OoopusX OP-22

Dial In Some Smooth Bass

OoopusX has made the physical tuning dial their trademark, and with the OP-22 they have refined it into something genuinely compelling. Where the OP-24 offered a tuning dial that nudged its Harman-adjacent bass, the OP-22 delivers two distinct and meaningfully different bass presentations — both smoother and more interesting than anything the OP-24 brought to the table — paired with a treble tuning that pushes for a wider, more holographic soundstage in a way that feels deliberate rather than accidental. At $34.99, it is an ambitious IEM that wears its mech-inspired personality on its sleeve.

The OP-22 sits in an increasingly competitive slice of the budget hybrid IEM market, but its physical tuning mechanism — combined with a bass character that diverges meaningfully from the now-familiar Harman curve — gives it an identity that is harder to dismiss than most of its peers.

Unboxing and Packaging

The OP-22 arrives in a compact, well-printed box with the characteristic mech-inspired aesthetic carried through from the product itself. The back of the box covers the key technical information and driver architecture. Opening the lid reveals the IEMs prominently displayed, and beneath that first layer the accessory contents are neatly organised.

The accessories box and the documentation:

The accessory package is sensible for the price point. Included in the box are the OP-22 IEMs, the bundled cable, a selection of silicone eartips across multiple sizes, and documentation with a guide to the tuning dial modes. For under $35 this is a complete and considered package.

Build Quality

The OP-22 shells carry the futuristic mech aesthetic that defines OoopusX’s current lineup. Build quality is solid for the price, with a smooth finish interrupted only by the tuning mechanism housing. One practical detail worth highlighting is the alignment indicators moulded into the top of the shells — small markings that ensure you orientate the IEMs correctly before insertion, a small but appreciated ergonomic touch for an IEM with a physical switch on the body.

Close up, the shell surface is smooth with a clearly visible vent — a necessary design element for the dynamic drivers, managing internal pressure and influencing bass character.

The nozzle is well-proportioned and pairs cleanly with the included silicone eartips:

One slightly annoying thing with the design is that the 2-pin connector are not clearly highlighted for the left and right channels:

The bundled cable is notably good for a sub-$35 IEM:

It uses a pre-formed ear-hook that keeps the cable seated cleanly over the ear, and the termination quality at both the 2-pin end and the plug feels sturdy. Cable memory is low and it sits tangle-free in daily use. It would not embarrass a $100 IEM so great for this price.

The eartip selection is practical — multiple sizes of silicone tips are provided, and as we will see in the measurements section, tip choice also offers a useful lever for adjusting the treble balance to taste.

Fit and Comfort

The OP-22 wears comfortably over extended listening sessions, I do like its modest size compared to many IEMs with larger shells:

The shell geometry is compact enough to sit flush for most ear shapes, and with the correct tip size the seal is consistent without requiring an aggressive insertion depth.

The pre-formed cable hooks contribute meaningfully to stability. The tuning dial housing does add a small amount of bulk to the IEM body, but in practice it does not cause hotspots during normal listening — the dial sits naturally against the outer ear rather than pressing into it. Over-ear cable routing is the intended wear style, and the shells orientate correctly in that position.

Features

The Tuning Dial

OoopusX provide a little guide to dial modes:

The tuning dial is the OP-22’s headline feature, and it is worth understanding how it works before getting into the sound.

More neutral - less bass:	Tuned for bass:

The active mode is read from the dot visible on the dial face: an open dot (Mode O) engages the linear, controlled bass presentation, while a solid dot engages the bass-boosted tuning. Critically, the dial can be actuated with the IEMs seated in your ears — no removal required. This is not just a novelty. It changes how you interact with your music library in a fun way.

Internal audio architecture

The internal architecture is a hybrid quad-driver design:

With two custom coaxial dynamic drivers (10mm and 8mm, with a silicone-suspension composite carbon fibre dome diaphragm) handle the low end and lower-treble impedance optimisation respectively, while two custom balanced armature drivers cover the mid-high frequency range and upper extension. The crossover architecture ensures that switching the dial meaningfully reroutes the acoustic contribution of the dynamic drivers, producing genuinely different bass textures rather than a simple shelf adjustment.

Sound Impressions

All listening was conducted using a variety of sources, including desktop DAC/amp setups and mobile dongles. The OP-22 is easy to drive — the high-sensitivity design scales cleanly from modest sources without requiring significant gain. I spent the first several sessions committing to each tuning mode independently for a few hours, resisting the temptation to switch mid-session, before eventually leaning into the real-world use case of dialling per track.

