[peter123]

VE Bonus IE or the QKZ VK4

Good suggestions, I'll throw the NICEHCK DB3 in the mix as well.

 

[theguy69]

Suggestions for listening to rock music/good mids: My options are kz zst x, kz zsn pro x, qkz vk4, kbear ks2, Signature Acoustics Ocean. What would you guys recommend out of these? Other stuff is not really available to me. I'm kinda leaning towards the Signature Acoustics Ocean I wonder if anyone has tried it.

 

[baskingshark]

Suggestions for listening to rock music/good mids: My options are kz zst x, kz zsn pro x, qkz vk4, kbear ks2, Signature Acoustics Ocean. What would you guys recommend out of these? Other stuff is not really available to me. I'm kinda leaning towards the Signature Acoustics Ocean I wonder if anyone has tried it.

What's your budget? And do u need isolation/easy drivability?

Of your choices above, I've only tried the KBEAR KS2.
If u like "good mids" as per your post, I wouldn't recommend the KBEAR KS2. That set is very V shaped, and the lower mids are very distant. In fact this distant lower mids gives it a very good soundstage for the price. It has okay technical peformance for $20 USD, but the timbre is off for acoustic instruments. The bass and upper mids/lower treble are overexaggerated. It is one level shy of true basshead quantities, but the upper mids are hot and harsh. It would be a good set for genres without acoustic instruments in view of the odd timbre. EDM sounds quite good with this set due to the copious bass amounts, maybe it can do a good job for rock, but is it not a set for vocal or mid lovers as per your post.

 

[theguy69]

What's your budget? And do u need isolation/easy drivability?

Of your choices above, I've only tried the KBEAR KS2.
If u like "good mids" as per your post, I wouldn't recommend the KBEAR KS2. That set is very V shaped, and the lower mids are very distant. In fact this distant lower mids gives it a very good soundstage for the price. It has okay technical peformance for $20 USD, but the timbre is off for acoustic instruments. The bass and upper mids/lower treble are overexaggerated. It is one level shy of true basshead quantities, but the upper mids are hot and harsh. It would be a good set for genres without acoustic instruments in view of the odd timbre. EDM sounds quite good with this set due to the copious bass amounts, maybe it can do a good job for rock, but is it not a set for vocal or mid lovers as per your post.

Thanks mate, I don't need isolation or easy drivability and my budget is around 40 usd. It's a damn shame everything is sooo v-shaped these days

 

[baskingshark]

Thanks mate, I don't need isolation or easy drivability and my budget is around 40 usd. It's a damn shame everything is sooo v-shaped these days

Ya most of the sub $50 stuff are V shaped or harmanish for consumer preferences. Personally, I think it is hard to find an IEM that suits both rock and have "good mids". Rock genres generally benefit from a V shaped tuning, to boost the bass for a "fun factor" and have some upper mids boost for clarity in vocals/electric guitars. Midlovers benefit from something more neutralish or even midcentric, which is an opposite of a V shaped tuning.

Quite hard to have your cake and eat it at this price segment. Unless, you find something that has tuning filters/nozzles. You may wanna read about the TRN STM. It has 3 tuning filters to change the signature from U shaped to more V shaped to neutralish bright. It is easily drivable, 1 BA + 1 DD, good price to performance ratio. Not bad technical performance for the price of $20ish USD. It has poor timbre though for acoustic instruments, and has thin note weight, and sometimes the upper mids and treble can get shouty on certain tuning filters.

Something U shaped may also be a compromise. You can read about the Tin T2 Plus. DD set, good tonality and timbre, quite inoffensive tuning and smooth, it has quite nice bass and mids. Technicalities are about average compared to multi BA/hybrids, but I think it is quite an all rounder for most genres. It is usually > $40 USD, though I've seen it at $30ish USD during sales, and 11/11 is coming. It lacks a bit of dynamics and can be boring, and isolation is not the best. One thing to note is that there are a lot of forum reports of wonky MMCX connectors on this set (mine included), so best to buy it from somewhere with a good returns policy eg Amazon, just in case.

