Moondrop Aria vs Starfield: Which IEM is Worth Getting?

With Moondrop’s sky-high popularity in 2021, it’s getting very overwhelming for audiophiles to decide on their best iems. 

Because Moondrop’s all the promising iems got an exceptional value for money.

Especially if you compare them to a mass of other IEMs with the same level of precision.

But, which one is worth getting when it comes to moondrop aria vs starfield?

Starfield is a little brighter and more expensive antecedent of the Aria. On this ground, Aria hits more. However, they’re interrelated and serve various niches. On one hand, Aria is amazing with mid-bass-driven music while on the other Starfield with sub-bass-driven music like indie.

Are you looking for something more? Don’t worry! We’ve concocted a thorough argument here to help you with your choices. 

Let’s get you introduced! 

Quick Comparison

Whether it’s between fiio fh3 and starfield or moondrop aria vs starfield, iems tend to differ in some basic features. 

That’s why here we’ve illustrated a brief comparison table for you. Have a look for a primary understanding.

Features	Moondrop Aria	Moondrop Starfield
Tonality	Highly balanced with no timbre issues	Smooth and warm-ish tonality
Bass	Thick and punchy	Soft and deliberate
Isolation	Average	Above average
Cable	Better with upgrade	Better with upgrade
Drivability	Doesn’t need further amplification	Sounds better with amplification
Price	Check Price	Check Price

It’s okay if you’re not ready to make a decision already. We’re here to offer you more explicit information about these two IEMs to make the process easier. 

But before that here’s a chart for you that can help you to make a quick decision.

So let’s take a step back and jump into the debate ahead.  

Let’s Clear Out a Few Things First

Well, with its huge IEM market play Moondrop doesn’t need any further introduction.

But the question is, do their IEMs considerably differ from each other? 

Because it’s clearly not gonna be worth it if Starfield and Aria are identical but you’re investing more in one than the other for nothing new. 

When I noticed Starfield will cost me around $30 more than Aria I tried to find out the exclusive features in Starfield.

Turns out both the Aria and the Starfield resemble each other a lot. How? We’re covering that part in the remaining writing.

But with these facts in hand, it’s wise to invest in Aria if the design doesn’t matter much to you. 

Moreover, it’ll allow you to spend $10-15 more or so in upgrades to tease the best performance out of your Aria.

Oh, no worries! We have suggestions about that part too so that you don’t waste your money buying unnecessary accessories. 

So let’s not wait around and get into the main discussion.

Packaging and Accessories

Source: headphones.com

Moondrop has always been applauded for their artistic devotion through their products. In this case, Aria isn’t any different.

You’ll find eye-catching anime artwork engraved on it. 

However, the package isn’t a total surprise box. You’ll find the IEMs in it relaxing on a velvet-lined foam.

Not only that but there’s a pouch that carries a clamp-shell case 

Now, this case isn’t very different from the one that comes with Starfield. Also, it’s almost the most regular of IEM cases you can receive. 

Inside the case you’ll get:

• Aria earphones 
• The fabric-sleeved braided 2-pin cable 
• 6 pairs of silicon S, M, L tips
• Tweezers
• 6 pair of extra nozzle filters 
• Menu & warranty card

The IEM shells themselves are made of solid metal and feel generous in hand. Besides, the golden design is elegant.

However, unlike the Starfield, it seems like you won’t be complaining about paint chipping in Aria. 

Overall, the accessories are quite similar to the Starfield.

Winner: Tie

Build Quality

The Aria has excellent build quality and accessories, especially for its price point. Just like its predecessor Starfield, Aria is built of metal.

In fact, it’s so similar to the previously mentioned models. Hence, it’s gonna be quite difficult for you to randomly identify any contrast between these two.

But guess what?

That’s a massive plus for consumers. Because it means they can get virtually the same performance as the high-tier models at a fraction of the cost. 

So let’s dive deeper!

Design

Source: majorhifi.com

The point when it comes to the design of these IEMs, you’ll notice it’s all ages and stripes. They couldn’t be more unique than each other at this part.

