Campfire Audio Bonneville

Campfire Audio Bonneville review

- expatinjapan

Captivating aural melodic pleasure focussed in revealing euphoria and undying delectable inner-ear orgasms.

Full information on the Campfire Audio Bonneville here: https://www.campfireaudio.com/products/bonneville

TLDR review gimme the short version:

Campfire Audio Bonneville is a comfortable fitting universal custom like shelled IEM. The sound is luscious with a top end clarity that doesnt stretch further than necessary combining detail with a rich mids and solid full bass where needed. It is not a bass cannon and although it has a mix of drivers it is close to a w shape signature. Tuning can be done with tip selection.

I like it with a wide variety of music.

The Campfire Audio Bonneville is one of a set of IEMs released with a universal fit more resembling a custom IEM shell.

One of my first thoughts on receiving a black shell version rather than the pink shell version of the Bonneville (cue sadface) was ‘how the hell are they gonna tell this iems apart if done in black!!?’ - once my brain fart was finished and i looked further into it, you can see above that each shell has a different metal insert that is connected to the MMCX and internals.

I got the Bonneville just previous to the Christmas and New Years break and then work restart which slowed down my initial listening time somewhat.

It was several months before i read that this was their Flagship of this phase of releases. I did think earlier why it was lower down the food chain when to my ears it sounded so good.

The Campfire Audio website as listed above earlier has a good run down of the sound of the Bonneville and its mechanical intricacies. I will also get to that later to confirm or deny the companies media sheets (spoiler: its accurate).

I skipped the previous release of the Trifecta and others due to family and work concerns. I no longer have time for several reviews a month as i used to. I cut it down and down until i was at ten a year, now its probably at 5 and getting less as time goes by - this could be my review swan song?

I could make anything up with my experience of writing and taking fancy photos mixed with companies blurb but thats not me. I choose a stream of consciousness approach these days rather than the intro/unboxing/photos/overview/bass/mids/treble/measurements/comparison/ summary usual template. Theres enough good reviewers out there these days anyway who will go into detail with comparisons to other iems etc. Ten years and more back then there were only a few reviewers who did for love and the community

Reviewers and users feedback are important still, these days it is convenient as most information and overviews are on audio companies websites now, whereas in the older days you had to pull stuff apart (often dacs and amps etc had information scratched off etc and also test it to find out what it did). Also there are more shops and shows where one can get hands on. The more nefarious will order all they are interested in from amazon and send back what they dont like to be eventually destroyed most likely.

So its a generally good time nowadays to be a listener or audiophile imho.

Why the above spiel and or rant?

Well i have been following the Campfire Audio story from the start and heard probably all of the releases, most of them intimately and for extended time (six months to a couple of years) as well as other IEM companies.

To be honest i did think that IEMs had reached their pinnacle and like Daps and headphones had kind of plateaued and apart from the odd tweak, cool shell or tweaking different combinations of drivers they had reached as far and as high as they could across the board.

Campfire Audio introduced some new developments in driver technology which Ken Ball mentioned to me at an earlier show and when i heard the words i thought to myself ‘That’s an obvious thing to do, why hasn’t anyone done it before’…but it is not my business to spill anyones beans in detail.

Lets take a pretty picture interlude because well impressions and reviews and information on the Bonneville are widely available across the interwebz anyway and readers probably won’t really believe anything until their own ears hear the device, then its colored by tips chosen, dap/s used, getting a decent fit and seal, music chosen, even time of day, season, environment and ones own health… so what we get is an approximation up to the point where we hear something ourselves.

Unboxing pron

The box itself is gorgeous.

A nice mix of classic nostalgia and neo funkiness.

 

Bits and bobs, tips and bags, warranties and cables…

I had hoped for the pink for some strange reason, perhaps having a daughter has made me more bright color friendly. I came to enjoy the shiny black aesthetic quickly.

Well finished, polished and packaged.

