[mrelwood]

I know the title may be confusing, but my past experience with IEMs have been disappointing enough that I can't justify risking a high cost IEM. After several years it's time to try my chances again, but the markets are completely new again, so I need your help!

HifiMan RE400 and some Etymotic 15 years ago were touted as flat, neutral and analytical. Believe me, I know neutral, and there wasn't even a hint of that for me on either. The bass simply didn't exist, with any of the ~10 tips I tried. The Etymotic didn't even have any mids.
Shure SE-215 was supposed to be the professional musicians' choice, but they were all mids with an embarrassingly early treble roll off.

Since experiencing the above I've bought several pairs, each after days of reading reviews. And each purchase only gave me a few more silicone tips, nothing else of use.

As a sound engineer I tend to prefer Focal speakers due to the non-fatiguing sound signature, fast transients, and an overall musical approach. I would assume that the IEM I'm looking for would have smiliar traits.
For full-sized headphones, the HifiMan Sunandra is fighting with a few more expensive Focals for my personal reference title.
Unfortunately the reviews suggest that the Focal house sound I like so much is not as present in their IEMs.

Perhaps my ear canals are a bit wonky making the high mid to low treble area (3-7KHz) sound elevated to me in almost all IEMs. As I'm hoping to experience each frequency area at a similiar intensity, the features I've been looking for are:

• Non-fatiguing, yet BA-style extended treble.
• Flat or even slightly shy 3-7KHz area.
• Warm but well sculpted midrange.
• Slightly elevated bass range, and the kick of a dynamic bass element.
• No audible peaks or big dips across the frequency range.
• Warm but extended sound signature.
• Preferably a good instrument separation and fast transients.

The ones I've typed in bold in my current list are CCZ Emerald (30€), CCA CA16 (50€), and TinHifi T2 Plus (66€).
Are there any other models I should be looking at?
Should I de-bold any of those three?

Thank you very much for your help!

 

[baskingshark]

I know the title may be confusing, but my past experience with IEMs have been disappointing enough that I can't justify risking a high cost IEM. After several years it's time to try my chances again, but the markets are completely new again, so I need your help!

HifiMan RE400 and some Etymotic 15 years ago were touted as flat, neutral and analytical. Believe me, I know neutral, and there wasn't even a hint of that for me on either. The bass simply didn't exist, with any of the ~10 tips I tried. The Etymotic didn't even have any mids.
Shure SE-215 was supposed to be the professional musicians' choice, but they were all mids with an embarrassingly early treble roll off.

Since experiencing the above I've bought several pairs, each after days of reading reviews. And each purchase only gave me a few more silicone tips, nothing else of use.

As a sound engineer I tend to prefer Focal speakers due to the non-fatiguing sound signature, fast transients, and an overall musical approach. I would assume that the IEM I'm looking for would have smiliar traits.
For full-sized headphones, the HifiMan Sunandra is fighting with a few more expensive Focals for my personal reference title.
Unfortunately the reviews suggest that the Focal house sound I like so much is not as present in their IEMs.

Perhaps my ear canals are a bit wonky making the high mid to low treble area (3-7KHz) sound elevated to me in almost all IEMs. As I'm hoping to experience each frequency area at a similiar intensity, the features I've been looking for are:

• Non-fatiguing, yet BA-style extended treble.
• Flat or even slightly shy 3-7KHz area.
• Warm but well sculpted midrange.
• Slightly elevated bass range, and the kick of a dynamic bass element.
• No audible peaks or big dips across the frequency range.
• Warm but extended sound signature.
• Preferably a good instrument separation and fast transients.

The ones I've typed in bold in my current list are CCZ Emerald (30€), CCA CA16 (50€), and TinHifi T2 Plus (66€).
Are there any other models I should be looking at?
Should I de-bold any of those three?

Thank you very much for your help!

Check out the Audiosense DT200.

Has superb isolation and fit/comfort too, so very good for stage monitoring.

 

[mrelwood]

Check out the Audiosense DT200.

Has superb isolation and fit/comfort too, so very good for stage monitoring.

