[Rawratchu]

I have been away from the audiophile world for a good 5 years thinking once i spent a good 400 dollars on an iem, i wont look back, (sm3,TF10). But today i decided to look around and im just astonished and shocked to see all these 5-7 BA drivers for around or cheaper than what ive spent a half a decade ago. I took a note on MM's shock-wave 3, and now the easy earphones 6-7BA customs. These few years must have had a huge change on this hobby, or is this just a marketing ploy that more BA's the better?

 

[tz0531]

I can't really say I've had too much experience with all the new multi-driver IEMs coming out of China, but the hype surrounding them seems a bit overblown. Navigating them all to find the one gem out of a mountain of crap is like walking through a minefield. More drivers does not necessarily equal better sound, and in some ways, makes it more difficult to make a coherent sounding IEM without a quality phase correction solution, not to mention the difficulty in managing impedance swings. One IEM to avoid is the ZhiYin QT5; I've seen far too many reviews point out quality control issues, and even if the IEMs do work, one review talks them up like the best thing since sliced bread, while another review says they're garbage. The best advice I can give you is to approach these IEMs with caution.

 

[EagleWings]

More BA's doesn't necessarily mean better. But yeah, if done right, they can be technically better over the ones with fewer BAs. Interesting fact though: there are a few TOTL 5, 6 and 8 driver IEMs that rival the 10, 12 and 14 driver IEMs.
 
But coming back to your question, you could look into the following:
 
- Dunu DN2002, DN2002J, DN2002
- Oriveti Primacy
- Fidue A83
- Jays q-Jays
- RHA T20i
 
Please note: I have not personally tried these out myself. But have come across many talk about these in high regard..

 

[Rawratchu]

  I can't really say I've had too much experience with all the new multi-driver IEMs coming out of China, but the hype surrounding them seems a bit overblown. Navigating them all to find the one gem out of a mountain of crap is like walking through a minefield. More drivers does not necessarily equal better sound, and in some ways, makes it more difficult to make a coherent sounding IEM without a quality phase correction solution, not to mention the difficulty in managing impedance swings. One IEM to avoid is the ZhiYin QT5; I've seen far too many reviews point out quality control issues, and even if the IEMs do work, one review talks them up like the best thing since sliced bread, while another review says they're garbage. The best advice I can give you is to approach these IEMs with caution.

Yea, i definitely can see where you are coming from, and the reviews i have read for the specific products i named seemed to only be positive, and as you said hype them up like its the best thing since sliced bread, rivaling 1k usd products for under half the price makes it very taunting, though makes me suspiciously curious.
 
 

  More BA's doesn't necessarily mean better. But yeah, if done right, they can be technically better over the ones with fewer BAs. Interesting fact though: there are a few TOTL 5, 6 and 8 driver IEMs that rival the 10, 12 and 14 driver IEMs.
 
But coming back to your question, you could look into the following:
 
- Dunu DN2002, DN2002J, DN2002
- Oriveti Primacy
- Fidue A83
- Jays q-Jays
- RHA T20i
 
Please note: I have not personally tried these out myself. But have come across many talk about these in high regard..

From the iems you have named, i think im only familiar with the q-jays, though im not sure if they would be an upgrade to lets say sm3's or tf10's. The others seem to all be Hybrid drivers, which i am super curious about,  Ill definitely look more into those. i wonder how they fare compared to the ones i named previously.Though they are more recent releases and as been noted before, maybe have quality issues in the long run since they are still unknown so perhaps i should wait for more reviews.