I did wonder about the flat cable as it was something rather unheard of in IEM circles and seemed an unusual direction. The ease of use and non tangle of proved over time to be a practical decision.

The Chromatic Series IEMs come in two versions.

Also the cables can be purchased individually if one decides on the Essential edition but then decide they require an additional cable. Etc








Initial impressions.

I received the Bonneville and a surprise accompaniment of the Blackstar (now sold out i believe although its best to check in case i am in error).

I did as earlier mentioned think that the Bonneville was one of the two lower tier on the Chromatic release scale and i did not check Campfires website or read anything as i prefer to keep my mind a clean slate for any thoughts i may have on any device that arrives for review, even though it is of course tempting.

I would save the Blackstar, the good stuff for later i thought. Best to gather some impressions on the Bonneville first, then compare to my go to IEMs to get a sense of where the Bonneville fits in, then upscale to the Blackstar and tie it all together.

‘Best laid plans..’ indeed. It failed.

I was in a short time enamored with the Bonneville finding it a good match for my current go to dap the iBasso DX320 with amp 14 running it balanced via 4.4mm and my eclectic library of music.

Between initial unboxing and a short listen before  Xmas i really got into the Bonneville in late January to March.

In that time once i had gotten my ears accustomed to the Bonneville using Spiral Tips+ and getting past the usual loosening up (or burn in) time where the bass is usually a little loose on IEMs or headphones and the treble a bit uncontrolled and extended.

I then went back (late Jan/ to Mid feb) to my usual go to IEMs, sticking mostly to Campfire releases and found that the Bonneville edged them out, either to my humble ears, current taste or in performance.

I much preferred the Bonneville admittedly to my surprise and chagrin. I thought i was well settled in my choice of IEMs, bit i was wrong.  They also fitted my ears well which is a prerequisite for long term use then of course the captivating sound….

Admittedly i was surprised as i usually finish reviews and then head back to my usual tried and true IEMs which litter my instagram feed (spoiler: many Campfires and also Andromeda variations).

One would think this would hasten the finish of a review or even a start of one. I was just happy to listen to music with them, effortless and the right balance of body and technicality to them. I dilly dallied on the review completion as was enamored with the Bonneville to sweet silent satisfaction.

I did at this point start to doubt myself in late Feb early March as i am not such an active reviewer these days and one loses ones ears a bit (also over holiday breaks) and started to not be so immersed in the minutiae of it all. So i did what any sane person would do and read some forum impressions to see what people were saying and whether they dovetailed with my experience even though we would be using different tips, daps, music and ears. Thankfully the online impressions echoed what i had heard so far. As usual i had steered away from other reviews so as to not color my thoughts as it easy to do. I usually strictly read them after i finish my review, sparingly these days as there are too many books to read and not enough time and life.

I keep notes to myself in facebook messenger as went along, not my old notebooks and stray papers as i used to do. lets check them out.




Before that lets see what Campfire Audio  themselves wrote about the Bonneville in brief via their Facebook page:

Pretty straightforward summary, void of any word salad and to the point.

I think it voids my impressions somewhat as it is so clear, concise and to the point.

Read them again if you are curious about the Bonneville.

On to my initial impressions…

——-line divides to make day/days between notes———

Bonneville

Elegant, understated, refined, not brusque or bombastic, a delightful invitee to a dinner party full of joy de vivre ar innocently epicene.

——————————

Bit more low end, vocals have come up.

Great layering and spacial cues so far

Serious clarity, separation and detail.

——————————

Bass seems to have calmed down and tightened up nicely.

Massive attack 'angel'

Its very wide soundstgae

Vocals middle of head stretched to a bit front.

Like they singing to you.

Nice height too soundstage.

Its quite surprising the leap in technology esp the specially developed

BAS

—————————-

Seems a bit more balanced across the board now

Low gain preferred up to now

Medium gain now an option

Slow roll off filter

Now sharp roll off or slow roll off are both options

Sharp/slow filter very close

Very curate to original recording it seems so far.

