Headphone Review for Online Gaming 2023 Ant Kimura Duet

Antlion Kimura Duo strike a great balance between fun gaming and music listening experience thanks to rumbly lows and crisp highs. While the included Mic Cable ensures your teammates can hear you clearly, the ear hook ergonomics could be better.

Sound-wise, Antlion Kimura Duo are an upgrade over the Kimura Solo in every possible way. You get a more controlled, balanced, and detailed sound. More on that later.

On the other hand, both have the same Kimura Microphone Cable, which comes with an excellent boom mic, and share the same packaging, ear tips, clips, and carrying cases.

If it weren’t for the different color scheme (Duo are blue and Solo are red), you could have easily mistaken the two.

Therefore, they only differ in sound quality. The Antlion Kimura Duo comes at $150. Are they worth the extra $50 over the Solo?

Sound

Star Rating 4.0 Great

Antlion Kimura Duo are surprisingly controlled and detailed for the amount of bass they output. Expect a satisfying sound performance for games, movies, and music altogether.

As mentioned above, the Kimura Duo offer a better audio experience than the Solo in every frequency region. It’s pretty much a night and day difference.

Whereas the Solo model uses a single dynamic driver, the Duo opts for an additional balanced armature driver. Because the latter focuses on higher frequencies, you get much more presence in the treble.

Bass: Boosted but well-controlled

Lower frequencies sport a noticeable boost that can bleed into the midrange. But despite the identical quantity, the bleed isn’t as problematic as in the Solo model.

Most impressively, you now get good bass control. That means the dynamic driver can handle faster drumming and double bass pedals without mushing them together.

Bass guitars are still too present, but that’s a sacrifice you have to make when dealing with such a boost.

In contrast, the increased bass frequencies makes your gaming more immersive and fun. In-game effects have a satisfying thump and rumble, from explosions to stormy weather.

Midrange: Relatively balanced, with a slight recession in vocals

Mids is another area that got improved over the Solo. As if someone uncovered the veil, you now hear instruments and vocals with increased clarity.

That said, vocals take a backseat, appearing slightly quieter than in more natural-sounding headphones.

Of course, that hardly matters in video games. Everything sounds nice and crisp, and you can easily follow dialog, even during the battle.

Treble: Extended and decently textured

Gone is the 9kHz spike from the Solo, replaced by a good extension and air. It makes the sound more effortless and less fatiguing during extended listening.

Cymbals actually have some texture, and you can hear details that you can’t in the Solo version.

Improved treble crispness also helps with imaging or positional audio. It’s very accurate, with no problematic blind spots.

They have a wide soundstage for an IEM but not quite as roomy as with over-ear headphones. Still, you feel like some sounds are coming outside your head, which is perfect for gaming.

As a whole, Antlion Kimura Duo offer a significant upgrade over their cheaper Solo alternative.

While still rocking a bassy sound signature, you can also use them for music, which is rare for a gaming headset.

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Comfort & Fit

Star Rating 4.5 Almost Perfect

Antlion Kimura Duo’s housing tries to perfectly adapt to the shape of a human ear. They’re comfortable and very stable, but they are a pain to put in your ears.

The design of the Antlion Kimura Duo is identical to the Kimura Solo. The only different thing is the plate’s color.

IEMs are very bulky to look at but fit comfortably in your ears. They try to perfectly contour the human pinna to ensure a snug fit.

That can be a double-edged sword since all ears are different, so some might find them uncomfortable.

For example, I find the Kimura Duo comfy, whereas CCA LYRA start hurting after about half an hour.

You get 4 pairs of ear tips inside the packaging, 3 silicone ones, and 1 ear tip from memory foam. The latter is pretty big, so it only fits users who typically use size M or L ear tips.

The detachable Kimura Microphone Cable has thick, stiff ear hooks that you can mold to your liking. Just like with Skullcandy Push Ultra.

While that ensures excellent stability and prevents the boom mic from moving around, setting these IEMs on your ears takes some time.

First, you must stretch the hook, plug the IEMs in your ears, then squeeze the hooks around your ears with both hands. And you have to do that every single time.

That is the main reason you might have second thoughts before leaving the room to grab a cup of water since that means repeating that whole process again.

Durability

Star Rating 4.0 Great

Antlion Kimura Duo are made from a single piece of see-through resin, making them extremely tough against drops. In contrast, the included cable feels relatively thin but removable if damaged.

According to Antlion, the Kimura lineup of in-ear monitors is handcrafted, the Duo model included.

While some resin-made IEMs have a seam or two where you can see how pieces are glued together, you see no such thing on Kimura Duo. Even the blue “plate” is permanently encased into the resin body.

It is safe to say that these IEMs are fully resistant to drops. The only way to open them is by crushing them.

However, that is both good and bad. Good in terms of durability and bad in terms of repairability or even proper recyclability. But let’s say I’m wrong.

You get a Kimura-branded hard-shell carrying case in the box to ensure you don’t accidentally crush them.

One possible point of failure is the MMCX connector which can cause more issues than a 2-pin connector (like on RAPTGO HOOK-X).

I noticed some contact issues on the right side when trying out different cables. While my third-party cable could be the problem, it shows how fragile the MMCX connection can be.

Speaking of cables, the one included is the Kimura Microphone Cable which separately costs $59. It’s of decent quality, but you should still avoid pulling and twisting it too hard due to the thin wires.

The non-detachable boom mic has a metal arm with a rubber coating and a metal housing for the microphone.

Overall, you are getting well-built gaming in-ear headphones with a decent cable that you can replace if damaged.

Features

Star Rating 4.0 Great

Antlion Kimura Duo aren’t packed with features, but the ones they offer, work incredibly well. Especially the boom mic delivers very clean call quality with no distortion.

Apart from the option to attach any MMCX wire to your IEMs, you find the most features on the included cable itself.

The most notable one is the boom microphone, which, for only $59, works incredibly well. More on that later.

However, I miss two things on the mic. One is the mute button, and the second is the ability to detach the boom mic if it gets damaged or stops working.

The wire splits into two 3.5mm jacks with 3 poles, one for audio and the second for the microphone. Antlion includes the Y adapter in the box to ensure compatibility with laptops.

Antlion’s Y adapter combines the two 3-pole jacks into one 4-pole jack. It’s admirable that a company provides a free solution rather than charging you extra.

Noise Isolation

Star Rating 4.5 Almost Perfect

Antlion Kimura Duo can almost fully isolate you from the outside world, reducing even the loudest computer cooling solutions. However, you have to deal with some cable noise.

The combination of a snug fit and a tight seal ensures excellent passive noise isolation, similar to the best earbuds we’ve tested.

As soon as you put them in your ears, you notice the world around you going quiet. Only the loudest sounds still go through.

So, when you play, the game audio masks the noise, and you should expect a distraction-free gaming experience.

How severe is sound leakage?

You can easily use Antlion Kimura Duo in a quiet library if you want to. Like with many headphones, there is some sound leakage at higher volumes, but it’s tolerable.

If anything, the audio doesn’t get picked by the microphone.

Is there any cable noise?

Cable noise is moderately severe but far from being distracting when using the IEMs behind the desk. You can somewhat reduce vibration by clipping the cable onto your shirt with a clip.

Thankfully, the boom mic attached to the cable doesn’t pick up the cable vibrations.