Bass

The bass is where the OP-22 earns its identity, and both modes reward careful listening. In Mode O (open dot — the linear setting), the low end is characterised by smooth, controlled mid-bass that draws close comparison to the JM1 target profile. Sub-bass extension is present and honest without being exaggerated, decay on bass notes is well-managed with minimal bloom, and kick drums land with a clean transient and adequate note weight. Bass guitar lines retain textural definition rather than merging into an undifferentiated mass of low-frequency energy. Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly is a good reference here — the tight, extended low end is reproduced faithfully in Mode O, with each bass note landing and releasing without excessive overhang, and the harmonic texture of the electric bass lines remains clearly resolved.

Switching to the solid dot (bass-boost mode) brings a noticeably fuller, warmer presentation. The added low-end weight is smooth rather than punchy — this is not a V-shaped slam machine — but the added body underneath the music gives pop, hip-hop, and electronic material a more engaging foundation. Steely Dan’s “Aja” illustrates the difference well: where Mode O keeps the kick drum crisp and well-separated from the bass guitar, the solid dot mode adds satisfying authority and makes the groove feel more physical. After extended listening across both modes, I found myself defaulting to the solid dot for the majority of my sessions. The added warmth suits the OP-22’s overall character, and the bass boost does not destabilise the midrange or smear its leading edges.

Midrange

The midrange is competent and enjoyable, though not the OP-22’s primary calling card. Tonal density is reasonable, with vocals carrying adequate body and instrumental timbre that reads as natural rather than coloured. The lower midrange benefits from the coherent crossover handoff between the dynamic drivers, avoiding the sense of a crossover seam that can sometimes betray budget hybrids. Where the OP-22 steps back slightly is in precision and micro-detail retrieval — something like the Truthear Pure resolves fine vocal texture and upper-midrange layering with a more exacting touch. The OP-22 is not competing on that axis. What it delivers instead is a relaxed, listenable midrange that never sounds thin or recessed, and that works naturally with the forward lower-treble character of the tuning. Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” is a useful reference — the acoustic guitar and vocal intimacy come through with reasonable presence on the OP-22, though fine micro-detail in breath and string attack does not surface with the resolution of the better technical performers in this price bracket.

Treble

The treble is the most characterful and potentially divisive element of the OP-22’s tuning, and it is clearly deliberate. The dual balanced armature drivers contribute strong extension and resolution to the upper frequencies, and the overall impression is of a treble that reaches comfortably for air and shimmer without becoming harsh at the very top. Where the OP-22 departs from a neutral baseline is in the 3–4 kHz region, where a forward presence peak adds energy to the lower treble. This brings instrument leading edges forward, enhances the perceived sense of spatial width, and is the primary driver behind what the OP-22 achieves in its soundstage. It also means that tracks with aggressive upper-vocal content or bright brass can push toward sibilance if the recording is already forward in that region. The dual-flange eartip option is worth trying for anyone sensitive here, as it pulls that energy back a little. Nils Lofgren’s “Keith Don’t Go” is a good test for the treble balance — the high-harmonic shimmer and pick attack on the fretted acoustic guitar come through with good sparkle and detail, and the BA extension means there is genuine air in the recording’s upper register. This is not an analytically precise IEM, but the treble resolution is solid for the price.

Soundstage and Imaging

The soundstage is where the OP-22 surprises and earns listener loyalty. The combination of the forward lower-treble tuning and the OP-22’s shell geometry produces a wider-than-expected presentation that consistently creates the impression of listening beyond the confines of the ear canal. Width is the primary dimension — the stage does not have extraordinary depth, but the left-right spread is holographic for a budget IEM. Imaging sits solidly within that wide space, with instruments maintaining consistent positions across the mix rather than drifting. Supertramp’s “Crime of the Century” demonstrates this convincingly — the famous studio space and reverb tails spread across the stage with genuine separation, and the channel distinction feels earned rather than artificial.

Specifications and Measurements

Specifications

Measurements

My measurements confirm what the ears report. The two tuning modes produce genuinely distinct bass responses — not a minor shelf tweak. Three things are worth highlighting from this graph. First, the two bass curves diverge meaningfully in the sub-bass and mid-bass region, giving each mode a clearly different character. Second, the forward presence peak in the 3–4 kHz region is clearly visible and is the direct source of both the wider soundstage impression and the occasional sibilance ceiling on bright recordings. Third, the upper treble is nicely controlled — the BA extension contributes to resolution without producing the ragged energy that some budget BAs add at the very top.

