[Steve B.]

I have tried many, and while they are convenient I just cannot find an IEM that sounds as full and exciting as full sized over ear headphones. I have Shure 846, campfire Vega, Audeze iSine20, and others, and I would take my Fostex Th900 mk2 over them any day. I would even take my $300 Fostex T60RP over those IEM.

Anyone really think IEM's can compete? I feel like I am paying for portability, but not sound quality.

 

[theveterans]

I don't think so especially against full size speakers or some great sounding headphones. Not even my $1100 CA Andromeda can match the $299 Yamaha HS7 speakers in all areas, including treble but Andromeda has some coloration that can sound more fun than the HS7 but considering technicalities, HS7 beats it though by a small margin. Yamaha HS7 mids IMO is close to uncolored sound for me and that's my mids preference.

 

[Sonic Defender]

Scale of sound matters. There are bones and other structures that communicate sound waves so larger, air moving drivers such as in a full-sized headphone have the ability to stimulate these structures more than very small drivers placed deeper inside the entrance to the ear canal. So in that respect, the musical communication of scale will certainly be more convincingly communicated to the hearing brain so I would suggest that full sized drivers will just be more realistic if all other things are held equal.

 

[sp0525]

I also agree that full size headphones generally sound better. Both smaller driver sizes (=weaker bass) and bypassed concha interactions (=weaker highs) seem to be a huge loss by comparison.

 

[GREQ]

At the risk of causing even more confusion, the same holds true for earbuds.
I've not heard many IEMs, but I've never heard one that can compete with the newest earbuds coming out of Indonesia and China, and those cost pocket money.

 

[Ra97oR]

At the risk of causing even more confusion, the same holds true for earbuds.
I've not heard many IEMs, but I've never heard one that can compete with the newest earbuds coming out of Indonesia and China, and those cost pocket money.

I can't disagree more with that, unless you completely disregard bass performance.

 

[GREQ]

I can't disagree more with that, unless you completely disregard bass performance.

Depends on which buds you've heard.
Also, buds don't fit everyone's ears, that's one of the downsides. The same bud can be extremely bassy, and sound extremely thin to two different people just because of the size of their ear canal opening.

 

[Ra97oR]

Depends on which buds you've heard.
Also, buds don't fit everyone's ears, that's one of the downsides. The same bud can be extremely bassy, and sound extremely thin to two different people just because of the size of their ear canal opening.

Only tried the popular ones and ones from Yuin days, just not my cup of tea. Maybe it's my ear canal, they never did sound much better than the first gen iPod earbuds.

In term of IEM vs full size, I think it's best to focus on getting a presentation you like rather than going after technicality. If you are chasing massive soundstage in IEMs or even any headphones, you are going to hit a wall relatively quickly. Instead, IEM's intimate soundstage work well for more forward vocal, for example.

 

[megabigeye]

I have tried many, and while they are convenient I just cannot find an IEM that sounds as full and exciting as full sized over ear headphones. I have Shure 846, campfire Vega, Audeze iSine20, and others, and I would take my Fostex Th900 mk2 over them any day. I would even take my $300 Fostex T60RP over those IEM.

Anyone really think IEM's can compete? I feel like I am paying for portability, but not sound quality.

I'm going to be the dissenting voice here.
What do you mean by "full and exciting?" When I think of a "full" sound, I usually am thinking of bass response; and when I think "exciting" I think both bass and treble. Maybe you mean something different by those terms, but an IEM, in my book, can do those things just as well as any on- or over-ear. There are only two reasons that an IEM wouldn't have the same bass response as a full-sized headphone: 1) it's just not within its signature; or 2) you're unable to attain a proper seal. Driver size is only part of the equation.
To my ear, the only way that a full-sized headphone really "beats" an IEM is in soundstage, and even that, for me, is only a narrow margin. I'm probably not as much of a soundstage hound as a lot of Head-Fiers, as I've never really desired more than my HD 650 of DT 1990 could provide-- both of which could pretty generously be described as "intimate." From my experience, the UM Pro 50's soundstage is not that much narrower (if at all) than either of those open cans, but the HD 650 and DT 1990 are more three-dimensional and realistic.

And for me, the convenience factor of an IEM is HUGE and should not be discounted. My open headphones sound amazing at home, but would be useless if I took them outside. Even my PM-3, which were marketed as being portable, are not nearly as real world portable as my IEMs.

Yeah, an IEM isn't going to rattle your skull the same way an over-ear will. But then, an over ear can't hit you in the chest like a subwoofer can, and a subwoofer won't shake the world to pieces like a passing train. This is kind of like saying apples are better than oranges because you can't make an apple pie with an orange.

I'm not trying to argue that you or others shouldn't prefer full-sized headphones to IEMs, and maybe you're just hearing things differently from me, but I just can't see how an across the board statement that full-sized are better than IEMs is justifiable.

