[moveway]

I need help navigating the IEM market.

I've never used IEMs, and the only "audiophile" gear I've ever owned is a Phillips Fidelio X2. (It's ehh, pinches my head and being open the audio experience seems very inconsistent.)

As for what I want out of the sound. I mostly listening to the following:

(Majority)
Dnb/Jungle/UK Garage
IDM/Ambient/Techno/Electro
Trip Hop/Future Jazz

(Minority)
Post-punk/Shoegaze
Indie/Psychdelic Rock
Post/Math Rock
Samba/BossaNova/Classical Guitar

The unifying theme is usually breaks/breakbeats and interesting rhythmic structures. This often means the bass is important, but I don't want bass that takes away from the rest of the song. I want warm bass but not so intrusive the mids and treble die out.

Here's a sample of things I wouldn't want suffering due to a pair's frequency response:
Hidden Agenda - The Sun
Alaska - The Vortex
Ilk - The Sound of Falling
Lewis James - Your Love Is A Power

(If you gave those a listen thanks, I appreciate it. Notice the crisp drum-work on 1 and 2 against the mids and treble. The growling reece bass and male vocals on track 3, and the high female vocals on track 4. All things I care about for my musical listening.)

Originally I was looking in the $200-350 range, as I'm hesitant to spend a lot more as a first time buyer of an IEM without knowing my own tastes. The Campfire Comet caught my attention, but upon researching DDs, BAs, and Hybrids more the Atlus and Solaris both seem to target my music collection better. Yet that's a huge jump in price, and raises questions over needing a DAC (more $$$) on top of the purchase. Original plan was to drive off my LG G7.

Of course I'm not just looking at the campfire brand, but I want to make an investment for a daily driver that will last me 3 years and hopefully longer. So build quality is important to me, especially as the IEM climbs in price.

- Other IEM recommendations based on my music?
- Could I drive a Solaris off the G7's build-in quad dac or is that a waste of money without also getting a portable amp, or using a dedicated DAP?
- My impression is that I could drive an Atlus off a phone fairly easily, is that right?
- Am I being swayed by the Comet's price, and would the single BA disappointment a bass heavy music collection?
- Other things I should consider, know, or be aware of?

I'm not looking for right answers just outside perspectives to inform my decisions. Cheers!

 

[ricksome]

Welcome to the forums.
moveway said >>>Am I being swayed by the Comet's price, and would the single BA disappointment a bass heavy music collection?
Don't be swayed by single BA vs multiple BA. Read the reviews under the Portable Headphones, Earphones & IEM Monitors Threads. You will find the guidance you are looking for. Your budget is generous. You should be able to find the sound signature that you are looking for. Good Luck / Rick

 

[baskingshark]

I strongly suggest u to start from a < $50 USD IEM and move up from there. It would be money down the drain if u enter with a midfi ~ $300 buck IEM and it turns out you don't like the sound signature.

I have been using IEMs for the last 15 years for stage monitoring and listening to music and I realize the Chinese brands have really caught up to the western midfi segment in the past 2 years, providing good price to performance ratio. I used to buy Shures and Westones, but seriously I can get almost the same sound quality for a fraction of the price with these CHIFI gear. If you are not brand conscious, there's lots of great deals, so much so, I have stopped buying western gear the past 2 years.
There are a lot of new releases from the CHIFI world recently that have excellent reviews at < $50 USD - the TRN V90, CCA C12, KZ ZSX, BLON BL-03. You can check out more and ask the other headfiers in this thread: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chinese-asian-brand-iem-info-thread.820747/

Most IEMs are low impedance and have high sensitivity and can be driven by a smartphone, no issues. I think your LG should be able to handle most of them good enough. Though some IEMs may scale better with a dedicated amp/DAP/DAC.
In general I find single BA sets will usually lack in the bass department in terms of quantity, so a lot of sets now come with hybrids (DD bass with multi or single BA handling higher frequencies), or multi BA sets.

DDs and BAs have their strengths and weaknesses. Generally DDs give a more natural and organic timbre and have a longer bass decay and move more air with the bass. Whereas BAs generally give better instrument separation, clarity, details and are quicker on the bass. You can get the best of both worlds with hybrids, but sometimes there are crossover issues.

I think based on your above genre preferences, IMHO a good starting point may be the KZ ZS10 Pro (1DD + 4 BA) (it was my daily driver for the past 3 months). But I've given it away recently as I upgraded. It has good clarity, details, instrument separation, slight V shaped profile. Very compatible with most music genres. It retails ~ $35 USD and can give a run for money for some of my midfi western gear. The only slight issue I faced with it is it had slightly artificial timbre in the treble for acoustic instruments, and as that was my main genre I listen to, I had to upgrade. But for rock, EDM this timbre is not very apparent, and I can't complain much about it at its pricepoint.
The KZ ZSX in the above paragraph is a successor for this KZ ZS10 Pro and based on multiple reviews, it has improvements in timbre and other areas, though I haven't heard the successor.

Another possible contender is the ****, ridiculously priced at $16 USD, (1 DD + 1 BA + 1 piezo driver). Good soundstage, instrument separation, clarity. Great subbass extension but mostly neutral profile. It does have some artificial treble timbre as the above ZS10 Pro, but I find it good for EDM and rock. If your staple music genres are jazz and classical it is a no go due to the timbre, but at its pricerange, worth a try IMHO.

There's definitely better gear as you scale upwards but they would be diminishing returns for marginal improvements. But those IEMs less than $50 USD may be good starting points, so you can know what you like and dislike and move upwards from there.

I hope you find the IEM you are looking for! Do check around the other forums and ask around!

 

[kukkurovaca]

- Am I being swayed by the Comet's price, and would the single BA disappointment a bass heavy music collection?

As per the earlier comment, you can't judge performance just by driver type. There are some broad generalizations you can make about how different drivers present bass, but none are inherently good or bad. Like, BA may usually have faster bass while dynamic drivers may usually have more impactful bass. But again, that's a generalization.

One suggestion I would make alongside the Comet and multi-driver IEMs is to take a look at single dynamic driver offerings in the $100ish range. There are several good ones; I can vouch for the iBasso IT01 which is a solid, stury all-rounder with good bass performance. (But not overhwelming.)