midgetguy said:

 
Pricing like projected to be $200-400 or like $100-200? Mid-tier can be different prices to different people just like the product itself. I'd personally consider both of those brackets to be mid-tier, borderline upper-tier.

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The way the audiophile universal IEM market has moved the last few years, high end is close to $1000 (and extending well above), midrange is around 300 to 1000 and low end is under 300 (give or take a bit…)
 
sad, imo, but that’s how it looks like. nearly all flagship universals are over 1k.

lcfiner said:

   
The way the audiophile universal IEM market has moved the last few years, high end is close to $1000 (and extending well above), midrange is around 300 to 1000 and low end is under 300 (give or take a bit…)
 
sad, imo, but that’s how it looks like. nearly all flagship universals are over 1k.

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I personally consider about $100-399 mid-tier, $400-$700 to be upper-tier, and $700+ to be top-tier. But again, different definitions to different people. I happen to be a college student so the pricing tiers are gonna be skewed compared to how some other people view it. And there's stuff in the $100-300 range that sound incredibly good, far too good to be considered low-end.

Eh, close enough.

And I totally agree with you on there being excellent sounding stuff under 200. It's just that a lot of talk on here is about new top of the line flagships and so my perspective is skewed since those are the really expensive ones and the ones getting talked about a lot.

deviltooth said:

 
Speakers are definitely different than C/IEMs.  I can't agree that cheap/poor speakers get much better with a more powerful/better amp.  Poor speakers have their limits and they may improve a little but don't scale up much.  Take great speakers and add the right source and yep, there's an improvement but again I'd rather put the lion's share of my audio bucks into the speakers themselves.
 
P.S. Spend a fortune on 'magical cables' and watch things change not (or barely) at all.

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Depends of course on the level you start at. Partner cheap speakers with a mid-fi amp and go to a high-end amp and I notice the difference whilst changing to high-end speakers with the same amp just goes to re-inforce that it's the amp holding things back. So many mid-fi amps are absolutely terrible and lifeless sounding to me with poor stereo width, everything 2 dimensional. Ok, I think I'm really talking about integrated amps and not necessarily power amps - really cheap class-D poweramps (or poweramps with a pot for volume control) can sound superb - as I suspect it's the pre-amp sections holding the amp back. Of course it's never black and white - there are some great cheap products and mediocre expensive ones out there.
 
Anyway, I guess that's all of a thread drift..

lcfiner said:

   
The way the audiophile universal IEM market has moved the last few years, high end is close to $1000 (and extending well above), midrange is around 300 to 1000 and low end is under 300 (give or take a bit…)
 
sad, imo, but that’s how it looks like. nearly all flagship universals are over 1k.

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True that it's sad.
 
It's all marketing. If you want people to aspire to own something then you put the price up. If you want people to believe that their product is superb sounding before they've even heard it, you put the price up and increase the bling.
 
Most of the super expensive CEIMs are still using the same brand BA drivers and you can buy the drivers for not too much personally, let alone bulk purchase sale prices.
 
Do higher price earphones also have the same percentage dealer margin? If so, then more of your cash is going to the store too...
 
When you get a high-end CEIM, so many offer custom designs for the mould. So how much are they adding to the price which is purely about looks and nothing about the sound?
 
When you look at the market, as you get to the high-end (priced) earphones you realise how much extra money you're paying which has nothing to do with sound quality whatsoever..
 
Fact is though, that if you want to make both maximum profit and a great brand image (which brings in more money) you make the most expensive CEIM you can. If that wasn't the case then there wouldn't be ever more brands with $1k+ offerings.
 
Hopefully, the savvy people will call BS on many of them and find much cheaper iem end-gamers here and there. Remember too that Flare are looking into custom moulds for the R2s (for stage use) so I'm sure they would be retro-fitable.

luckynat said:

   
True that it's sad.
 
It's all marketing. If you want people to aspire to own something then you put the price up. If you want people to believe that their product is superb sounding before they've even heard it, you put the price up and increase the bling.
 
Most of the super expensive CEIMs are still using the same brand BA drivers and you can buy the drivers for not too much personally, let alone bulk purchase sale prices.
 
Do higher price earphones also have the same percentage dealer margin? If so, then more of your cash is going to the store too...
 
When you get a high-end CEIM, so many offer custom designs for the mould. So how much are they adding to the price which is purely about looks and nothing about the sound?
 
When you look at the market, as you get to the high-end (priced) earphones you realise how much extra money you're paying which has nothing to do with sound quality whatsoever..
 
Fact is though, that if you want to make both maximum profit and a great brand image (which brings in more money) you make the most expensive CEIM you can. If that wasn't the case then there wouldn't be ever more brands with $1k+ offerings.
 
Hopefully, the savvy people will call BS on many of them and find much cheaper iem end-gamers here and there. Remember too that Flare are looking into custom moulds for the R2s (for stage use) so I'm sure they would be retro-fitable.

