A new contender for the $20 champion seat, the Moondrop Chu II are a great example of what can happen when a company listens to reviews!
The Moondrop Chu II is a competitive budget IEM released in Summer 2023, featuring a single 10mm dynamic drivers and metal shell. It delivers surprisingly well tuned and accurate sound reproduction, competing with headphones well out of it’s price bracket.
Although I have some things that may not be ideal or that I prefer, I find it unbelievably hard to have any heavily substantiated claims against this IEM for it’s price. Every complaint that I could possibly have can simply be silenced with the simple question “is it worth $20?” and the answer is unequivocally yes.
| Pros | Cons |
| -Hyper budget IEM -Quality construction -Small comfortable form factor -Hard to compete on price -Detachable cable | -No more spring tips -Sub-bass leaves you wanting -Middling soundscape |
Fit, Build, & Accessories
The Chu II come with the following items in the package:
- Box
- IEM
- Detachable cable
- Thin fabric carrying case
- Postcard
- QC Card
- Small Manual
- 3 Sets of eartips
As for accessories, it is hard to blame Moondrop for not going heavily on here. This IEM is less than $20, so frankly I am just happy that it has a carrying case at all! (Looking as you, Linsoul)
For Fit, I find these IEMs incredibly comfortable, the eartips may not be the amazing spring tips from these headphones predecessor, but they are comfy enough for extended use. What I will pride Moondrop on though, is the size and build of these. I found the metal construction to be very high quality, the seams on mine look good and I trust they they will be fairly durable and survive long term use. As for the fit, because these are a single driver IEM they do not take up too much space. Many manufacturers have decided to make a large plastic shell with empty space, but Moondrop has gone a different direction here. They made the Chu 2 small, comfortable, and made so that it rests snugly yet comfortably in the ear.
In the past, Moondrop released budget IEM’s without a detachable cable, and with a few minor issues. The amazing thing about the CHU II is that Moondrop listened, we got exactly what we wanted, and the result is great! When a company listens to the community about things like this, we get really amazing results that become the new benchmark for their price category. I really think that is the case here, the results are incredibly impressive.
Although I personally do not sleep with headphones in, I have seen reddit posts heralding these headphones build size, as the small form factor mixed with the extended comfort makes them comfortable to sleep with.
Subjective Listening & Experience
The Moondrop Chu 2 really are something special. Before I ordered them my expectation were low, to be completely honest. I was new to the hifi game and was incredibly skeptical at how good something really could be for $20. I have a much more in depth background in music and recording than I do in the high fidelity world, in fact the last time I had looked at the barrier to entry for the high end audio game, the hit to my wallet was enough to deter me from entering the hobby. So when I started looking at some budget choices, I was really just interest in finding my listening and tuning preferences for IEMs. As I started to look deeper into what I was buying, I started to get my hopes up. With glowing recommendations from Crinacle, Amir, and reddit as a whole, I was excited to see how they hold up to scrutiny!
When my headphones came in I was pleasantly surprised, the pictures of the cable do not do it justice. As a big pro to Moondrop, they have found a way to make a very comfortable very affordable cable. It looks, well, fine. It looks fine, it works fine, it sounds fine. Total mediocrity. And yet, we are talking about a $20 IEM with a detachable cable. If you told me that every single accessory was mediocre I would me happy with that. The carrying case can be fabric, the cable can have some memory, the eartips are not my favorite. But for what I paid? These are fantastic accessories. And the sound doesn’t lie. I had looked at a handful of measurements before buying, but didn’t really know what to expect when they came in. I just plugged them into my Qudelix 5k, and turned it on
To my surprise, they sounded bad. Really really bad. I was disappointed, and really shocked at how disappointed I was, I had hyped up this product in my head as something cool and affordable. What I really wanted out of these, this perfect image that I had in my head, was of this perfect affordable IEM that I could recommend to non-audio heads and when they go “what headphones do you recommend?”. I just wanted something affordable that I can give a glowing recommendation, and that didn’t break the bank. So I took them off, put them back in the case, and set them on my desk.
Later that night, I was playing around with the Sennheiser Momentum 4s; And to my shock, they also sounded pretty bad. So, I dove deeper. After about an hour of troubleshooting I realized something devastating: I had messed up the settings on my Qudelix. I had been running tests of some odd settings and EQ and how they interacted, and had never reset my device. I was at work while I was playing around with the Chus, and I had done them dirty in my mind. So, I put them back in.
Crisp, clean, accurate reproduction.
I am truly amazed at how great these are for the price, I think that the bass lacks a minor thump, and the highs can be a tiny bit grating. But for $20 I really can’t see anything superior being made in the near future. But at this rate, I really look forward to where we push the bounds of budget hifi.
Objective Scoring
*As a reminder and disclaimer, just like all reviews and measurements there are bounds to what I can and cannot test. As well as limitations to measurements. You can find more information about my setup and review limitations here or in the link above.
Frequency Response
This IEM is in pretty amazing compliance for $20. Some minor variation, but for a single driver device this compliance was unexpected to say the least.
Distortion Testing
Even more shocking than the frequency response is the distortion measurement, I initially was confused, because I was unable to find my 2nd harmonic distortion frequency. After some digging around, it’s because my total harmonic distortion and 2nd harmonic completely overlap!
EQ
After playing around with a few options that other have posted, I actually like Amir’s EQ From Audio Science Review, which can be read here. Mine is practically identical, with minor changes to his EQ setup. I also have a more “flavorful” EQ that I play around with, but it is provably “wrong”, so will not be posted in the objective review section.
| Type | Hz | Gain | Q |
| Peak | 21 | 2 | 0.78 |
| Peak | 200 | -1.8 | 1.3 |
| Peak | 3500 | -0.8 | 1 |
| Peak | 6396 | 3 | 3 |
| Peak | 14,000 | -3.9 | 3 |
Conclusion
For the price of these headphones, and with how well they perform, I find it nearly impossible not to love these. These are my go-to when someone finds out I am into headphones and says “well how much does a decent pair cost!”. I now have something I can recommend for $20 that have great results, and are very friendly to people who don’t want something more complex. I’d even argue that for many people, these are just fine and there is no need to upgrade past here! But of course, you probably aren’t here because you want to only own one pair of headphones. I know I certainly don’t!
I am more than happy to recommend the Moondrop Chu II as a blind buy. I find it hard to go wrong here, really. Just grab a pair.
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