[joefig44]

I own a pair of Noble Audio Kaiser Encore CIEMs.
I'd like to go with a pair of Powerbeats Pro truly wireless earphones as my daily drivers. My main motivation of course is to remove all wires from my daily commute and elsewhere. I believe I'd wear them much more often as putting on my CIEMs and dealing with their wires is the main reason a don't put them on much....can't be bothered, unless I'm planning an intensive music listening session.

So what would you do? Would you stick with the CIEMs or go for truly wireless?

 

[davidcotton]

Stick with ciems. Can't you get a bluetooth dongle such as the fiio and use that?

 

[joefig44]

Stick with ciems. Can't you get a bluetooth dongle such as the fiio and use that?

I could get one, but there would still be wires to contend with. But I hear you, hard to give up the great sound from my Encores.

 

[BananaOoyoo]

There's also the Fostex TM2 - it looks a bit clunky, but it does get rid of the wires.

 

[oknidius]

So what would you do? Would you stick with the CIEMs or go for truly wireless?

A year and a half ago I began the transition to fully wireless.
Cables dangling in public transit, Neanderthals who don’t take their backpacks off and tangle their bag side straps in my cables as they push to get off at the last minute (coz you know they were playing with their cellphones instead of minding where the bus or subway was at)...

Then I dropped all Bluetooth headphones and earphones and went back to CIEMs and occasionally IEMs, cable issues and all that.

The sound compromise (Bluetooth compression even in LDAC and apt-X HD is still very audible despite the progress), the Bluetooth connection issues (drop outs, unpairing/re-pairing, fiddling with Bluetooth menus even with AirPods stubbornly trying to connect to my iPad instead of my phone and having to manually select them)... it wasn’t worth it. So I went back to cable-dangling CIEMs. I’m enjoying my music now instead of worrying about Bluetooth connectivity and hearing Bluetooth compression artifacts.

 

[davidcotton]

Just tuck the cable inside your shirt?

 

[BananaOoyoo]

Or you could get a short 2-pin cable and an ES100 to make it mostly wireless.