There must be threads on this, but the only ones I could find are older. Recently, I have been trying some admittedly pricy Sony IER-M9. I like them quite a bit, but I don't find wired iems all that portable. They are certainly clunky to walk around with in the house. They would be a little easier to deal with on a train, plane, etc, and carrying full sized headphones can be a pain when traveling. It seems like iems have made major strides, and I am curious how, say. $1000 iems compare to $1,000 headphones. I have an old pair of Sennheiser 650s. To be honest, I have never been a fan of the Sennheiser sound, but to my ear, the M9s blow the 650s out of the water. But that probably is not a fair comparison. Thoughts?
Headphones always beats IEMs in general but die hard IEM fans will disagree.
The shells for IEMs are its limitation due to limited space.
Take it from a guy who went down deep rabbit holes for both paths, as much as I wanted IEMs to perform as good as headphones myself, it just is not the case. I always wanted IEMs to perform as well because they are just lot more portable and also lot easier to manage overall with little to no clutter.
IEMs scaling up seems a bit harder as well, cables and daps do improve the IEM experience but you can only go so far with them.
1k IEM may be semi close to 1K headphones maybe, but a 4500 headphone rips apart a 3500 IEM into pathetic pieces. Weird price comparisons but this is how I view it.
Main thing to also mention is how open backs make use of your whole ear versus IEMs only partial of your ear. A bad metaphor maybe is imagine a plate of food and with just water, versus a plate of food with mexican coke with real cane sugar making sizzling fizzy pops when you open the bottle. MmMm...
-Coming from a current IEM fan who sold his whole headphone chain.
Thanks. Very helpful response, though I do not currently intend to break the 1K barrier. That said, the new closed back Focals are tempting at 3x the price and maybe 20% (?) better sound. I have the Focal Elears, but they are one coast, and I am on another.
Headphones always beats IEMs in general but die hard IEM fans will disagree.
The shells for IEMs are its limitation due to limited space.
Take it from a guy who went down deep rabbit holes for both paths, as much as I wanted IEMs to perform as good as headphones myself, it just is not the case. I always wanted IEMs to perform as well because they are just lot more portable and also lot easier to manage overall with little to no clutter.
IEMs scaling up seems a bit harder as well, cables and daps do improve the IEM experience but you can only go so far with them.
1k IEM may be semi close to 1K headphones maybe, but a 4500 headphone rips apart a 3500 IEM into pathetic pieces. Weird price comparisons but this is how I view it.
Main thing to also mention is how open backs make use of your whole ear versus IEMs only partial of your ear. A bad metaphor maybe is imagine a plate of food and with just water, versus a plate of food with mexican coke with real cane sugar making sizzling fizzy pops when you open the bottle. MmMm...
-Coming from a current IEM fan who sold his whole headphone chain.
True at summit prices where if you find that headphone synergy, no IEM can even touch it. Focal Utopia with a bad chain synergy can be outperformed in terms of emotional engagement and even resolution by IEMs, but with 2A3 SET or well implemented 300B Push Pull amp, Utopia just scales all the way to the level that IEMs (even that Traillii) are IMO incapable of even reaching.
Headphones always beats IEMs in general but die hard IEM fans will disagree.
The shells for IEMs are its limitation due to limited space.
Take it from a guy who went down deep rabbit holes for both paths, as much as I wanted IEMs to perform as good as headphones myself, it just is not the case. I always wanted IEMs to perform as well because they are just lot more portable and also lot easier to manage overall with little to no clutter.
IEMs scaling up seems a bit harder as well, cables and daps do improve the IEM experience but you can only go so far with them.
1k IEM may be semi close to 1K headphones maybe, but a 4500 headphone rips apart a 3500 IEM into pathetic pieces. Weird price comparisons but this is how I view it.
Main thing to also mention is how open backs make use of your whole ear versus IEMs only partial of your ear. A bad metaphor maybe is imagine a plate of food and with just water, versus a plate of food with mexican coke with real cane sugar making sizzling fizzy pops when you open the bottle. MmMm...
-Coming from a current IEM fan who sold his whole headphone chain.
I probably agree with this. Though all the levels of progress and subjectivity (as you go up in cost) can of course be bewilderment for objective style listening measurements? I mean a $20 IEM is pretty amazing and does things in ways a $20 full-size can’t touch.
IEM sound is both outside your head and travels inside to a place deep inside your cranium where the full-size is just outside your ears.
The ways a TOTL full-size sound can be drawn up to a much bigger and detailed level.............is in-fact much better in direct comparison to IEM sound.
Now that’s coming from a predominately IEM guy. Though I haven’t heard the recent wave of $6K IEMs? I still can’t imagine that they would beat the TOTL full-size headphones?
Still they are Apples and Oranges. There is a style of physicality in bass that is just different with IEMs. It has you wonder and second guess all the timbre and tonal complexity found in a full-size response. Basically the way the bass is inside of your head offers a feeling that no full-size can touch. Still even then you are aware that so much detail is still left out, even with the best (I have tried) IEMs. Most IEM lovers will not admit this or are delusional to notice it.
I’m avoiding the $1000 question, as I’m not sure of the answer?
