaging out from this slim cardboard sheet, we see a black colored strong quality cardboard box, simple, plain just a Dunu branding logo engraved on the top, as we open up this box, we see a leaflet, a translucent sheet of paper which reads Designed By Dunu. And below this, we get a look at our beautiful pair of earphones sitting firmly into its foam layer with its cable and other modular plugs on the left side of it. The package includes four different modular plugs, 3.5mm single-ended, 3.5mm balanced, 2.5mm balanced, and a 4.4mm balanced plug.

The design of the packaging is actually in layers, as we pull out this layer containing the earphones, wire, and modular plugs, there is another layer of foam containing accessories. There are a lot of accessories included with DK-3001 Pro like there is a beautiful green colored leather carry case, three pairs of custom Spinfit silicone tips, a black colored box containing six pairs of silicone tips, several Spinfit gaskets to adjust the Spinfit tips, an airplane adapter, a 3.5mm-6.35mm headphone adapter, and cleaning brush. So, you see the box came with a lot of accessories, all of these are of great quality too I will be explaining them in the Build Quality section next.

The package contents of the Dunu DK-3001 Pro is as follows:-

>One pair of Dunu DK-3001 Pro in-ear monitors

>One Single Crystal Modular Copper Cable with MMCX Connectors

>Four Modular Plugs(3.5mm SE, 3.5mm Balanced, 2.5mm Balanced, 4.4mm Balanced)

>One leather carry case

>Three pairs of Spinfit tips

>Six pairs of silicone tips

>One pair of Comply Memory Foam tips

>One 3.5mm-6.35mm headphone adapter

>One cleaning brush

Build Quality:-

From the images on the internet it might feel that the DK-3001 pro is a normal looking product, to be very honest I was expecting the same. But my oh my, it looks brilliant in reality, the earpieces are made up of 316L stainless steel shells colored in black, even the ear nozzle is made up of black colored stainless steel material. The faceplate has a beveled design within which there is a Dunu logo on both the earpieces, They have printed R and L on the inner side of earpieces to differentiate between the right and left side easily. The earpieces have an extended side for MMCX connectors, the MMCX connectors are gold plated and seem strong and sturdy. Overall the earpieces have a very strong stainless steel shell, they look beautiful with a small form factor.

The wire is a kind of attraction in the package, Dunu actually makes this modular plug cables, and it is a single pure crystal copper cable with 4 strands, 2 on each side, the cable has got all kind of plugs included here like, 3.5mm single-ended, 3.5mm balanced, 2.5mm balanced, or 4.4mm balanced. So, it doesn’t actually matters which player or device you will be using with the Dunu, it has got a plug for any audio port on them. I personally tried all these plugs and it is very useful practically when you go to audio meets, or even if you have multiple dap’s with different ports.

The custom Spinfit tips included in the package have a thinner plastic feel to them as compared to the Spinfit’s usually available to purchase in the market, but they doesn’t feel cheap either and provide a proper fit with the Dunu, actually, I got good fit and isolation with all the tips included in the package, whether it be Spinfits, normal silicone one’s, or Comply Memory Foam one.

Overall the build quality of the earphones and other accessories included in the package is really great and with such a simple and elegant packaging it feels worth really rich.

Fit:-

If we can’t get a proper fit, then there is no point in using an IEM, as one won’t be able to enjoy the pair properly. The Dunu DK-3001 Pro has a lightweight, small earpiece design, which provides a very comfortable fit, whether I be at the gym working out heavy, or I am at home listening to music, it provides a comfortable and firm fit for long hours of usage. The pair provides a comfortable fit, providing proper isolation from environmental noises, and letting me enjoy my music in peace.

Sound Impressions:-

Before I talk about the sound impressions, I would like to tell you that I have used my pair of Dunu DK-3001 Pro with multiple players, like Hiby R6, Dethonray DTR1, Cayin n6II with A01 module, Shanling M2x, Chord Mojo, and Lotoo Paw 6000.

Music Used was mostly 16-Bit Flac files, sometimes 24-Bit ones, and sometimes Hifi on Tidal, Music albums/artists which I used for this review are as follows:-

>Muse

>John Mayer

>Fleetwood Mac

>Damien Rice

>Nirvana

>Cover Sessions by Boyce Avenue

>Camila Cabello

>Halsey

>Eagles Hell Freezes Over

>Queen Greatest Hits

>Opeth

>Kiss

And many more. The pair got a burn-in period of approx 100 hours before writing this review.

