How good is good enough? That is the one question I keep asking myself as I encounter yet another top-of-the-line (TOTL) gear. At this price, diminishing returns start creeping in, you begin splitting hairs, focusing on not only the whole picture but also the abstract representation of it all. Dunu has been in the IEM game a long time. They were also one of the first IEM brands that got the hybrid setup right. Beyond the hybrid stuff, their single dynamic models have also been quite memorable. I myself bought the Dunu Titan 1 (reviewed here) and it...

BLON BL-05 Review Regression to the Mean Unexpected success leads to some interesting phenomena. When BLON launched their BL-03, I am fairly positive that they did not expect the cult following outright. Heck, it flew under the radar for months until people started taking notice and then the hype train turned into a juggernaut. I highly recommended it and till this day it’s been one of the benchmark in the under $50 price-bracket. Enter BL-05, BLON’s second release in the BL series of IEMs. No, I won’t tout the BL-05 as a BL-03 successor...

Cayin YB04 Review Opening Shot Judging the “first ever” product in a brand’s lineup is quite perplexing. There’s no precedence, so it has nothing to live up to (in a sense). Mostly there isn’t much expectation; it’s new, so you just don’t know what might come out of it. On the flip-side, if it’s a turd — that’s the end of said product line for the most part, and the company has to either bury the very existence of it (Amazon Fire Phone, anyone?) or just deal with the stigma forever (Microsoft Kin, darn). Cayin’s first ever IEM, the YB04, faces...

This review originally appeared on my blog. Wireless audio thus far has been associated with “trading absolute quality for the sake of convenience”. Most of them BT headphones are tuned in a consumer-friendly manner and won’t provide you with the highest resolving capability or technicalities to boot. Enter HIFIMan Ananda BT. HIFIMan have been one of the front runners when it comes planar magnetic headphones and the technology itself. Who can forget the legendary HE-6, or perhaps the now defunct yet absolutely awesome Edition X V2? Despite...

Cayin N6 Mk. II Review: Of Peculiarities and Pleasures Cayin knows their stuff. Unlike many recent Chinese brands, they have been around for quite a while. They’ve been focusing on the portable market recently, and the N6 Mk. ii is their latest offering (which is a successor to the original N6). The new model ditches the awkward look of the original and settles for a more traditional candybar style. Meanwhile, it also brings in an Android-based UI/UX, offers a properly modular ecosystem with swappable motherboards that change the entire DAC/Amp...

RHA T20i Review: Old Guard Very few companies can tout that they make their drivers “in-house”. RHA is one of them. They originally piqued my interest back in 2013 with their MA750i earphones, which had a very comprehensive packaging and a rather fun tuning for something not priced at the upper echelon of the market. Surprisingly, those are still being sold by RHA, and while there are better IEMs at that price nowadays — they don’t completely fall apart against the competition unlike some of their contemporaries *cough* Shure SE215 *cough*. RHA...

Kinera Tyr Review Unassuming This review was originally published on my blog: https://medium.com/10hztech/kinera-tyr-review-d3f09992c9d4 Looks can be deceiving. Well, we all know that, yet we are often too quick to judge stuff based on their appearance alone. Kinera Tyr is one such case, where the unassuming design and specs can easily get one into thinking, “yet another cheap single dynamic driver IEM, nothing we haven’t seen before”. Kinera has been manufacturing IEMs for quite a while. They usually have a unique design language, but both the...

In a strange turn of events, Fiio decided to launch a sub-brand called Jade Audio where they would rebrand their existing products, perhaps cut a few corners and price them temptingly low. Good idea, innit? Jade Audio EA3 is the only IEM (so far) in Jade Audio’s lineup, and the rest are either Bluetooth amps or the solitary TWS earbud. Fiio positions the EA3 as a successor to the FH1, which retailed for $99 at launch and had a… less-than-adequate sound to my ears. So, did Fiio manage to bring out something competitive in the budget range? Let’s...