Thank you for the suggestion! However, it seems that there are quite a few aspects that make it seem unsuitable for me:

• $150 is well past my 100€ hard limit.
• BA only, and reviewed as slightly light on bass.
• A bright IEM.
• Said to be otherwise flat, but a slight hump at 3-5KHz, the exact area I need to avoid.
• Said not to work well with louder volumes, so might not work for stage monitoring very well.

Do you maybe have any other suggestions I could look at?
Thanks!

 

[earmonger]

Honestly, it's going to be difficult to find a budget IEM without peaks and valleys.

Do you have a friend in the USA who could ship to you? I know you disliked old Etymotics, but it's been a while. The Ety 3XR are largely flat with a slight bass boost; there are lots of reviews and graphs around, and they sound very close to your specifications. I use mine with the foam tips and those are comfortable (and the foam probably adds some damping where your sensitive zone is).

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/etymotic-er3xr.22904/reviews

USA buyers can get the Etymotic 3XR for $69 at this offer; maybe someone could ship them to you. Unfortunately, they are probably over 100€ where you are .
https://www.adorama.com/etyer3xr.html?emailprice=t

I had the Tin T2+ and they mysteriously swallowed guitars and horns. I wouldn't trust them for mixing.

 

[FlowLikeWater]

Thank you for the suggestion! However, it seems that there are quite a few aspects that make it seem unsuitable for me:

• $150 is well past my 100€ hard limit.
• BA only, and reviewed as slightly light on bass.
• A bright IEM.
• Said to be otherwise flat, but a slight hump at 3-5KHz, the exact area I need to avoid.
• Said not to work well with louder volumes, so might not work for stage monitoring very well.

Do you maybe have any other suggestions I could look at?
Thanks!

I'd recommend the Etymotic ER2XRs, great bass control for price, and made (I believe) to address the bass-light concerns of their SR models

Difficult to find a flat-response IEM under $100

 

[baskingshark]

Thank you for the suggestion! However, it seems that there are quite a few aspects that make it seem unsuitable for me:

• $150 is well past my 100€ hard limit.
• BA only, and reviewed as slightly light on bass.
• A bright IEM.
• Said to be otherwise flat, but a slight hump at 3-5KHz, the exact area I need to avoid.
• Said not to work well with louder volumes, so might not work for stage monitoring very well.

Do you maybe have any other suggestions I could look at?
Thanks!

It is routinely at $100 USD during sales.

Admittedly it is sub-bass light, as per most BA only models.

This set is not bright, in fact it is warm neutral and very suitable for treblesensitive people. You need a hump at the 3 - 5 kHz regions (called pinna gain) to get upper mids heard, if the graph (uncompensated) is flat at this area, vocals will be very recessed, that is how our ear anatomy works.

For stage monitoring, one should use the IEM at the lowest possible volume so as to preserve hearing health. The Audiosense DT200 has excellent isolation, so that allows it.


There are not many neutral well isolating sets at the budget segment TBH. Most are tuned V shaped or harmanish for consumer preferences. Stage monitoring IMHO, should have these thing as a priority:
1) isolation
2) comfort/fit
3) neutral signature, so as not to colour the sound
4) technical performance eg soundstage, micro-details, imaging, instrument separation etc

 

[plmon]

If it's available to you in your area, I'd check out the KZ collaboration with Crinacle (KZ x Crinacle CRN). I was surprised at how well tuned of an IEM it is for under 50 USD.

 

[mrelwood]

Thank you for the insightful replies, everyone! Took me a while to properly read up on the Etys and to look closer into the CRN. A few aspects such as the sub-deep insertion, doubts about the Etymotic target frequency response, and not finding a direct seller in my price range, makes me feel like I shouldn't try to go down the Ety's "flat" road again.

I don't have the vocabulary to express my personal target tonality and response, nor do I think that they were carved in stone anyway for a product group that's new to me. I know very well that no IEM or even a fullsized headphone exists that one can do serious mixing on, already due to unavoidable human psychoacoustics. So I'm not trying to find an IEM that aim to do that, but instead I'm hoping for a relatively "musical" and "natural" response (if I've understood the meaning of those terms correctly), which wouldn't have technical issues severe enough to annoy me too much.