 

[RikudouGoku]

Ya most of the sub $50 stuff are V shaped or harmanish for consumer preferences. Personally, I think it is hard to find an IEM that suits both rock and have "good mids". Rock genres generally benefit from a V shaped tuning, to boost the bass for a "fun factor" and have some upper mids boost for clarity in vocals/electric guitars. Midlovers benefit from something more neutralish or even midcentric, which is an opposite of a V shaped tuning.

Quite hard to have your cake and eat it at this price segment. Unless, you find something that has tuning filters/nozzles. You may wanna read about the TRN STM. It has 3 tuning filters to change the signature from U shaped to more V shaped to neutralish bright. It is easily drivable, 1 BA + 1 DD, good price to performance ratio. Not bad technical performance for the price of $20ish USD. It has poor timbre though for acoustic instruments, and has thin note weight, and sometimes the upper mids and treble can get shouty on certain tuning filters.

Something U shaped may also be a compromise. You can read about the Tin T2 Plus. DD set, good tonality and timbre, quite inoffensive tuning and smooth, it has quite nice bass and mids. Technicalities are about average compared to multi BA/hybrids, but I think it is quite an all rounder for most genres. It is usually > $40 USD, though I've seen it at $30ish USD during sales, and 11/11 is coming. It lacks a bit of dynamics and can be boring, and isolation is not the best. One thing to note is that there are a lot of forum reports of wonky MMCX connectors on this set (mine included), so best to buy it from somewhere with a good returns policy eg Amazon, just in case.

I agree that most rock/metal songs are better with a bit more v-shaped tuning rather than a midcentric tuning. BUT the important part is that the bass must be tight, otherwise it will just muddy up the entire sound. That criteria does make it more difficult to find an iem, because most budget iems dont have good quality for the bass. (and also not very good detail and that is usually why they boost the treble quantity, to make the listener percieve more "fake details".)

 

[theguy69]

Thank you guys. I will take into account your recommendations. I would've thought that neutral earphones would've helped rock cause lower mids would be more present but what you say about bass bleeding into mids makes a lot of sense!

 

[RikudouGoku]

Thank you guys. I will take into account your recommendations. I would've thought that neutral earphones would've helped rock cause lower mids would be more present but what you say about bass bleeding into mids makes a lot of sense!

Generally, you are either getting good tonality or technicalities in the sub 50 usd range. Not both.

I say you could take a look at the BQEYZ KB100, Blon BL-05S and maybe the hzsound heart mirror.

Or if iem isnt a requirement, I say you should look into earbuds like the NiceHCK DIY MX500 or the Yincrow X6. Those are much cheaper and perform on a very high level, so the value is insane for what you are getting.

 

[theguy69]

Generally, you are either getting good tonality or technicalities in the sub 50 usd range. Not both.

I say you could take a look at the BQEYZ KB100, Blon BL-05S and maybe the hzsound heart mirror.

Or if iem isnt a requirement, I say you should look into earbuds like the NiceHCK DIY MX500 or the Yincrow X6. Those are much cheaper and perform on a very high level, so the value is insane for what you are getting.

Thank you for the suggestions. If you don't mind can you expand more on the tonality vs technicalities part. Do you mean stuff which has good tonality naturally follows a v shape?

Edit - unfortunately none of your recommendations are available to me

 

[RikudouGoku]

Thank you for the suggestions. If you don't mind can you expand more on the tonality vs technicalities part. Do you mean stuff which has good tonality naturally follows a v shape?

Technicalities: soundstage/imaging, detail, instrument separation and timbre

Tonality: note weight (how thick or thin it sounds), sound profile (V-shaped, L-shaped, U-shaped....)

Better technicalities would have bigger soundstage, more precise imaging, more details, better separation betweeen instruments and how close to the real thing the sound is (timbre).

Better tonality is more subjective, where rock/metal for example would be better with a thinner sound rather than a thick sound. And hip-hop being better with thicker sound.
For example, the Final Audio E5000 is the thickest sounding iem I have and it isnt very versatile in what it can play, same with the opposite - the Moondrop Blessing 2 is my thinnest sounding iem. (they are basically polar opposites.)

