Cardas Audio EM5813 Ear Speakers

While Cardas Audio’s EM5813 Model 1 Ear Speaker is a relatively new arrival in the marketplace, it has been under development for years. To his great credit, company founder and Ear Speaker developer George Cardas resisted the temptation to rush his earphone into production, choosing instead to take extra time to improve and refine the EM5813 until its performance could be considered worthy of the Cardas name. Cardas was deeply involved in every aspect of the Ear Speaker’s design, meaning he had a hand in specifying the configuration of the EM5813’s earpieces, drivers, ear tips, and, of course, signal cables. He also carefully evaluated and selected many of the materials used for the Ear Speaker’s most critical parts.

In creating the Ear Speaker, Cardas followed design philosophies similar to those that have guided his audio cable designs over the years. Thus, Cardas asserts (without supplying much technical detail) that, “The hearing system, musical chords, and these Ear Speakers are reflections of the Golden Ratio” – a design theme underlying many Cardas products. Further, Cardas states that, “The EM5813 mirrors the human cochlea and tympanic membrane”—an approach the company terms “Ear Mirror Design.”

Inevitably, readers will ask where the Ear Speakers are made, which turns out to be a deceptively complicated question. Cardas says, “Components of the E5813 were manufactured in Oregon, California, and The People’s Republic of China. Custom alloys were sourced from Italy, Germany, and the US, magnets from China, and thin film from Japan.” The EM5813 is built from parts sourced from around the globe, using sub-assemblies mostly built in the US, with final precision assembly work handled in China, meaning the Ear Speaker is truly international in its origins. 

The EM5813 earpiece housings are machined from solid brass, polished, and then treated to a gleaming copper plate finish. The earpieces sport tiny rear firing vents and feature very thick sidewalls, meaning they provide an unusually rigid and stable mounting platform for the drivers within. The drivers are 11.45mm dynamic units that feature extremely powerful neodymium magnets and diaphragms made of a distinctive, PEN (polyethylene napthalate) thin-film material. 

Even the smallest of internal design details came in for close scrutiny as Cardas carefully chose specific metal alloys for use in the driver’s yoke frame and for a washer-like spacer used inside the driver motor to better control internal magnetic fields. Finally, Cardas specified special thin-walled, dual-flange ear tips for the EM5813—offering these ear tips in both vented and non-vented forms. Every aspect of the Ear Speaker’s design was chosen with an eye toward 

maximising technical performance and perceived sound quality. 

The EM5813 comes with a minimalist set of accessories: two pairs of identically-sized, color-coded ear tips (one set vented and the other non-vented); a set of permanently attached Cardas Clear Light Headphone Cables fitted with a garment clip and serial number tag, a cleaning tool, and a leather clasp-type carrying pouch. 

Cardas worked very hard to create what it intended as virtual “one-size-fits-all” ear tips, offering those tips in vented and nonvented formats to give listeners some ability to adjust perceived earphone voicing to suit personal preferences. However, Cardas will now produce its ear tips in three sizes (S, M, and L). This change won’t take effect for perhaps one-to-two months, but Cardas’ Andy Regan says that, if current Ear Speaker customers will register their earphones online at www.cardas.com, the firm will happily send customers updated accessories kits. 

I found the Ear Speaker difficult to characterise, partly because it does not sound quite like many of the other earphones I have heard and reviewed (it is for the most part different in a good way), but partly because it’s sound is intensely dependent upon fit, more so than is the case with some competing earphones.

