These new earphones pack a portable punch

So, you're a creative professional with your MacBook Pro, your Wacom tablet, your fancy pine standing desk, and your adjustable office chair – but what about your music?

Well, SIVGA’s Nightingale Pro IEMs (in-ear monitors), released today, aim to bring a touch of luxury and portable comfort to people's daily set ups. They boast aircraft-grade aluminium-magnesium alloy housing and hand-polished wood faceplates at a reasonable $296 price point.

And they sound just as good as they look, and could well be the first IEMs on our list of the best budget audiophile headphones. That precision-crafted aluminium-magnesium alloy isn't just for futuristic aesthetics: it controls acoustic resonance, while the units make use of proprietary multi-magnet planar drivers to deliver an open and balanced sound, which is unusual in IEMs at this price point. And the wood bits... well, they don’t serve any purpose other than just looking very nice!

SIVGA Nightingale Pro $296 at SIVGA
These Planar IEMs offer plenty of clarity and punchy bass for the price point, and if you like the wood-finish, they look the part too. I found the ear tips weren't quite big enough for me, so if you too have big ears, it's worth considering seeking additional, larger tips.

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Florence and the machine

The Nightingale PRO features an ultra-light 0.008mm composite diaphragm which works in conjunction with a 0.006mm aluminium ribbon connector. The extreme thinness of these components combined with the planar magnetic drivers mean that the headphones can deliver a fast transient response with extended treble and rich low-end control.

In normal-person terms this means that music will sound bright and detailed, with crisp cymbal crashes, textured violin strings, and a deep bass response. SIVGA specifically calls out acoustic recordings and complex electronic mixes, but just about everything you listen to on these should sound clear and deep.

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Going Pro

SIVGA’s Nightingale Pros may look familiar to audiophiles: they’re the follow-up to the Nightingales from 2023. The new version features a better bass response, as well as ditching the heavy plastic housing in favour of that premium aluminium and metal. However, the basic design remains the same, with SIVGA promising a comfortable fit for hours of non-stop listening, plus interchangeable ear tips and detachable cables.

Premium in-ear headphones tend to either be on the cheaper or much more expensive side of this price point, with wireless options muddying the water somewhat: our recently reviewed Final Tonalite earbuds make similar promises of audiophile-pleasing performance via bespoke ear canal acoustic measurements, and they cost a little more at $329.

Of course, you could splash out on what we consider to be the best over-ear audiophile headphones ever – the HEDDphone D1s – but in-ear wired headphones serve a different, more portable purpose, and we like what we've seen so far.