Hey, I want to thank you all here for a great discussion where everyone's opinions are appreciated. It's rare these days to have such discussions without drama or personal emotions to get mixed up with actual topic. I've been long time lurker in head-fi and due to this thread I just had to create account and really say I'm really happy I ended reading this thread and seeing your posts here(!)
It's amazing how good quality sound you can get with ~100$ (or even for lot less). What that has caused is that I have re-found my love for the music, all of its small nuances and its emotions. Inspired by the discussion here I set up limit of 100$ to spent in iems to see how good they actually are.
I bought Tin Hifi T2+, HZSound Mirror and Blon BL-03 (I run them from Sonata HD Pro -> Schiit Magni 3+ ->). Reason why I chose those was the I wanted to get three different sounding iem's to actually see what I really want and prefer.
- Blon BL-03 - For the money they're good since you can get them around 20$, still bass bleeding to mids is too much for me. Least used of the bunch.
- HZSound Mirror - Complete opposite of BL-03, clarity and energy in mids & treble are magical but sound stage and bass are lacking. I'm using these with acoustic music and songs where bass doesn't play big role.
- T2+ - Everything sounds good on these, they do everything better than BL-03 but are missing energy and clarify of HZSound Mirrors. Sound stage is wide and instrumental positioning is good. They are neutral but in my books that's only a good thing, since you hear the music as it was intended.
What I also noticed is that dac/amp playing big role in sq. For example Sonata HD Pro sounds so much cleaner than my old Fiio E07K that at the beginning I could not believe it. Anyways, each of those are easily worth the value and they all sound good, when I compare the chi-fi I used to have 10 years ago. They're actually so good that I don't know if its worth to pay more but as most of here know rabbit hole gets deeper and I'm already looking into next steps.
Talking about next steps, I want something neutral that's next step from T2+ and currently I'm thinking between Fiio FH3, Moondrop Starfield and NICEHCK NX7 mk3, any opinions on these? I know these are on fence of sub 100$ but I think many here have gone through this