Lots of space and spaciousness.

——————————

Getting to that

spherical holographic sweet spot that some earphones possess.

Needed to adjust tips as these are almost custom in fit style. Roll em in with a slight

rotating twist softly into your ear canal.

Tried against the Andromeda Gold and they

sounded a bit lifeless in comparison.

ha.

(Have to recheck).

—————————-

Morning. Its settled.

Listening to full songs walking, on the trains,

cafe etc

Some songs and genre are stellar some dont gel. Admittedly as i had the iBasso DX320 on shuffle this morning for some reason i was getting lots of punk and hard rock mixed in with lovely female vocals of Mazzy Star, Lana del Rey and others.

Leonard Cohen 'waiting for the miracle to come' atm o'

Deliciously balanced.

—————————————-

Then i caught a fever of 38/39 degrees for around 7-20 days. Initial test showed it was not corona…but i suspect it was corona.

A week after recovery i headed overseas to see family for a few weeks so that wrote off any dedicated listening for a good month, then work restarted and so on and so forth….

Brief frequency graph and other CA tidbits for those so inclined.

And so back to it.

As mentioned i (tried to) intersperse my listening with the Bonneville with other iems but found the others to be wanting, and i always went back to the Bonneville as my main listening iem. I am very pleased with it.

I can see how it combines much of what was great with many of Campfires popular releases, Andromeda, Solaris etc.

Its a complete package of an IEM.

Yet of course everyone has their tastes in audio gear signature and it must always work well with their musical tastes…gear…and ears.

After a few months of solid listening to the Bonneville in a variety of spaces and places it could be said with confidence and truth that it was a constant pleasure to use. The fit and the sound. Whether in a quiet cafe, walking or on the train i found it very absorbing of my attention. It has an effortless presentation where i can hear everything of the music without excessive volume. This is also a difference i have found over the years between entry level or basic factory mass churned out iems  and more high end iems is that the higher end iems can be used at a lower volume without any sacrifice to the sound quality. This protects our ears over time. A simple side issue but an important one.

The build is exquisite as are Campfire earphones in general. Solid. I have used them for years with no QR problems. There have been instances where i have read about a few online but when the users contacted Campfire they were well looked after.

The new universal custom like shells were debuted i think with the Supermoon which i listened to at a show. Back then it wasnt known that they were roll them out in a wider release. There was a one more generation of four new shells to be seen. 

The box design is beautiful and the quality of goods inside is undeniable. Everything is well made and sourced.

I might make a trek one day to a local audio shop and listen to the others in the present range out of curiosity. 

I look forward to following Campfire Audios journey as well as other companies that i have interacted with over the last 10+ years.

For now i will enjoy the listening pleasure that Campfire Audio have blessed my ears with that is the Bonneville.

Apologies:

I have been nibbling away at this review for a few months now. It used to take me a week or so after burn in, listening time and photos to write it all up. But it seems the spirit of reviewing has vacated my sacred space. So i will cut this short here and publish it even though it feels a bit incomplete towards the end.

Summary

For me it seems a near perfect combo for my palate.

Not over bassy but sometimes a bit fun, lively and  bombastic, devilishly detailed without extending into harshness but packing enough of either end  to please. And with a rich lashings of mids that brings the emotion of the artists alive it truly is a beautiful earphone that brings pleasure to the listening experience.

I like it.

Gonna finish here or i will keep nibbling at the review and never finish it.

Not sure if i will write another review, this might be a swan song. Its been a good ride but i think my reviewing mojo is well and truly spent. Its been fun. 

From early days when there were less than ten of us actively writing, improving on general audiophile photos of black or white grounds/gear in trees or back verandahs, standard cookie cutter bullet point reviews to random free association writings.

Thanks to all the companies, other writer/reviewers, readers and friends. Its been fun. Laters…

Thank you to Campfire Audio for sending the Bonneville for review. 

My apologies for the long time it took as i exit teh building.