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That wouldn't be surprising, but the thing about CIEMs is that you've got the drivers and shell, then a removable cable, which means Flare will have to redesign the driver side a little so that the cable and driver just had more wiring (admittedly probably not too hard for them to do, but I'm no expert).
 
 

lcfiner said:

Eh, close enough.

And I totally agree with you on there being excellent sounding stuff under 200. It's just that a lot of talk on here is about new top of the line flagships and so my perspective is skewed since those are the really expensive ones and the ones getting talked about a lot.

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It's true that flagship stuff is always hugely marketed because it's the whole "pushing the envelope on what can be done to advance audio fidelity" thing. But when it comes down to real-world marketing, the more interesting items to me are the products that offer 80%+ of performance at 1/8 of the price. They're the ones that will be more affordable and more widespread (or as widespread as any audiophile offering is gonna get, none of the good stuff will ever get as widespread as Beats).

midgetguy said:

 
Pricing like projected to be $200-400 or like $100-200? Mid-tier can be different prices to different people just like the product itself. I'd personally consider both of those brackets to be mid-tier, borderline upper-tier.

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its slated to be 200 USD, and to me that puts it in mid tier

redjohn456 said:

 
Yeah ur talking about the Deltas right? Yeah it was a private conversation via PM, not a post not eh forums. Just saying that what I heard changed my mind about buying it  Just today I read some posts about how the hyperion needed comply to make the treble less piercing for some people, in the labster thread no less. Atleast I think it was there, might have been the Trinity thread. Anyway its not a knock against them, everyone has different tastes but what I heard about the deltas changed my mind about buying them. Will stick with the R2A for the time being. 
 
R2A is good but its not the best I have heard honestly (far from it). On a related note, one of the best I have heard is a pre release iem I have had for the last 2 weeks and its a micro driver as well
Also, my XBA Z5 is pretty good as well, much easier to use than the R2A.

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Well I had both, and I still have the Deltas, sold the R2as. No Comparison.
 
JMHO
 
TWIN

twinacstacks said:

 

Well I had both, and I still have the Deltas, sold the R2as. No Comparison.
 
JMHO
 

TWIN

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not disputing what you're saying. the r2a is okay for the price, i just find the black blackground to be unique thats about it. The Z5 massacres it in everything else. Which is not a fair comparison ofc but it is what it is. Also, the pre-release iem MASSACRES the R2A so hard in terms of pure transparency and clarity, not even close 

redjohn456 said:

 
not disputing what you're saying. the r2a is okay for the price, i just find the black blackground to be unique thats about it. The Z5 massacres it in everything else. Which is not a fair comparison ofc but it is what it is. Also, the pre-release iem MASSACRES the R2A so hard in terms of pure transparency and clarity, not even close 

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RJ now you have my interest. Pre-release? Tell me about this Z5.
 
TWIN

redjohn456 said:

 
its slated to be 200 USD, and to me that puts it in mid tier

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That's squarely mid-tier in my books haha.

I'm still shocked these are getting more positive attention. They are more transparent, spacious and lifelike than anything I've heard by a decent margin. With other IEMs/HPs my ears have been pretty in line with consensus, but not these.
 
Although on second thought, there does not seem to be much consensus. Some like the headfonia reviewer praise them as revolutionary, others sell them as meh. I'm much more in the former group.

twinacstacks said:

 

RJ now you have my interest. Pre-release? Tell me about this Z5.
 

TWIN

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I don't mean to go OT but sorry for the confusion, by Z5 i was referring to the Sony XBA Z5. The pre-release iem I am talking about is called the VE Duke. I have been comparing it to the the R2A extensively and to me there is no contest (Duke>R2A)
 

 
Here is a shot of the VE Duke (ignore the weird foam tips, they are supposed to have those holes haha)
 

 
This is a comparison between the VE Duke and Flare R2A

stuff jones said:

  I'm still shocked these are getting more positive attention. They are more transparent, spacious and lifelike than anything I've heard by a decent margin. With other IEMs/HPs my ears have been pretty in line with consensus, but not these.
 
Although on second thought, there does not seem to be much consensus. Some like the headfonia reviewer praise them as revolutionary, others sell them as meh. I'm much more in the former group.

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I won't say these are revolutionary, but the R2As are a good set of IEMs at the Kickstarter price in my opinion. From "meh" to "wow these are amazeballs", I'd say I'm like 70% of the way between the two for my musical tastes. The biggest draw for me is the comfort level brought on by the small housings; that plus how they mesh with my music library.

midgetguy said:

 
I won't say these are revolutionary, but the R2As are a good set of IEMs at the Kickstarter price in my opinion. From "meh" to "wow these are amazeballs", I'd say I'm like 70% of the way between the two for my musical tastes. The biggest draw for me is the comfort level brought on by the small housings; that plus how they mesh with my music library.

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The tiny housings are pretty awesome.  I love small bodied IEMs, easy to carry and a better comfort level.