[goober-george]

I've been out of the hi-fi loop for a while now, especially with iems. A long time ago I owned the original hifiman re-0s which I loved but had terrible build quality.and they broke. I'm in search of something with a similar sound that is neutral with good build quality.

Another important thing to me about the iems are that they are minimalist and comfortable. I've done a little researching and so far the MEE audio M6 pro 2nd gen seems to fit the bill. Does anyone have any other suggestions and are they still viable? Thanks

 

[baskingshark]

I've been out of the hi-fi loop for a while now, especially with iems. A long time ago I owned the original hifiman re-0s which I loved but had terrible build quality.and they broke. I'm in search of something with a similar sound that is neutral with good build quality.

Another important thing to me about the iems are that they are minimalist and comfortable. I've done a little researching and so far the MEE audio M6 pro 2nd gen seems to fit the bill. Does anyone have any other suggestions and are they still viable? Thanks

What music genres do u listen to? They are not that many sub $50 USD good neutrally tuned IEMs. Most are tuned V shaped or to the harman curve for consumer tastes at this price point.

I've been using IEMs for the past 15 years for stage monitoring and music listening and IMHO the chinese IEMs have caught up to the western budget to midfi IEMs in the past 2 years. If u are not brand conscious there are good CHIFI IEMs that excel at price to performance ratio. IMHO $50 can get u some good sound nowadays among the chinese sets. I don't have the MEE audio M6 pro but I had a few of their older models and I can honestly say most CHIFI IEMs that are < $30 USD can blow those MEE audio sets I had out of the water.

There are a lot of good CHIFI fare that are < $50 USD with great reviews that were recently released: TRN V90, KZ ZSX, CCA C12, BLON BL-03. U can check out or ask more at these threads:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/bes...nd-impressions-sharing-reference-list.805930/
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/bes...ith-reference-list-no-big-brands-here.872245/
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chinese-asian-brand-iem-info-thread.820747/

For neutrally tuned IEMs per se, there are good reviews in headfi at the $50 USD mark for the Tin Audio T2 and Audiosense T180 and Audiosense T260. I don't own those but maybe u can check those out and ask the others. The latter 2 seem to have good isolation, small profile and good build from reviews.

For a great entry CHIFI IEM that is not neutrally tuned, I would recommend the KZ ZS10 Pro - retails about $35 USD. I've seen it cheaper at sales and there's a big sale on 11/11 coming up. KZ ZS10 Pro is a good allrounder for most genres, good details, clarity and instrument separation. It is V shaped though. It can hit about 80% of sound quality (subjectively) of my westone 3 which costs 10 times more. I previously used the KZ ZS10 Pro for stage monitoring and it can give ~15 dB isolation, not the best, but sufficient for stage monitoring and it is quite comfortable and well built.
The KZ ZSX is a successor to this model and has better timbre and slight improvements, and is a few bucks more (though I haven't heard the successor).


All the best and hope u find what u are looking for!