Thanks! For $9.90 or so delivered I won’t look back on the Monks. I can always give to the kids. I hate sibilance....makes me cringe. Would prefer clean upper bass and forward mids I think. Really enjoying my Sennheiser 6xx off Massdrop, amped with the Creative e5.
I’m definitely going to start researching and thanks seanc6441 for the link.
My musical taste is:
Rush, Zeppelin, Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler, Kristina Train, Karen Carpenter, Croce, Aesop Rock, Pearl Jam, Idol, some occasional dance beat club mixes, some 80’s stuff like Tears For Fears. Occasional jazz. Current Pop maybe. On earbuds it would probably be the occasional fall asleep...so Enya, Celtic, calming instrumental.
Not dubstep, don’t like much hip hop, no electronic.
Budget: under $50 for multiple. Over $50 for knock me off my ass. I’m thinking of getting g the Apple EarPods at $170 just for the ridiculous convenience and good enough without catching a cord on everything. I own 10 other pair of Bluetooth I don’t use, just too much isolation.
Budget Range
RX1 (with some EQ and other tweaks): Clear and most detailed under $50, smooth, lush-full forward vocals/mids, neutral tonality and fairly balanced response. Not as extended in sub bass or treble as others but enough to enjoy most music, but very smooth and refined so absolutely no sibilence or harshness. Good imaging and close-medium sized soundstage.
Monk plus: (Darker, warmer mid centric signature, very airy and light sound, soundstage is quite decent. No sub bass or treble extension so avoid genres that require this)
Moondrop Nameless: (don’t own myself): Balanced, slightly warm, separatation and wide soundstage, relaxed and smooth signature... apperantly very good and great build quality for the price (metal shell).
“Knock you on your ass earbuds”
Shozy BK: Natural, neutral-slightly warm signature, linear response with slight sub bass roll off, analog tuning with a slight lower mid bump for deep vocal emphasis, airy up top, extremely lush thick vocals gives a similar experience to full size cans. Great resolution/detail and instrumental separation. Intimate forward soundstage, just enough width and depth to enjoy most genres other than EDM/atmospheric stuff, definitely a smaller soundstage overall but with excellent imaging. Love the classy look, very nice cable and understated matte black finish
Penon BS1 (worn over ear and with fit tweaks): Neutral in tonality and balanced, medium body to the vocals, very smooth and lush. Little brighter than the BK with more of an emphasis on female vocals, but has a lovely balance of sub and mid bass with the right fit. Almost as detailed as the bk, clarity is too notch. Soundstage (again with the right fit) is large and airy, imaging is headphone standard 3D and accurate (I mean it). Best value for performance of all my premium earbuds. Cable and build quality is amazing but a little on the heavy side.
My advice is to get budget earbuds and get some premium ones after if you feel like upgrading , maybe avoid mid range from $30-80 because it’s not always an impressive jump in SQ but going from $20 to $100+ will be much more pleasing. Besides the budget stuff is extremely nice price-performance and I still enjoy it along with my more expensive stuff for various uses.
Of course if you want to collect lots of earbuds do whatever you like
) But if you’re looking to get the most out of your earbuds budget and premium offerings make sense for practical reasons and listening enjoyment respectively.