Once properly fitted, the Cardas Ear Speaker is one of the most engaging, involving, and downright seductive earphones I’ve yet heard. Much of this comes down to the fact that the EM5813 sounds remarkably coherent across its entire operating range. In recent years, many toptier earphones have gravitated toward multidriver designs, but Cardas (along with a few other firms) has gone with a single, full-range dynamic driver instead. It’s a design choice that has paid huge dividends in terms of overall sonic integrity, meaning that when you hear instrumental notes through the EM5813, the fundamentals and harmonics of the notes sound as if they belong together and originated from a single instrument. By contrast, some earphones get the general shape of the notes right, yet render them in a way that make the fundamentals and harmonics sound woefully out of sync with one another

Another major factor at work is the Ear Speaker’s ability to render very fine layers of textural and transient detail even as it renders whatever large- or small-scale dynamic contrasts may be at hand. What this buys you, I think, is an earphone that not only plays the music (all of the music) in a holistic way, but that also has an uncanny ability to convey a sense of musical context. With the Ear Speaker in play, you can tell in instant whether a recording was made in a studio or captured in a live music venue, whether reverberations occurred naturally or were created by electronic effects, and whether recordings were made with a lot of post production processing or not. Through the EM5813 the music “breathes” and unfold around you in a compelling, natural way—a characteristic enhanced by the fact that the Ear Speakers are dramatically better imagers than most competing earphones are.

Finally, we come to the matter of tonal balance, which can be tricky to discuss given that the Ear Speaker’s perceived voicing is, as mentioned above, dependent upon fit. When properly fitted the Ear Speaker is a reasonably neutral transducer, but one with gentle touches of midrange forwardness and a smidgeon of bass lift. To temper this bass lift, if desired, and to give the Ear Speaker a somewhat lighter, more airy sonic persona, one simply substitutes the blue-coloured vented ear tips for the non-vented white ones. Which of the ear tips you prefer will be a matter of personal taste, but for what it is worth I personally found the blue, vented tips seemed more accurate, while it was more fun to listen to the EM5813s with the white tips in place. Either way, one of the Ear Speaker’s greatest strengths is voicing that has a lovely “organic” quality that consistently sounds more like music and less like “hi-fi.”

To understand how the Cardas’ strengths play out on real world musical material, try any of the tracks from the David Chesky Quintet’s new Binaural+ series recording Jazz in the New Harmonic [Chesky, binaural recording]. On the dark-themed, brooding track “Grooves from the Underground”, the Cardas does a fantastic job with the drum kit and cymbals, capturing the delicate “skin” sounds of the drumheads, the crisp snap of snare drum rimshots, and the evanescent and insistent pinging of the high-hats. Best of all, the Ear Speaker catches the manner in which the drums and cymbals energise the room—and the band, pressing the groove forward. Similarly, the EM5813s reveal the dark, well-grounded pulse of the acoustic bass, which more than instrument in the ensemble defines the song’s fundament groove, while showing how the melancholy, almost Miles-like tonality of the trumpet serves as a counterpart to the bass. My point is that not only do these earphones give you the sounds of the instruments in a realistic way, but they also place those instruments in a believable three-dimensional context, while revealing dynamic and melodic interactions between musical lines. 

I do have a few nits to pick though. The coarsely textured fabric covers look cool, but in practice they rub and snag against your skin and clothing, sending unwanted noises onward into the earpiece housings. In fact, these signal cables might be better detachable and user replaceable. Finally, I’d like to see the Ear Speakers come with a ¼-inch TRS (tip-ring-sleeve) adapter; these earphones are so good that users may want to try them with high performance desktop amps.

The Cardas Ear Speaker is a brilliant high-performance earphone from one of the most respected manufacturers in high-end audio (and it is an achievement made all the more impressive by the fact that it, after all, Cardas’ first-ever earphone design). The Ear Speaker is an accomplished and downright enchanting transducer that makes listening to music captivating, illuminating, and just plain fun. The Ear Speaker is a reference in its price class (and beyond) and—if your reactions are anything like mine—you may find that once you start playing music through them you won’t want to stop.

Technical Specifications

Type: Dynamic-driver equipped earphone

Accessories: As in text above.

Driver: 11.45mm dynamic driver with a 

Neodymium magnet-drive motor and 

PEN-type thin-film diaphragm.

Frequency Response: Not specified.

Impedance: 32 Ohms

Weight: Not specified.

Price: £359

Manufacturer: Cardas Audio

URL: www.cardas.com

Distributor: Audiofreaks

URL: www.audiofreaks.co.uk

Tel.: +44 (0)208 948 4153