 

[Sonic Defender]

All valid points being made here. For me, touching on the above convenience issue, I find it really inconvenient to have to stuff foreign objects partly into my ear canals, deal with various tip and other fit issues so convenience is of course also highly subjective. Horses for courses and thankfully we are all so lucky that this hobby has great gear for all of us no matter where we stand on the subject. Cheers.

 

[mattiav]

I also think IEMs ‘suffer’ because they’re very sensitive to fit and seal, with different tips providing easily heard differences in sound presentation. But per dollar? Tough to compete with full sized headphones. Given my use is mostly mobile, I’m fine with paying a bit more to get really excellent portable sound playback...

 

[HBen]

There are IEM's that actually can match the sound quality of full size headphones, they however cost significantly more and also obviously cannot match open over ears in sound stage.
If you're going TOTL the air for IEMS to match with TOTL over ear gets very thin. The Shure KSE1200/1500 is one of the few IEM's I consider on a similar level, I have also heard others, but at prices that make even the Shure KSE's look relatively cheap

 

[Sonic Defender]

Yes, and regardless of the technology and R&D, the prices of all such devices are astounding. Consider that you can buy arguably a decent quality car with airbags, stereo, all kinds of features, the works for around $16 000, just an approximate number. That car will have all kinds of raw materials, production, shipping, distribution and taxation costs. Now put your tiny little IEM on the hood of the car, or your Utopia and look at the orders of magnitude differences in actual resources and manufacturing etc. Makes you wonder a little. Yes scale of economy, but man it really does create a stark comparison.

 

[megabigeye]

I'm really not understanding what it is that the other commenters are hearing that makes full-sized headphones unequivocally better than IEMs? Other than soundstage, I mean?
When I was hunting for IEMs, I set my budget to be roughly equal to my most expensive (and best) pair of full-sized (DT 1990) because I didn't want an IEM that was going to make my best headphone sound bad by comparison. This is, of course, accepting that the correlation between price and quality is only approximate. I'm glad I did it this way– to my ears, in terms of technicalities, the UM Pro 50 is every bit equal to the DT 1990, with the exception of soundstage. I'm really not hearing any compromises.

Maybe my expectations are just different (more realistic?) from other commenters?

There are a lot of broad generalizations here that full-sized are better, but can people point to any specific points that makes them better? There are some comments that the outer ear affects the way we hear certain frequencies, but to me this just presents a difficulty in designing an IEM, not a disadvantage in how it sounds.

PS, I'm not trying to say that my point of view is the right one– I'm trying to figure out if I'm right or if there's some aspect of my headphones/IEMs that I'm not hearing.

 

[GREQ]

In my experience, most of the good, well celebrated or famous headphones, IEMs, buds, whatever, are so because they achieve a certain harmony between audio quality, balanced tonality and sometimes (rarely?) price.
But, that's where the similarities end for me.
To my ears, even when it's detailed enough and tonally balanced enough, there's a stark difference in the 'presentation' of the sound that cannot be summed up as 'soundstage'.
Of course, 'presentation' varies greatly even in the most similar of headphones, but that's nitpicking for this discussion.

We all actively focus on different parts of the sound, so of course there will be aspects you don't naturally pay close attention to or may even ignore.
Of the things I pay attention to personally; I find that IEMs seldom possess 'air'. This I've seen sometimes simplified to "anything over 10kHz", but again, I think it's more complex, and something that occurs more naturally in open-back headphones and earbuds.
Closed-backs and IEMs very often can't present sound with the same sense of expansiveness, and sounds don't just appear more 'in my head', but even on a psychoacoustic level, it's difficult to imagine it being any larger.

I also really love sub-bass.
In all my headphones, buds, IEMs, if there is no sub-bass, I feel it's missing a whole layer of sound, and one of the most important parts of the sound that gives a sense of scale and presence and impact.
It really saddens me that frequency response graphs start at 20Hz, since I can feel and 'hear' everything down to 1hZ if the headphone is capable... (just not so much over 16kHz )
Anyway, IEMs naturally excel at sub-bass, so I was easily fooled into thinking my relatively cheap IEMs were pretty decent.
After trying out some new earbuds, I was gobsmacked at how much more quality sub-bass I was getting (yes - buds can be bassier than IEMs), combined with detailed treble, 'air' and soundstage that I've never heard from an IEM. (although Shure SE846 came close from what I recall)
But that's one major point for me. I'm getting an enjoyable sound presentation from $3-30 ear buds that I can't get from an IEM under $1000(?).
Of course expensive IEMs might produce a more accurate sound with more detail, but if it's boring, what's the point?

It's all relative and we've all got different preferences, but that's one thing that makes this all so interesting.
I'm not making any counter statements or arguments here, just throwing in some meandering thoughts and opinions.