Both of the IEMs are pleasingly different from one another. 

Aria showed up with this dowdy dark carapace with gold streaks. On the other hand, Starfield got a sparkling texture with a blue pigmentation that explodes. 

Although they look substantially different from one another, the outline of their housing is quite identical. You’ll notice a tiny fringe on Starfield’s end.

However, the Aria has a different shape, which results in a better fit in the ear canal.

The Starfield, at least for me, has a loose fit. The Aria’s design allows it to sit securely within my ears.

However, here’s again a short preview of these IEMs’ designs below for your better understanding. Take a look at it! 

Features	Moondrop Aria	Moondrop Starfield
Soothing design	Relatively softening to the eyes with matte black design.	It has a shiny and glossy design.
Design durability	Paint doesn’t chip like starfield	Chips easily with its acrylic paint
Exclusive design	Not so bright or glossy to the eyes compared to the starfield. So, it won’t make a difference for colorblind people.	A little loud to eyes in comparison to Aria. But, the color mix is quite ineffective for colorblind people.

Hope this one would help you to find out which one is more fitting as per your conditions.

Winner: Aria

Cable Durability

Source: headphones.com

Aria’s cable is covered in a pliable material.

This cable is soft and transmits lite microphonics. The Starfield’s cable, by contrast, is covered in plastic and pales in comparison.

I, personally, have a love-hate relationship with both iems’ cable.

The finish is certainly fine, however, the plastic casing for the L-Shaped jack, Y-Splitter, and the 2-pin casing doesn’t seem good enough with them. 

One more thing that bugs me a lot is that the cable gets jammed a lot. So I couldn’t help but put the KZ ZSN’s cable over those poor-quality cables.

So I’d recommend, for your own convenience, kindly upgrade the cable as early as possible.

These fabric-sleeved cables sound nice and look fancy but are totally horrible in practice. 

Terrible cable memory, likely to get jammed more often, and the cable noise will throw you off the main sound. 

In this case, a replacement wire that’s both strong and significantly improves the sound quality would be great.

So, here are some of the durable and good-quality cable recommendations for you.

However, no matter how durable these cables are, you need to keep them safe from your kittens and kids. After all, they got a pretty sharp grip, now don’t they?

Winner: Tie

Fit and Separation

Aria has two huge front holes, hence its separation is moderately fair.

Also, it got a 5mm nozzle which is quite reasonable with an implanted anti-jamming nozzle filter to prevent ear dust. 

However, the nozzle isn’t curved enough to prevent tips from coming off. Still, the silicon tips seem to clamp the metal nozzle securely.

Therefore, Aria fixes itself nicely to the ear. Though it feels a little heavy, it plugs really well.

On the other hand, with starfield, I was worried about it coming off my ear more often than Aria.

However, once you’ll be able to select the right tips, the Starfield is conveniently a terrific IEM. 

We’ve made a list of some ear tips for your better convenience.

Also, they don’t inflict any discomfort or itchy spots with a well-rounded structure for the ears.

Winner: Aria

Performance

You see, whenever we reviewed some of the finest v-shaped headphones or iems, sound performance always carried weight.

So what are you waiting for? Let’s find out which one’s the bang-for-buck between Aria and Starfield according to performance-wise.

Gaming Performance

Well, Starfield is one of those kinds that you can take with you to both enjoy your music and game.

Its audio quality is something with great punches which is so appropriate in a gaming setup. 

Moreover, it’s actually well above its price. It can handily deliver the cinematic background you prefer in single-player matches.

However, I felt Aria is also decent enough for a gaming setup. All the group calls and voice chats sound like a real-time conversation to the ear with this IEM.

Bass, on the other hand, is simply sufficient and a touch more for fun’s sake.

Winner: Tie

Sound Signature

Here I’ve used the following sources to compare the sound signature between these two iems by Moondrop.

Source: 

• Hiby R3
• iFi Zen DAC v2 
• Fiio new k3 amp with Tidal Masters

These references aren’t magnified and let me evaluate the IEMs from an objective position.

