Life has been a great teacher to me. Like many, I've gone from the cheap IEMs to the kilobuck IEMs. But I don't know many people who have gone backwards though. But this has happened to me and I struggled with the meaning and reasoning.
Yes, like many, my first IEM was a Moondrop. The Kato, my First Love ironically. I remember when I first got the box and opened it up and fell in love with the packaging, nozzle options, tips, and just the overall attention to details. I got the mirror finish but wanted the Matte Steel version but it wasn't available back then. And then I did something most do, I started going on forms to talk about the joy I had in the Kato, only to find out that this was a bad step because all others did was point out that I didn't have the really "good" IEM ...just a starter and if I was serious I needed to buy yet another one like the blessing 2's.
So I listened. Not because I wasn't happy but because others told me I would be happier. But the funny thing about that was that once I got the blessing Dusk, the same thing happened. I was told "Well, you have a nice "MiD" tier IEM, but if I wanted the real stuff I would need to buy a $500 iEM because those are where things were". I didn't feel comfortable with the thought of $500 iem without hearing it for myself. So I rebought the Kato (blue steel) instead because I never felt that the blessing dusk was giving me all I wanted and when I got it the blue steel Kato..I forgot all about the Dusk. I was so happy to be back with the Kato. I just couldn't really understand what more people could need truly that this wasn't already doing. So I took my Kato on a trip to New York and did the one thing I shouldn't have...went to the 64 audio and listened in person to all the IEM'S that were at the $500 mark and found the Theiaudio Oracles mk2 . They told it was the best $500 IEM so I listened and was impressed so I purchased it .
As ironic as it seems ...once I got both the Kato and Oracle mk2 into a listening test, I kept finding the Oracle mk2 good but in different areas while the Kato was still better in others. But I returned the Kato nonetheless because I wasn't going to keep both and made sense that a $590 product should be better than a $160 product, being stupid again. So then, this finally led to the kilobucks.
Monarch mk2 and U12T were the whole talks and considered by most the best in the 1k-2k range at that time. So I sold my Oracle mk2 to help cut some off of financial cost for the two. And yes, they were the best I've heard but I decided to stay with the U12T over the Monarch mK2 because most felt those were better "in the chat rooms". For me I could see different reasons for both to be considered. But after keeping the U12T, while it was the best overall, I was still missing the Kato and couldn't put my finger on why So I decided after a year with the U12T that getting a secondary IEM for my EDC purposes would be smart. So I decided get a moondrop Variation, not considering the Kato as the price was just too low, so I just knew it wouldn't be something I would want compared to the ultimate killobuck sound, being stupid again.
And just like that the world came apart because the $500 variation made me feel that the U12T were not needed. The sound difference was so minor beteeen them that I could take either one and be happy. And this led to me wondering about the Kato vs all of them if a $500 IEM could come so close to a kilobuck IEM. So I finally got the Matte Steel Kato.
All worlds fell apart that day. Not because the Kato was better, but because the U12T wasn't $1800 better in sound and the $500 Variation weren't better than the Kato at all. This reality is something a lot people see over time, so it's not some great revelation, just mine. If anything, I found the $2000 u12T at the most a $150 sound difference over the mere $160 Kato IEM. And what's worse was that there was still things the Kato was better at than the U12T. It delivered a better intimacy in its soundstage, it's fit was better and the cable and case was also better. It also was really close to its timbre and imaging as well. So close that when I used them I could never point out what I was missing by not having the U12t in my ears vs the Kato on a day to day bases. Sure the U12T were superior in some ways easily but other areas it just didn't pull ahead far enough to matter, especially considering the cost. All I knew was that while I had all these choices from the Dusk, Variation, U12T, and the Kato on a day to day bases..the Kato was my go to every day.
I even took the time to compare my wife's $500 Dunu Sa6 Mk2 to my Kato and again found only minor differences that didn't at all come close to the price difference again; thinking that this might have just been a Moondrop thing and not a law of diminishing returns thing. Ultimate this is what it comes down to though. I came to terms that I would never justify the cost against the sound difference past a certain price bracket and I had to be honest enough with myself to understand that this was a standard I had that I was not willing to negotiate with so I decided to stand with my $160 Kato. I even went lower in cost with other IEM but found that the Kato actually proved itself against lower cost IEM easily unlike those so call higher tier IEM did against it. So it proved to be a bracket that was in range of performance to cost ratios. So I decided to sell my U12T and return my Variations. All this, just to return back to where it all started for me. And I'm not at all sitting here to tell others that their choices are wrong. I understand this is all subjective in many ways but the law of diminishing returns is real.