The really wild thing happens when you attempt to pair an IEM with a desktop. Way way beyond and any DAP sound, a few IEMs will keep gaining in quality. This is typically not normal use as why would someone join a portable transducer with 9K worth of desktop gear? A few IEMs keep going up in quality and offering a very special response, different than full-size, though still not the quality of TOTL full-size. IMO
In another regard.............we are still bound by FR being (maybe) the reason why a person likes a transducer. Meaning 80% may be just possibly FR, the rest technicalities. So.....regardless of full-size/IEM....it primarily is nailing your signature.
Thanks again for the thoughtful feedback. Last night I was listening to the Sony IER-M9’s, and I found that I truly enjoyed the music and indeed got involved in it. There is always better, but I am impressed that iers have reached this stage, at least at this admittedly fairly high price point. I never had to worry about losing headphones. I will with iers. Have to be mindful.
Bang for the buck, IEMs are better in my opinion. The changes the higher up the ladder are more minute/miniscule by comparison. Whereas on headphones, they're more apparent, partly due to its inherent higher dynamics maybe? The more juice you give the more sound-affecting variables or parts come into play on headphones. Headphones also have significantly larger size, and of course the surface target for perceiving sound (i.e. the whole ear and some parts of the side skull instead of ear canal)
I finally got around to comparing the M9s with my Focal Xlears. In some ways, it was two different listening experiences. The M9s felt more "intimate." The Xlears may have been a tad more dynamic, but also more recessed. The M9s did a better job with voice. On the whole, I would give the M9s a small edge. One big advantage to the Xlears was that I could just put them on and go. The M9s required fiddling to get them in my ears, and I usually have to give them an extra push once they are in to get a better seal. For casual listening at home, I might prefer the Xlears just for ease of use, the M9s for more serious listening. Of course, for traveling, of which I do a fair amount, only the M9s are viable. I had the Sony M4 buds. They had great noise cancellation, but I found them uncomfortable with time, and I ended up returning them. I find the M9s to provide excellent passive noise shielding, perfectly fine on an airplane.
Closed-backs win out on bass impact in general (not just dollar-for-dollar), open-backs win out on staging overall, and both have more midrange consistency due to being less affected by anatomical 3 kHz pinna compensation variation.
IEMs, dollar-for-dollar, win out on clarity, detail, and most importantly, having listenable tonality without sacrificing technicalities elsewhere. Years of cutthroat competition in the chi-fi space have done a lot to drag the quality-to-cost ratio of IEMs upwards. There are a handful of full-sized headphones that do do everything right, but they're the exception and not the rule.
Personally speaking, I would take a Variations over an Elex or HEXv2 and a U12t over a stock HD800S (EQ definitely reverses this one) but an HE1000v2 over all of the above.
Protip: when somebody claims they love their latest shiny headphone but that it needs 200 hours of burn-in, 24/192 FLACs, or a $1,000 DAC/amp/cable to sound enjoyable, what you're usually witnessing is someone who hates its tonality but is handwaving away their gut feelings through post-purchase rationalization. Virtually no one says something like the ThieAudio Clairvoyance needs a ton of burn-in to sound good.
Live music has +/-
Speakers have +/-
Headphones have +/-
IEMs have +/-
Nowadays, with so much stellar, affordable, and quality audio equipment it largely comes down to convenience.
I've not lived in a place where Speakers are an option for quite some time. I was a Senn HD800 owner for about 10 years (CD Player > RCAs > HeadRoom DeskTop Amp > HD800). And due the open-back nature of the HD800, my place wasn't really quiet enough to use them year round - especially in warmer months, where I had to keep the windows open and a fan going. About a year ago I decided to ripped my CDs and went with a DAP/IEM set up (current set up: iBasso DX312 and Mest Mkii) and I'm absolutely loving everything about them. My 500 CD collection available at my fingertips + the ability to cook, do dishes, clean, etc. while carrying my equipment around, is wonderful. It sounds great.
Maybe in a couple of years I'll go back to headphones, or be in a situation where I can use Speakers. None of that diminishes my joy of listening to music tonight, or in the enjoyment I experienced in the past.
I just had a few Etymotic ER2SE sessions.
I'm blown away and in many ways I can hear details I have never discovered via Audeze LCD-X. Clean, rich, atmospheric, wide sounding... For 95€...
The only downside to IEMs for me is comfort. I just can't see myself having my ears stuffed with a foreign object while working for hours, but sound wise, I actually think IEMs win nowadays.
I just had a few Etymotic ER2SE sessions.
I'm blown away and in many ways I can hear details I have never discovered via Audeze LCD-X. Clean, rich, atmospheric, wide sounding... For 95€...
The only downside to IEMs for me is comfort. I just can't see myself having my ears stuffed with a foreign object while working for hours, but sound wise, I actually think IEMs win nowadays.
in a lot of ways, this is accurate, but you also have to consider, a lot of what you are paying for with expensive headphones is the materials, far less materials are required to make an iem, thus making more of the price reflective of the quality.
but, as mentioned above, IEMs have more limitations.
I bought an AK SP3000 and for iems I got the Odin's and U12t's. The Odins come with a PW Audio 1960's cable worth $1300. I bought a $1000 Leonidis 4 wire for the U12t's and it really opened up the mid-range vocals and staging. I can honestly say for me these iem's beat every headphone I have ever heard. Add a "Subpac" behind your back for physical bass feeling and you feel like it's live with real punch in your chest. There is a scientific name for what your brain does when you add the Subpac. It's amazing. The clarity and resolution especially with the Odin's beats any headphone to me. It's so intimate and so clean sounding. I'm into clarity and resolution and iem's do it for me I have to say.
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