As everyone on the internet refers to Dunu DK-3001 Pro as a balanced pair, is it actually balanced? This question was there when I ordered the pair, and believe me when I say this, the Dunu DK-3001 Pro is not just a balanced pair of IEM, it is actually an Epitome of Balanced in-ear monitors, it's like what balanced can sound like, it sounds so brilliant, it sounds so natural, whether you play a pop song by Halsey, you play an EDM track by Gunship, or you play a vocal focused song by Damien Rice you won’t be disappointed. I loved listening to almost every genre on it, and I am not saying this as I purchased this for myself, I took this pair with myself to an audio meet recently arranged by Sennheiser in my city and 5-7 different people tried my pair and all of them shared good impressions for the Dunu DK-3001 Pro.

The entire frequency range feels buttery smooth and has a crisp texture to itself, but let’s discuss different parts of the frequency response range in detail.

Lows:-

In Dunu DK-3001 Pro the lower end is handled by the beryllium dynamic driver unit, which provides a quick lower end, it offers a quick bass response, which has good thump to itself, has a depth feeling to it, the bass is not overpowering, so bassheads don’t expect that soul-shaking heavy bass, but from what it offers it provides adequate amounts of bass, which is neither elevated nor it feels less, Drums in Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, Billie Jean by Michael Jackson have a clean and detailed depth to them. Listening to bass-heavy tracks like Bad Guy by Billie Ellish, Bet by Octavian, the sub-bass shows great rumble, the best part is tuning is so clean and crisp that the bass doesn’t overlap over the other frequencies and entire music output feels really clean and natural.

Mids:-

There are two Knowles Balanced Armature drivers which handle the Mids-High section in Dunu DK-3001 Pro, the pair actually shines in the Mids section for me, The vocals are pure bliss, listening to Cover sessions by Boyce Avenue, The Blower’s Daughter by Damien Rice was a mesmerizing experience. The vocals felt alive, there was good depth to the voice of Hannah Reid from London Grammar, the heaviness of her voice gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it on the Dunu. The vocals are just perfect, acoustic details in songs like Hotel California by Eagles are rendered properly, there is so great clarity to those vocals, no muddiness at all. Sometimes I popped the volume to higher levels just to check if there is any kind of fatiguing but no, the voice didn’t fatigued even at higher volumes. The mids shine really greatly, I liked the mids performance the most in the DK-3001 Pro.

Highs:-

Again there are separate two Knowles balanced armature drivers working in the Ultra-High area of the frequency range, and believe me those instrument details, the instrument detail reproduction is simply unique, the music is reproduced so brilliantly that instrument details even in quick songs like those by Opeth, Kiss could be identified separately and very easily. There is no sibilance of any kind even at higher volumes, cymbals in Dreams by Fleetwood Mac showed great depth and detailing, Drums in Digital Bath by Deftones were really awesome. The highs portion showed me great extensions and soothing experience, I am actually very sensitive to harsh treble earphones, I couldn’t cope with sharp earphones for more than half an hour but with the Dunu DK-3001 Pro, I listened straight for up to 5 hours many a times.

Staging and Imaging:-

Don’t just go on the small size of these closed-back in-ear monitors, they offer a brilliant wide staging, the staging shows great depth too, I listened to Binaural tracks by Yosi Horikawa to test the staging and imaging and its just superb. I listened to many MTV Unplugged Live recordings just to enjoy the wider staging.

It gives a brilliant instrument imaging, and one can easily recognize different instruments placements in live recordings.

Overall the Dunu DK-3001 Pro offers a brilliant, balanced, and natural sound output, with utmost clarity, crispy vocals, and rich details in the higher end with longer extensions. It shows great detail retrieval in the entire audio frequency range, provides a soothing and relaxed sound output. I simply loved the pair for its brilliant performance in the mids section.

Final Verdict:-

The Dunu DK-3001 Pro is an outstanding pair of in-ear monitor with a hybrid driver setup, offering a lightweight stainless steel design with a great quality modular plug type pure copper single crystal cable. A box full of accessories included in the package is a plus, the pair provides a never experienced balanced output with utmost claret and great mids performance. The detail retrieval in the treble section is just amazing, I tried almost all genres of music with the pair, with different DAP’s and it paired well with all the daps, but I loved it the most with the Dethonray DTR1. The pairing was just amazing, it was full of synergy. I really enjoy this pair of mine, it is actually one of a keeper, I don’t think I will be selling this powerhouse of an earphone any time soon, feels worth every penny that I paid for it and even much more.

If you really like my review and would like to buy yourself a pair please feel free to order from hifigo online store here.