Hello, I come back to you regarding my search for a pair of IEM. Carpet gave me leads based on the music I used to listen to, but not being a sound engineer and a novice in the field, I read the descriptions of the sound of each IEM, I can't imagine if this will suit me. And since IEMs can't be tested, I have only my doubts.
So, I figure if I try to describe what I like to feel when I listen to music, will it be easier to advise me?
I personally play classical guitar and piano (as an amateur, eh) and I like when I listen to a piece of guitar to feel the vibration of the string, its sustain and the emotion to win me over. Same thing for the piano. I also like when I listen to pop, or rock, to be pierced by the beat and the depth of the voices. And I like wide stages, feeling like I'm in the music, rather than just listening to it. Finally, I hate tones that are too cold.
I don't know what it corresponds to in the bass, midrange and treble.
Well, I don't know if you can help me; or guide me? Thanks.
I have a max budget of 400 euros, but maybe it's not necessary to invest so much?
Probably goes without saying as most of my research is on loudspeakers so take ABSOLUTELY NOTHING I SAY AT FACE VALUE. THINK CRITICALLY FOR YOURSELF! (hopefully this doesn't come accross as rude, needed to emphasize the disclaimer)
Do you have a preference target curve. If so you're probably already at least 90% progress.
Mine SEEMS to be Moondrop Variations with about -1.5dB from 4kHz and above.
That being said. It's well over budget unless you can find it at a discount and even then it goes for like €420 on a sale I believe.
If you care about dynamic range however. You want to make sure there's as little ringing as possible, as ringing is your worst foe as far as non-linear distortion goes.
If you can read frequency response graphs, you may want to look for ones that show no spikes accross the range beyond the usual insertion depth resonance usually at 8kHz.
Beyond Moondrop Variations and presumably Crin's own Dusk and also possibly the Etymotic ER2/4. But all I own is the BLON BL-03 which I DON'T recommend anymore. With how fast everything advances it's kind of a relic of the past already.
Can you audition where you live? If so don't quote me on this but you may wanna keep testing each IEM until you can trigger a zen moment. But there's no mention of audition accessibility on your reply so I can't tell for sure.
But as someone who has mostly studied loudspeakers, there's only 3 major parameters I can qualify from a quantifiable source.
Linear distortion: Any deviation from the target response. Much easier on loudspeakers than on headgear as generally on loudspeakers you want dead flat tuning, but as headgear bypass a lot of body interactions you may again want to prepare your own target curve fof this.
Non-linear distorion: Any sound the device produces beyond the fundamental frequency response such as harmonic distortion and cumulative spectral decay. The latter in particular is why the thansducer end of the audio chain is the bottleneck whether is a freebie or the the Elysian annihilator 2021 they all have a mass and therefore can't start/stop on a dime. But you still want as little of it as possible.
Directivity: On loudspeaker it refers to how far off-axis you can step away from the speaker before sound pressure reduces to a certain threshold... Probably N/A in headgear.
Hopefully this isn't too much at once. But this is a general idea of how much I researched before buying what I did.
