Hey guys,
Just want to say thanks again to anyone who helped with suggestions. This is a great thread, and community, for people like me that occasionally dip in and out of the audio field (nor are very audio savy to begin with
), and as a result aren't up to date on the more obscure, budget beating Chi-Fi world. It was daunting to begin with; initial searching brought up a whole plethora of seemingly arbitrarily named products: Tin T2, ****, 1More, CCA C10, ZSN, E1000 - whatever are these mysterious abstract codes, and why are there so many of them? SO many options! Luckily, you guys helped decipher it all. I had many suggestions and they truly helped me out.
I ended up going for the KZ ZS10 Pro. It's relatively new, so reviews and impressions are only now just starting to trickle in. If they're anything to go by, I'm very enthused with how it's been received.
After this thread I was looking at he TFZ T2. From what was written here and elsewhere, the quality and sound signature sounded like what I was looking for. The TRN IM1 was also suggested and I seriously considered it, but some feedback from others gave me a little pause. Same with the RevoNext QT5. They were shortlisted. T2 was the front runner though. T2 looked to be around $59 USD in-stock at the cheapest on Aliexpress.
Then I started to see stuff about the KZ KS10. I was peripherally aware of KZ when I initially started researching (KZ ZSN and ZSN Pro seemed to be what I seeing recommended), and knew they were a big player in the Chi-Fi space. Looked into the ZSN pretty heavily as they seem so ubiquitous and well liked. Seemed a good option. Stumbled across the ZS10 Pro and saw it was getting some good press. I watched a lot of Zpolt on YouTube, and he really liked them. The scarce videos from other reviewers there seemed to like them too. Sounded like what I wanted - slight V sound but with good detail and clarity across the spectrum. I saw they were available for around 32 USD on Ali at the time. Cheaper than the T2, which I'd also have to budget in a Mic cable for.
Hmmm. Looked for written impressions, but they were few and far between. Those that did have them seemed to like them though.
Hmmm. Damn, they also look really nice too with the metal plate and transparent shell.
Hmmm... Bah, screw it - I'll just buy these! They tick all the boxes.
Anyway, I guess I'll know for myself soon enough. More reviews are coming out and I'm pretty happy I went this direction. All feedback seems to be generally good. Bad Guy Good Audio seemed to really like them and picked them over the more expensive options like the KZ AS16. I'll try and update with my impressions when I received them.
Again, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone that helped with suggestions. It made the decision process so much clearer. Even those that didn't help directly, as reading back through this thread about IEMs I was uhmming and ahhing about was extremely beneficial.
And with that, I'm back down the rabbit hole - I know because even though I decided on what to get and purchased them, I still want to get the **** because it sounds so intriguing.
*sigh* Thanks guys!
EDIT: I should probably mention I purchased on the 12th of May. They only just shipped though. Having a look at the dedicated KZ thread it seems like there's been a lot of recent activity since and the discussion on these is very positive. Guess we'll see if they suit soon enough.