It’s been quite a while since Dunu has released a new “budget” IEM. Their last budget model, the Titan 1es, has been around for over two/three years now, and in this period the recent chi-fi boom has over-saturated the <$100 market to the point of exhaustion. Forget Flavor of the Month, it’s Flavor of the Week nowadays. Thus, Dunu decided to finally revamp their entry-level lineup, and the DM-480 sits just above the DM-380. In theory, this kind of magnet-to-cone driver placement will allow the DM-480 to have increased efficiency (sensitivity in...

The “Pro” moniker has become sort of a meme at this point. Just look at all those phones flaunting “Pro” at the end for the sake of having a larger display, or an extra camera. What’s professional about that? Who knows. Sennheiser, however, isn’t here to mess around. The IE 40 “Pro” is indeed meant for professional use, in this case: stage monitoring. The whole Pro lineup is actually quite interesting, with a number of innovations made exclusively for them. The upper end IE 400 and IE 500 models are a bit too detached from the budget realm, thus...

It’s always a nice exercise to go back to stuff that once sounded “oh-so-awesome” and compare them to the latest offerings. Dunu Titan 1, or its rebranded and cheaper version — the Fiio EX1 (the one that I have here, sounds the same), were once highly lauded and often suggested. Since then they have fallen by the wayside, thanks to the insane amount of chi-fi choices in the sub-$100 range. I have been using one myself, albeit intermittently, for over two years. So, how do they stack up against the current competition? Note: the ratings given...

It’s difficult to keep track of how many IEMs KZ have launched in a month. Or so was the case before the launch of the KZ ZSX — dubbed as the “Terminator” by KZ themselves. Whether it terminates the competition, or merely the rest of the KZ lineup is the question. This is the first time I will formally review a KZ IEM, as apart from the KZ ATE all their IEMs since then have been various forms of meh. They are not bad in terms of specs, as KZ seems to be very intent on winning the driver-count war (as useless as the megapixel war in smartphones)...

It’s hard being a flagship. Just being “pretty good” across the board won’t cut it. Outright supremacy is the aim here, and that’s the bar that Meze Audio has set for themselves with their flagship Rai Penta. It’s quite a jump considering that their previous highest-tier IEM was the Meze 12 Classics worth ~$80. Meze did take their sweet time with the whole building and tuning process of the Rai Penta, which added further to the expectations. Then again — better safe than sorry. So, how close do the Rai Pentas get close to excellence? Read on...

Did someone say Flavor-of-the-month? Well, the BLON BL-03 has been the FOTM for a few months running, so maybe, just maybe, there’s a gem in the hiding. The BL-03 uses a Carbon (nanotube?) driver, and is one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest IEM to use such tech inside the housings. The first CNT driver IEM that I recall was Dunu Falcon C, and that thing had a price-tag of over $200. The “trickle-down-effect” has done its wonders indeed and so we have a strictly budget IEM that aims to take a shot at the big boys. Note: the ratings given will...

Cowon is a rather well-known yet rarely-mentioned Korean audio device manufacturer. Their marketing is downright terrible compared to, say, Fiio or Hidizs, they ask premium prices for seemingly barebones devices and worst of all — they are hard to find. All these ensure that most of their devices stay under the shadow of anonymity. I knew them back from the days of using JetAudio (darn I loved that player on Windows XP), and I assume most of us have tried JetAudio at least once in our lives. I bought the Cowon Plenue D with a view to using them as a...

Update: 01/2024 - As I am still using the E5000 (over 5 years now), I believe it is high time for a 2024 update to this review, with comparisons against the modern "benchmarks" under USD$300. The update is in the works and will be published here upon completion. Final Audio has one of the coolest names around, and they’ve made some of the most unique (to put it mildly) earphones over the years. They came up with their new E-series IEMs somewhere around the end of 2017, and it is part of the “new” Final where they try to cater to every market...

(This review was originally published on my blog) Moondrop. I wonder what it might mean… Nonetheless, Moondrop made a name for themselves with their fantastic Moondrop Blessing 5-driver hybrid that targeted the Harman Curve, aka the “reference” frequency response that an In-ear monitor should have. While I personally believe that Harman target response’s 3K peak is too much for me, many find such a frequency response rather pleasing. Enter Moondrop Crescent, Moondrop’s second-lowest offering as of now (lowest being their budget earbud: Moondrop...