Bass

Both Aria and Starfield offer sufficient transparency in their bass. However, each of them reflects it in their own style. 

Aria produces fairly heavy and zesty bass. With the dimensional presence of frequencies, transients take place rapidly and are nicely leveled.

This also develops a deep end that maintains an engaging scale. That’s why it stems its element instantly and successfully all over its soft timbre. 

The Starfield has an equal grade of detail, however, the power of the rhythm is too low and calculated.

Moreover, its sub-bass shapes the timbre with a stronger clap than Aria. 

Nevertheless, the vibration of the deep ends is additionally suggestive.

It’s slighter in-your-face than the Aria, however, after some time it comes off vague and unsurprising as well.

Winner: Aria

Midrange

When it comes to tone, I personally felt, Starfield offers fairly substantial characteristics to put it on top of Aria.

Well, both IEMs are good at delivering a taste of rawness to their midrange tone. However, the Starfield has a little more vibrant tonality than the Aria. 

It’s actually due to the pigmentation. While the Aria’s low-mid inflection betters a warmer tone, the Starfield exhibits extra transparency and regularity.

It can be said that on this ground Starfield is less of a pleasing tone than the Aria. 

However, it maintains more striking detail throughout additional wavebands. 

Moreover, Starfield can be strong yet harmonious. Because it hits a decent level of dimensional quality with tunes and upshots. 

However, both Aria and Starfield are adapted to showcase stunning vocal feedback. It certainly puts performances ahead in a powerful style.

Winner: Starfield

Treble

Both of the IEMs tones are a complete tribute to their sound impressions when it comes to the highs.

The Starfield’s trebles are additionally more natural than the Aria, picturing a more detailed and sharp tone.

While also unevenly presenting other elements. For instance, the flicker in isolated spots of the frequency feedback. 

However, Aria presents a much more composed treble. Also, it introduces a more satisfying, feathery vibrance.

Moreover, its accuracy is sharper than the Starfield, however, still simply as soft and sensitive to understand.

Winner: Aria

Soundstage, Separation, and Imaging

One of the best parts to turn out of both Aria and Starfield is their sound stages. They’re surprisingly way more ahead of their competitors.

Moreover, their spatial imaging is totally worth your money. I felt it’s one of the reasonable imaging you can have in this extensive range.

Both of them offer an expressive dimensional imaging that envelops your headspace in sophisticating ways. 

But which one is better? 

It’s actually tough to instantly find a hero here!

One of the reasons is these IEMs are quite surprising when you compare them with others in this price range.

However, when put side-by-side, you’ll notice they resemble each other a lot.

We already noticed both IEMs are intensely fulfilling in their imaging.

Nevertheless, ultimately, I succeeded in setting up an evident point where they showed their own style. 

To me, Starfield quickly restrains spatial positioning. Therefore, it finishes as a more detailed soundstage. 

On the other hand, Aria offers the same level of clarity but creates an airier tone space. It enhances the room between layers.

This eventually clears up the stereo image in the deep end.

At first, Aria didn’t look like an IEM that will be able to deal with that level of depth.

However, after evaluating the Aria with the Starfield, it was very apparent that the Aria produced a more rounded headspace.

It shaped more of a drip of tone that delightfully alienated the sound components. 

On the other hand, Starfield was more capable of conventional stereo space. That was broad and fluent while still quite charming in its own meaning.

Winner: Starfield

Details/Detail Retrieval

Aria provides amazing as per its capacity. Particularly it nails the macro detail but doesn’t even sound excessively analytical. 

However, I couldn’t find the micro-detail as much as the macro detail because of the impartial tuning.

Also because of the non-articulation in the crucial frequency areas.

All in all, Aria shines bright when it comes to presentation. Its layering is exceptional in comparison to the other reasonable pairs.

There’s a good sense of airiness that lets instruments maintain a good deal of breathing space to explore. 

It occurs because Aria has a proper stage width and a dash of profundity. That doesn’t mean Aria’s imaging isn’t the most detailed.

Still, it has amazing divergence in note arrangement compared to your normal 3-point blob of left, center, right. 