 

[theguy69]

Technicalities: soundstage/imaging, detail, instrument separation and timbre

Tonality: note weight (how thick or thin it sounds), sound profile (V-shaped, L-shaped, U-shaped....)

Better technicalities would have bigger soundstage, more precise imaging, more details, better separation betweeen instruments and how close to the real thing the sound is (timbre).

Better tonality is more subjective, where rock/metal for example would be better with a thinner sound rather than a thick sound. And hip-hop being better with thicker sound.
For example, the Final Audio E5000 is the thickest sounding iem I have and it isnt very versatile in what it can play, same with the opposite - the Moondrop Blessing 2 is my thinnest sounding iem. (they are basically polar opposites.)

Thank you very much for the detailed answer! I know I am asking too many questions(pardon me I'm a newbie) but when looking at budget iems. Is it better to go with stuff which has more drivers? For example- http://signatureacoustics.com/sa-ocean-fe-01-wiredbluetooth-earphone-with-deep-bass/. I was looking at this. It has 3 drivers each side and most chi fi stuff has 2 drivers each side. I wanted to ask how is the durability of this stuff(in context of budget iems)? Is it safer to go with iems with lesser number of drivers(as lesser number of things that can go wrong) when going with budget iems(especially chi fi)?

 

[RikudouGoku]

Thank you very much for the detailed answer! I know I am asking too many questions(pardon me I'm a newbie) but when looking at budget iems. Is it better to go with stuff which has more drivers? For example- http://signatureacoustics.com/sa-ocean-fe-01-wiredbluetooth-earphone-with-deep-bass/. I was looking at this. It has 3 drivers each side and most chi fi stuff has 2 drivers each side. I wanted to ask how is the durability of this stuff(in context of budget iems)? Is it safer to go with iems with lesser number of drivers(as lesser number of things that can go wrong) when going with budget iems(especially chi fi)?

More driver doesnt equal better sound. But I do think it does give them more potential to sound better, its just that the implementation will be harder so most of the time simpler is better.

But if you want to join the driver count nuclear race, you can get the CCA C10 for like 20 usd and it has 5 drivers (1 dd + 4 ba) for each side lol.

As for the durability....I actually dont know. Since I have so many iems, each of them dont get that much use time.

 

[RicHSAD]

Thank you guys. I will take into account your recommendations. I would've thought that neutral earphones would've helped rock cause lower mids would be more present but what you say about bass bleeding into mids makes a lot of sense!

I agree that a V-shape is good for rock and metal. For me it's all about making the drum sound good so you need enough bass to get a nice slam out of the kick drum and enough treble to get those sparkly cymbals. They're a bit over your budget sadly, but I would recommend the Urbanfun YBF-ISS014. Nice bass slam without too much bleed into the mids and nice clean highs that aren't faiguing.

 

[RikudouGoku]

I agree that a V-shape is good for rock and metal. For me it's all about making the drum sound good so you need enough bass to get a nice slam out of the kick drum and enough treble to get those sparkly cymbals. They're a bit over your budget sadly, but I would recommend the Urbanfun YBF-ISS014. Nice bass slam without too much bleed into the mids and nice clean highs that aren't faiguing.

Except that the QC of the urbanfun is really questionable and you don't know of you are getting the beryllium or noble metal version.

 

[theguy69]

I agree that a V-shape is good for rock and metal. For me it's all about making the drum sound good so you need enough bass to get a nice slam out of the kick drum and enough treble to get those sparkly cymbals. They're a bit over your budget sadly, but I would recommend the Urbanfun YBF-ISS014. Nice bass slam without too much bleed into the mids and nice clean highs that aren't faiguing.

Man more than budget the bigger problem is availability. Most of this stuff that people usually recommend are only available to me via importing and I've had some not very pleasant experiences with that sometimes so I try to avoid it. Anyways if anyone can give me a recommendation or comparison between the zst x and zsn pro x that would be cool