For reference, the official OoopusX measurements show the same picture. The contrasting bass response between the two modes is clearly evident in their data as well, and both sets of measurements confirm the same overall tuning character — it’s reassuring to see close alignment between the manufacturer’s measurements and my own.

Placing the OP-22 alongside the OP-24 makes the generational shift clear. The OP-24 featured a more Harman-adjacent bass tuning — an elevated mid-bass shelf that followed a fairly conventional template. The OP-22 moves in a more characterful direction with both of its modes stepping away from that familiar baseline.

With all four tuning curves overlaid — both modes of the OP-22 and both modes of the OP-24 — the OP-24’s two tunings land roughly in the middle of the OP-22’s range. The OP-22 offers considerably more extreme bass differentiation between its modes, which translates into a more meaningful and satisfying listening experience when you actually engage the dial.

The Mode O (linear) bass tuning shows close alignment with the JM1 reference in the mid-bass region. The smooth, controlled character without the Harman hump is clearly annotated here — this is what gives Mode O its textured, unhurried bass quality, and why it functions as an effective “clean slate” starting point for listeners who prefer a more reference-adjacent low end.

Eartip selection makes a modest but real difference to the OP-22’s measured response. The included silicone eartip options produce slightly different presentations, with minor shifts across the frequency range driven by insertion depth and acoustic volume differences. Nothing dramatic here — the OP-22’s character remains consistent across tip choices — but it is worth spending time finding the tip that gives you the best seal.

The more meaningful eartip experiment is the dual-flange option. The above measurement shows a dual-flange tip pulling the 3–4 kHz presence region back noticeably. If the OP-22’s default lower-treble forward nature is too much for your preferences or for certain recordings, this is the simplest analogue correction available without touching digital EQ.

It is worth confirming that the bass dial delivers meaningfully distinct output regardless of tip type. Even with foam eartips — which naturally attenuate upper frequencies and can blunt some transient dynamics — the measurement shows both bass modes remain clearly distinct. The tuning dial mechanism is acoustic and driver-level, not tip-dependent.

Distortion performance is excellent for the price. Both the absolute distortion and distortion-percentage graphs show clean, well-controlled output across the frequency range with no obvious harmonic anomalies. The coaxial dynamic driver configuration delivers good low-frequency linearity — an area where budget DDs can sometimes struggle.

Rating Explanation

The OP-22 earns a four-star pragmatic rating because it delivers on its core promise with genuine skill. The tuning dial is not a gimmick — both bass modes are well-tuned, meaningfully different, and accessible without removing the IEM, and that single fact changes how you interact with your music. The build quality is solid, the cable is genuinely good for the price, and the measurements back up what the ears report. Five stars for price and features reflects the simple reality that a $34.99 hybrid IEM with a functional physical tuning switch, two well-measured bass profiles, and a nice cable is genuinely exceptional value for money.

The one honest caveat is the treble tuning. The forward 3–4 kHz presence is a deliberate design choice, and for a subset of recordings and listeners it may produce some sibilance or fatigue that a more neutrally-tuned IEM would not. The treble tuning also makes the OP-22 less detailed orientated — the tuning prioritises staging and engagement over analytical precision. These are not flaws so much as clear design decisions, and the four-star measurement score reflects a tonality that is nicely unique but that will not suit every listener equally.

At $34.99, the OP-22 is the right choice for listeners who want something that does not sound like everything else in the budget category, who find genuine value in the ability to do some bass-switching capability, and who appreciate a wide, open presentation over a surgically precise but more intimate one.

Conclusion

OoopusX has made the tuning dial their house feature, and the OP-22 is where that feature reaches its potential. Two genuinely distinct bass characters — one referencing the smooth, controlled texture of the JM1 target in the bass and midrange regions (though not in the treble) and one adding satisfying warmth and body — both accessible at a turn of a dial while the IEMs remain in your ears. It is the kind of feature that you might think is a novelty but ends as something you miss on different IEM.

The forward lower-treble tuning adds a point of unique character to the tuning — it is the ingredient that gives the OP-22 a wider than expected soundstage, and if that signature resonates with how you hear music, this IEM will consistently outperform its price tag.

If you are after a budget IEM with a genuine personality, a functional tuning system that actually gets used, and a bass response that steps away from the typical IEMs in this price range, the OP-22 at $34.99 makes a very compelling case.