Source: headphones.com

I found the resolution is a tad insufficient on the Aria in comparison to Starfield. But it doesn’t discourage it from whistling like an amazing IEM.

There’s a convenient amount of resolution that draws out good enough notes in various places. This definitely makes the Aria immersing to hear. 

Well it seems the solo DD configuration of both the Aria and Starfield has a crucial part in the articulation of its tone.

You’ll be able to notice that both of them sound quite natural with a fair amount of dynamic detail.

Winner: Tie

Compatibility

The drivability of Moondrop Aria and Starfield, surprisingly, is very lenient and compatible.

In fact, the ‘drivability’ of these two has awed us even when we were determining how good KZ iems are. How? Let’s find out!

How’s the Driver Setup?

Aria comes with a 10mm LCP (Liquid-Crystal Polymer) including an N52 magnet structure.

It also includes a 35 microns large diaphragm and you’ll also find a brass diaphragm on the rear side.

The latter one here helps to decrease the vibrancy rate impressively. 

Eventually, the high-frequency waveguide distributes high-frequency coils to decrease vibrancy cliffs.

Moreover, you’ll find these LCP coils in the famous single-DD Sony EX-1000 and the like. 

Source: headphones.com

On the other hand, Starfield uses a dynamic driver with a carbon nanotube weave. Generally, we saw dynamic drivers come with exclusive hybrid IEMs. Basically, it helps with the bass endurance because of their impressive drive attributes. 

However, when it comes to Starfield, the solo dynamic driver’s coil renders this system to adjust inflexibility.

Also, it fixes toughness for sufficient feature recovery power and generates increased constancy.

In short, Aria’s crystal cavities demonstrate nicely transient feedback.

On the other hand, Starfield’s nanotube coils offer the IEM a flat and stronger signal. It helps in identifying timbral characteristics a lot more clearly as well.

Winner: Tie

Can it Be Used with DAC/Amp/Adapter?

Aria is relatively easy to drive. They don’t ask a lot as Starfields do. However, amping them helps a lot with soundstage and imaging.

You’ll notice Arias are relatively easier to drive than Starfields.

Source:headphones.com

Also, the Aria is easier to be powered than Starfield and sounds very well with a smartphone with decent DAC.

However, with a good DAC dongle both Aria and Starfield perform well.

In this case, you can choose one between Clarus Coda or the hidizs s9 pro. Both of them are decent dongle dacs.

For bluetooth, you can get the fiio btr5 (2021version) without any doubt.

Winner: Aria

So, Which One is Worth Getting?

Truth be told, both of these iems are worth the value. There’s no going wrong with any of them and you’ll be benefited either way.

Because Aria and Starfield resemble each other to the point where it’ll be difficult for you to find any difference. 

However, after some time, each of them starts to settle themselves in their own way.

Most people tend to get more connected by Aria’s mixture of speed and dimensions.

On the other hand, Starfield produces extra precision and clarity with gadgets. So, it’s quite apparent now what these IEMs are good at.

No matter which one you prefer, none of them will let you down.

Here’s again an overview in case you need to make an immediate conclusion.

Hope you make a great purchase with all the amazing features in the hand of both the iems. Incase, you haven’t made a decision, you can explore the other IEMs such as- Moondrop Variations and ThieAudio Monarch MKII.

FAQS

Does Moondrop Aria come with a mic?

Moondrop Aria doesn’t actually come with a mic. However, it comes with a universal 0.78 dual-pin interface. So the users have options to supplant the product cable to with-mic cable. 

Do you need to burn in IEMs before using them?

You see burn-in isn’t important in the sense that it won’t increase the SQ of your IEMs extensively. You’ll come to numerous opinions about this issue. However, there’s not actually any incorrect way of warming up your IEMs. You should just use them naturally and look for any sort of differences.

Wrapping Up

That was some head-to-head trial on moondrop aria vs starfield. We hope you get to choose your preferred iem within your budget.

However, clinically it’s wise to listen to music at no more than 60% of the maximum volume.

So it’d be good for you if you can limit your music time on iems to around an hour. 

Catch you later!