[username643827]

Hello

Iam looking for IEM recomendations, i already picked out a few. I mainly listen to jazz/classical music. My budget would be 300$. Would be nice if available on linsoul or aliexpress.


Here are what i picked, tell me if they are any good. (local prices)

My top pick - Etymotic ER2SE - 100$

Simgot EA2000 - 320$
Moondrop Blessing 2 dusk - out of stock 320$
Moondrop blessing 3 - 300$
Kinyera freya 2.0 - 235$
Grado GT220 TWS - 250$
FiiO FD5 - 270$
Timeless - 200$
Moondrop kato - 195$
Final audio E5000 - 155$
Tangzu Wu zetian - sold out 150$
Etymotic ER2SE / Etymotic ER2XR - 100$
Final audio a4000 - 130$
Sennheiser IE200 - 125$
Final audio A3000 - 110$
Crinacle x salnotes dioko - 100$
Moondrop aria - 80$
Moondrop droplet - 60$
Crinacle red - 60$
Moondrop may - 60$
7hz salnotes zero 2 / zero - 25$
Moondrop Chu - 18$
Moondrop Chu II - 22$
Moondrop Chu II DSP - 25$
Moondrop quarks - 13$

 

[jimboy0]

How about the Etymotic ER4xr? It's the top of the line for etymotic. XR version has extra bass. You can get a used pair in the 200.00 range I believe.

 

[username643827]

How about the Etymotic ER4xr? It's the top of the line for etymotic. XR version has extra bass. You can get a used pair in the 200.00 range I believe.

350$ new, seems pretty nice but how would it compare against the ER2XR it has a BA driver and the ER2XR has a single DD.

 

[jimboy0]

350$ new, seems pretty nice but how would it compare against the ER2XR it has a BA driver and the ER2XR has a single DD.

I didn't know the ER2xr's had a DD. You might be disappointed in that case. Especially if your into alot of bass. The ER4xr's I think are still a little light in the bass obviously from the B/A driver.

 

[username643827]

I didn't know the ER2xr's had a DD. You might be disappointed in that case. Especially if your into alot of bass. The ER4xr's I think are still a little light in the bass obviously from the B/A driver.

I like balanced and sparkly/bright headphones/IEMs not V shaped ones or bassy headphones.

 

[HDGabe5636]

Hi I'm interested in buying the IE200's but I wanted to know if they have the same driver issues the IE300 had with one driver dying after a month

 

[dunring]

I've had a lot on that list, my picks would be:
7hz Salnotes Zero:2
Truthear Zero Blue if you have a low (1) impedance source
Tanchjim Hannah
Seeaudio Yume II (ultra isn't worth any more)
7hz Timeless but not the AE version, dynamic driver in it sounds like everything else.
Simgot EA500 but not the LM, mids too recessed.

 

[InvisibleInk]

Do you have affordable access to drop.com? If so, do consider the Etymotic ERX. It is essentially an ER4XR in a fit friendlier ergonomic shell.

 

[h8uthemost]

I have an Ety hf5(before the er series), and it's a single BA. And I love it. The clarity and detail is top notch. But I have to eq in a little bass. And I'm a jazz/classical listener too. So not a bass head. But I love to hear those strings smack on Charles Mingus' bass. Or the low notes of Thelonious' piano. Or Art Blakey going off on the drums.

It's nice to feel all that. So I would say go for the er4xr.

 

[username643827]

Do you have affordable access to drop.com? If so, do consider the Etymotic ERX. It is essentially an ER4XR in a fit friendlier ergonomic shell.

yes i do but shipping is 15$ ):

 

[Malfunkt]

Going to say the ER2SE is a fine a choice, even though I've never owned a set, I've had Etymotic ER4SR, ER2XR, 4XR, HF3, HF5, 4S.


For jazz/classical, you don't need to be overwhelmed by bass. And the ER2SE tuning will be a better choice than the ER2XR. Better yet if you can get a ER3SE the balanced armature might suit your tastes a touch more though the dynamic driver in the ER2SE and XR version is fantastic and well-implemented. Of the Etys I have kept ER2XR and HF5. If you can get an HF5/HF3 on the cheap they are very natural sounding, though they roll off in the bass a bit quicker than the newer versions, they are fine for your music.

One thing to note, is that you may find some form of crossfeed or spatial audio very effective with Etymotic. The original ER4B, one of the grandfathers of all IEM was tuned for binaural recordings. The following Etys were made a bit more accessible in sound, but still are somewhat similar to this tuning. This is good because they work very well for binaural audio recordings. Some of the Chesky jazz recordings are binaural mic recorded and sound fantastic. However, if you use spatial audio, it will take regular stereo recordings designed for speakers and translate this into a binaural replay with simulated room space - properly emulating the stereo reflections within a room that bounce around and hit both of your ears. Without crossfeed or spatial dsp, jazz in particular can sound very hard-panned left and right. Especially some older recordings where some instruments were exactly that - hard panned to one channel or the other. Crossfeed and spatial audio will make the sound feel more in front of you and bring some of the natural room reverberation intended to be there as part of the speaker listening experience.

Apple Spatial Audio is very good, but requires you to enable it in your settings hard if using with non-Apple headsets. Their spatial library is limited. If you are running FLACs and lossy recordings, I'd recommend nPlayer Plus for iOS and enable DTS-X experiment with headphones front-speaker and traditional settings. Waves NX is an older no longer supported app, but still works very well with a few quirks, only works on lossy files dragged to iTunes though.

CanOpener is another app you may want to try out, more crossfeed but works well.

Some Android phones will have spatial audio built-in but i can't speak to that implementation.

On PC there are a number of solutions, and you may want to check out https://sourceforge.net/projects/hesuvi/ to really dial in the sound.

lastly, there are hardware options such as iFi who have a number of implementation of crossfeed as well as bass boosts, the latter which can be useful for some older recordings.

Best headphone audio I had a while back was Focal Utopia using a professional Waves Abbey Road plugin. I had to do some audio routing to make it work, so not plugnplay, but the sound ... came pretty damn close to speakers in a room environment and some ways even better.

 

[LightGun26]

I would say go for Aful P8.