Like if Michael Schumacher were buying a passenger car, he wouldn't be looking for one that beats the Tesla Roadster on a 1/4 mile race... But he still might want a drive feel that oozes quality.

There are several interesting models that are cheap enough to just impulse buy, but there are also too many of them for doing it without further thought. I'm currently looking closer into:

• CCA CRA, 16€
• KZ CRN, 37€ (-: 8KHz peak, 12KHz valley.)
• HZSound Heart Mirror, 41€ (-: Reviewed as bright.)
• TinHifi T2 Plus, 66€ ( -: 8KHz peak.)
• Moondrop Aria, 90€ ( +: Warm, natural presentation. -: Laid back lower midrange, slow transients.)

The CRA and CRN being so cheap inspire modifications much more than the Aria, and I must say I'm intrigued by the CRN speaker array. At this very minute I'm leaning slightly towards getting both the CRA and CRN, and see if there are nozzle resonances that can be tamed or something. The CRN graph actually looks as if the treble unit were in there with a wrong polarity... Though I'm sure it can't have a mistake like that.

Thoughts on the list above?

 

[surfgeorge]

At this price point I think the KZ CRN is likely the best BA driver tuning if you look for neutral. The 8kHz peak is a measurement resonance., but yes, it doesn't seem to have much upper treble and air. BA drivers have their own challenges IMO and I think in this price range DD's have a more natural sound.
The Aria looks like a very good DD option (likely better timbre and smoother because of DD design, but possibly less detail)

 

[mrelwood]

So, we have progress! I ordered the KZ CRN (ZEX Pro). If I can hold my horses, I'll wait until I get it in a month and then decide if I'll buy the Hear Mirror for the different flavor of a single DD unit. After all, I might learn that I need to get a radically warmer sound after all, or some other specific trait that I just don't know yet. The picture the community paints about the CRN is pretty clear, so I should be able to voice my needs much better after spending a littlle time with the CRN.

Thanks for the help everybody! I'll post my opinions after I've spent a little personal time with them.

 

[mrelwood]

The KZ CRN arrived today! I wasn't able to stay in my pants for more than a mere few hours rolling tips, after which I had taken out my trusty tweezers, needle and MicroPore.

First, overall I consider this to be a bassy IEM, and I tended to favour tips that reduced the bassyness. Luckily it is well made, and it isn't focused for example on unnatural sub bass only. Once on the move, this level of bassyness might even be favourable to overcome the low frequency noise, but just for sitting at home it's overly dominating. I also think that I hear the DD punch in the bass which gives it good weight. I do hope though that running them in properly gets the bass a bit better in line.

Other than the bass, the sound follows my expectations based on the frequency response graphs. As I hoped, the treble was pretty easy to mod to be much more natural, with clearly much less dip yet retaining the extension reasonably well. And I didn't even get into trying stuff inside the shaft! Here's how I'm running mine now:

KZ CRN Treble Mod

I removed the dust cover / tuning disc. It has a loosely fitting metal grille and a white soft disc that glues the grille on top of the shaft, and seems to be responsible for the treble tuning. Without the tuning disc the trebles are all over the place, so something is needed in there.


I separated the tuning disc from the metal grille, and attached the grille on a piece of white MicroPore (medical skin tape). I then cut the edges so that the MicroPore extends over the edge of the grille just barely, less than 0.5mm. The sound is very different depending on which way this new grille is inserted, and it works much better with the MicroPore side outwards.


Then I ranked the best fitting tips again, ending up with something like this (best ones on top). The CRN sits in a bit shallow on many of my tips, but as I'm not planning on sleeping with these, I don't think for it to be an issue.


Big thanks to everyone who participated in the hunt! This is by far the best IEM for me out of all the ones I've tried. This definitely encourages to aim even higher the next time, and maybe to get the mentioned second pair for flavour, which unsurprisingly seems way more common than not.


Edit: Seems that out of the target curves available at Bedrock's Squid, the Crinacle target curve represents best how I hear the CRN response curve. This feels very important to me to learn.