Review: Ocharaku Flat4-Sakura Plus – Atmospheric

Sound

I’ll start with a flippant landscape overview: Sakura Plus throws a much deeper midrange whose focal plane dips toward the listener, magnifying depth. That midrange distends most through the vocal range, and tends to heats up in strident stringed passages. That’s probably what originally threw me off. And that probably because I’m not a die hard classical and jazz listener. When it comes to piano music, I’m heavily invested in the alternative, in the reverb-heavy stuff Nick Cave foists on his fans.

And his pianos do get hot, blooming when given enough midrange sound pressure. Sakura Plus shimmers warm around his riffs – warmer certainly than Ultrasone IQ and Kaede II. Contrariwise, it erects a much larger space around piano, around strings, around vocals – which fractionally mollifies that heat. It’s not the super delineated space that Campfire Audio’s Andromeda re-defined. And it’s not as emotionally warm as the Noble Audio K10. 

Ocharaku Sakura Plus (6 of 10)

But it’s emotes wetter than both Kaede II and Kuro. And perhaps owing to that deep, forward midrange plane, Flat4’s typical focus on dry, deep bass is pushed back. What I hear is a bigger, warmer, but less stereo-detailed low range. It congregates closer to the centre of the head and pushes from the bottom up. It is powerful, throbbing, and ultimately a warming element. At times it blooms, perhaps owing to an upper mid-bass bump. At the macro level, I consider this a minor loss compared to Kaede II. But taken in landscape, it is a brilliant pay off in balance. 

The yawningly deep intro seconds to Markus Schulz’s Mainstage vibrates north of neutral by several decibels. But bass, while throbbingly strong, posts softer edges than Kaede or KURO. 

Highs are less peaky, less easy to excite than both KURO or Kaede. Still, Sakura Plus’s energetic upper midrange pushes forward enough to possibly bother certain really treble-sensitive people. Like its bass, Sakura Plus’s high range is less organically detailed than Kaede II. From a sound pressure perspective, it cleaves closer to emotive, forward upper mids. 

Ocharaku Sakura Plus (9 of 10)

As a result of Sakura Plus’s mids domination of a much larger foundation, the perceptual, contrast-based lateral sound stage is narrower. You won’t get up from your office after some part of an orchestra hidden in the bathroom or behind closed doors. But you may find yourself looking behind you, to where Sakura Plus’s deep midrange throws. Next to both KURO and Kaede, guitars are edgier and hotter. Combine that with rich vocals and you have the best Ocharaku for Nick Cave, for Knopfler, for John Denver. 

The problem I have with this presentation is the same I have with Andromeda, is the same I have with the K10: the melodic is, in my opinion, a bit hot for classical trance and 2000’s EDM. Bass pushes energy forward from the bottom, but melody really takes over from there. Classical beat-driven trance, whose melody is mastered flat, gets hot. Modern melodic and uplifting, which rely more on psycho-acoustic midrange positioning, make really nice with Sakura Plus’s mid-deep, mid-forward sound. Highs don’t branch out that far to the left or right. They hug midrange extremity in thin, semi-energetic bands. As a result, the feeling of being enveloped by trance energy diminishes vis-a-vis Kaede. 




While modern trance is reforming into a perceptually slower and midrangier genre, it’s not quite Sakura Plus ready. It is close, though. Trance up to and including 2008’s incursions into pop, are somewhat fatiguing. Later trance is less so. For almost all other genres, I prefer Sakura Plus to anything else from Ocharaku, and almost across the board, to anything else out there.

End words

Do I finish with the conclusion that Sakura Plus is the Flat4 for the masses? Do I suggest that it will tickle the fancy of new-production HD650 owners? It is of course silly to compare a cicrumaural headphone to an in-ear. But I have a feeling that, looking back on 2016 from an Olympic apartment in Tokyo, people will say that Sakura Plus was Ocharaku’s first jack-of-all-trades: the earphone that defined Ocharaku’s image to audiophiles like the HD650 did for Sennheiser. 

Well done.

4.1/5 - (18 votes)
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Back before he became the main photographer for bunches of audio magazines and stuff, Nathan was fiddling with pretty cool audio gear all day long at TouchMyApps. He loves Depeche Mode, trance, colonial hip-hop, and raisins. Sometimes, he gets to listening. Sometimes, he gets to shooting. Usually he's got a smile on his face. Always, he's got a whisky in his prehensile grip.

11 Comments

  • Reply June 3, 2016

    Barun C

    Great article Nathan. The conclusion you make in the end is quite big statement in itself. Do you think Sakura Plus will be able to hold its ground as long as HD 650 did before HD 800 kick-started the high-end dynamic driver revolution again? Cause in terms of SQ you might have a point there. I have used the Ocharaku Nami for a few years now and it still is my favourite Universal IEM closely followed by the Sony MDR Ex-800ST and the Velvet.

    • Reply June 3, 2016

      ohm image

      The end statement deserved a further hour or two of honing. But the message is one I mean: all of Ocharaku’s Flat4 earphones are, in their own way, ground breaking. But this one is in a unique place all its own.

      In terms of time- will this one hold for ten years like the HD650? I didn’t make _that_ claim, but I am confident that it will be the one up until now that is looked back on as the big change – at least as Tokyo Olympics roll around.

      • Reply June 3, 2016

        Barun C

        We will certainly see. The 2020 olympics always reminds me of Akira, I don’t know how such a coincidence came to be. Anyway I need some advice from you about CIEMs. Please PM me. Thanks

  • Reply June 15, 2016

    W.H Lin

    I have KAEDE II & donguri. I have to say that OCHARAKU is indeed the best brand manufacturing earphones. Quite natural, detailed, and tranquil sound.

    • Reply June 17, 2016

      ohm image

      Agreed, though it depends on your definition of ‘tranquil’.

      • Reply July 12, 2016

        W.H Lin

        The background of Ocharaku’s sound is tranquil.

  • Reply June 30, 2016

    Lau C

    Would Sakura Plus do rock justice? The bulk of my music is piano/guitars with a woman singing but I love to rock out too.

    Or is Kaede ii better for the task?

    • Reply June 30, 2016

      ohm image

      Personally I think so. Its sound (as with all earphones) depends greatly on fit and insertion depth. If its phase tube and your ears match perfectly, you’ll get what I heard, which is great for rock.

      • Reply June 30, 2016

        Lau C

        Thank you for your quick reply. I’m still weighing in the Sakura and Kaede ii and deciding which one to get.

  • Reply July 20, 2016

    wasaki

    is it wet natural and thick like Audeze or thin ,lean and bright like beyer ?
    I start to like audeze housesound, also he 1000 is very good indeed.
    sold most of my full size :hd 800,t1 and th900 .

  • Reply May 6, 2019

    Banchongsan Charoensook

    Hi. I’m considering to buy either Kaede II or Sakura Plus. My preference is on intimate vocal and imaging, as I listened to a lot of tenor/soprano operatic concert. Which one do you think is more suitable to my preference?

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