Moondrop Blessing 2 Review - $300 Benchmark IEM?

Introduction

The Moondrop Blessing 2, which retails for $319.99 is one of Moondrop’s midrange IEM offerings, and it is sporting a five driver hybrid setup on each ear piece; using one dynamic, and four balanced armature drivers per side. I don’t want to give too much away in this introduction, but I must say that, so far, the Blessing 2 is the IEM that has impressed me the most, and it’s the headphone which I would singlehandedly attribute my taking interest in the IEM market to.

Sources and Music Used in Listening Tests

All the listening for this review was done on the Astell & Kern SR25. For the listening tests I used music from a wide variety of genres including Rock, Jazz, Classical, Acoustic, Hip-Hop, and latin. I played tracks from my own FLAC library as well as from Tidal Streaming Service (Master Quality).

Packaging and Accessories

Over the past year, Moondrop has garnered quite a buzz around its brand, and has undoubtedly become one of the largest players in the IEM market. So for those familiar with Moondrop, they’ll know that one of the most prominent and recognizable features of their products is their packaging art.

The Moondrop Blessing 2’s box features a manga style character. The art on the box changes fairly often, but as can be seen here on this late 2020 Moondrop Blessing 2 box, the art here is inspired by the Christmas holiday: 

As for accessories, the Moondrop Blessing 2 includes six different sets of rubber tips in a variety of sizes, a 3.5mm to 0.78mm two-pin connector cable, and a gray, “Moondrop Co.” branded carrying case. The case is unfortunately a little large, and can’t really be pocketed but it’s still a nice addition, and overall, I feel as though this is a well rounded kit of accessories.

Build and Comfort

The Blessing 2’s build is sincerely outstanding, and feels significantly more premium than what I would expect to find in this price range. The 3D-printed, see through resin shells that house the drivers feel rugged, and they beautifully showcase the precise assembly and drivers implemented in the Blessing 2. Additionally, each ear piece has a CNC’d stainless steel cover, with one of them featuring a laser engraved Blessing 2 Logo.

Comfort, I found, was excellent on the Blesing 2. Admittedly they did feel a little on the heavier side, but I was never afraid that they would suddenly fall off when wearing, and the mold of the chassis seems to very closely follow the natural shape of the ear, so for me it never applied any unnecessary pressure. Important to mention is that the included ear tips made for a good seal, and with so many different sized tips being included, I believe users won’t have a hard time getting a good fit for these. I will warn, though, that these are fairly large IEMs, so for listeners with smaller ears they might cause some mild discomfort.

Sound

As I mentioned earlier, the Moondrop Blessing 2 is the most impressive IEMs I have listened to thus far, and whilst its technical performance doesn’t really “wow” me, its tuning certainly does.

For my tastes and preferences, the Blessing 2 has one of the most well-balanced, “neutral” tonalities I’ve heard, not just from an IEM, but from all headphones that I’ve listened to. For me, its sound signature is a very natural one, with a present bass response, lush mids, and pretty smooth treble.

Bass

The bass on the Moondrop Blessing 2 to me sounded as though it had maybe just the slightest boost to it, particularly under 120hz as it heads towards the subbass region. I found this slight bump to be a very nice addition, as it’s a very modest one that helps in rounding out the Blessing 2’s bass response, adding just a little warmth, and keeping the sound from feeling lean in the lows. Overall, I personally found the bass here to be adequately textured, with a very accurate reproduction of lower registers.

Mids

The midrange on the Moondrop Blessing 2 is truly spectacular. The mids here are even, and linear with a very natural tonality to them. The midrange presentation here is one I’d say a realistic one, with delightful voicing that makes for organic vocals and instruments.

The midrange is where I tend to have the most nitpicks, but honestly there isn’t much for me to comment on when it comes to the Blessing 2’s mids; they are very well tuned, with proper body and presence.

Highs

The treble region on the blessing 2 I personally find to be quite warm, and somewhat reminiscent of that of the HD650. There is one slight deviation present in this part of the frequency response, though, and to me and sounds as though it’s around 5K.

Whilst the treble is for the most part very smooth and relaxed, it does have a bit of peak at 5K. It’s not particularly noticeable, but I did hear some minor glare, and just the slightest bit of low treble sibilance as a result. Aside from that one rise in the treble, though, I found the highs on the Moondrop Blessing 2 to be pretty good. I think that it could have benefitted from a slightly more present air region above 10K, but the Blessing 2 was still capable of conveying the tonal nuances in the highs.

Resolution

For detail retrieval, the Blessing 2 delivers very good performance. It makes for a listening experience that is nuanced and textured, as it reproduces musical passages with a well-defined structure, and properly reproduces vocal and instrument tones across all registers. Compared to some of the higher-end IEMs I’ve tried, like the Campfire Audio Andromeda 2020, the Moondrop Blessing 2 did slightly lag behind for internal resolution, but to me it seemed to get really close, which is remarkable for its roughly $300 price point.

Soundstage, Imaging and Layering

For IEMs, I think that the Moondrop Blessing 2’s spatial qualities are pretty average. Compared to the IE300, I found the Blessing 2 have a significantly more intimate soundstage. I wouldn’t go as far as say that its presentation was claustrophobic, but it wasn’t particularly spacious either.

Its imaging, I found, was pretty lackluster. Image distribution across the stage was fairly even, though to me it felt as though it was oddly shifted a bit forward; so what I expected to be Left or Right, was more like Front Left and Front Right. Additionally, I wasn’t getting as much image depth on the Blessing 2 as I got on the IE300, so instrument lines didn’t feel quite as distinct as I would have liked to hear.

Dynamics

Dynamics is a category where I think the Moondrop Blessing 2 performs really well. The bass tones here actually carry a fair bit of weight behind them, with a good sense of punch and slam that made for satisfying low tones. Despite not having nearly as much bass as the IE300, the Blessing 2 seems to have a bit more impact whilst still retaining all the snap and bite in the top-end; making for an enjoyable and engaging listening experience.

Conclusion

The Moondrop Blessing 2 has been a lot of audio enthusiasts’ top in-ear recommendations, and even in the everchanging IEM market, it’s remained incredibly popular. After having the opportunity to finally listen to them myself, I think I can kind of begin to understand why this set in particular has garnered so much hype and praise over the past year, since its release.

It’s a truly delightful IEM to listen to, with an outstanding tonal balance that I think most listeners will enjoy, and solid all-around technical performance at a great price. From here onwards, I’ll personally be using the Blessing 2 as a tonal benchmark for IEMs in the same way the HD600 has been my benchmark for over ear headphones. I think that at this point it goes without saying, but the Moondrop Blessing 2 gets a very strong recommendation from me, and if like me, you’re fairly new or just entering the IEM market, this is the perfect place to start.

-Chrono

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