[pimmedoris]

Hi guys and Girls,

TLDR
looking for iems <~350, dap <~500. Any suggestions?

Full story
After a few years with less focus on portable audio, I'm getting back into it. My current setup consists of a Ibasso DX50 and Westone UM2RC iems. The cable of my iems is starting to have some issues, and I'm looking to upgrade my dap to one with wifi and overall better SQ.

I'm mostly listening to metal.That ranges from Metallica, Black Sabbath, children of Bodom, Opeth (old and new), In Flames, Alcest, Epica, Lorna Shore, Emperor and everything in between, lol.
Next to metal I also listen to Jazz, Blues and other prog rock (Pink Floyd anyone?)

What sound am I looking for? I'm looking for a balanced iem. I want details and being able to pick everything apart from the instruments. Bass must be present (metal) but not boomy/overwhelming. The same goes for the other registers. The sound must not be fatigueing on longer sessions. My um2rc's were abit light on the bass, but i liked the details and speed. Looking for a serious upgrade though. Thinking a hybrid is the way to go?
Based on reviews I'm leaning towards the Aful Performer8. From what I read that could be a great match? It doesn't come with a balanced cable. Is balanced really that big an upgrade?
Budget for iems is about €350. Could get abit higher if it's really worth it. Any thoughts or tips? There are so many choice, one kinda gets lost easily...

For the dap I am leaning towards the dx170, but also the fiio m11s sounds interesting, or a shanling m6 21. Any suggestions here on why I should pick one of the three or perhaps something completely different? Budget is about €500.

I dont have the possibility in my area (Eindhoven, Netherlands) to listen to many different brands of iems/daps, so I'm relying heavily on reviews. So far I think my best bet is through hifi-passion.de in Germany. They seem to have a lot of brands.
Of course I could import directly from the shops in Singapore, China etc. but then I'd have to calculatie extra import duties and stuff. How do you guys do that?

 

[dunring]

The ones I'm happiest with are all under $100 when the law of diminishing returns gets horrible. The ones I'd buy again if I lost them:
Truthear zero blue (lush, full vocals, piano, and violins sound great)
Simgot EA500 (neutral bright for metal)
Seeaudio Yume II (soundstage really big for gaming)
Moondrop Kato & Starfield great for their price points)

 

[pimmedoris]

Have you also tried more expensive iem's? I sometimes see some very cheating iem's wilt multiple BA's and a DD for about 60€, and I really have my doubts if an earphone with that complexity at such a low price can be any good in sound and robustness. But I could be completely wrong of course...

 

[KinGensai]

350 is a difficult bracket, lots of competition.

My classic rec is the Blessing 2 Dusk, although Blessing 3 is out and probably an improvement. It's vanilla sound well executed for the budget range, but judging by graphs of um2rc, it may be a bit hot in the gain region.

One option you may want to consider is the 7hz Timeless 2 or other comparable planars. Check the graphs carefully because some of them have treble sharpness, but the bass is uniquely impactful compared to DD and especially BA sets. Classic metal, especially recordings like children of bodom's earlier recordings, are light on bass so they benefit from boosted sub-bass (100Hz and below). Pay special attention to 8kHz and ~2.7kHz because those will directly impact sibilance from electric guitars.

Have you also tried more expensive iem's? I sometimes see some very cheating iem's wilt multiple BA's and a DD for about 60€, and I really have my doubts if an earphone with that complexity at such a low price can be any good in sound and robustness. But I could be completely wrong of course...

My current daily drivers are the QDC Anole V14 and Fatfreq Maestro SE, these are hybrid/tribrid setups done damn near perfect. Cheaper versions like KZ advertise higher driver counts, but they either didn't do much work on perfecting the crossover or may sometimes just have non-functional drivers due to incorrect wiring (this happened to KZ recently). In the range you are going for, 5 to 8 BAs/DDs are about what you can expect, and they are ok.

 

[pimmedoris]

350 is a difficult bracket, lots of competition.

Exactly. That's why I find it hard to make a decision, lol.

Blessing 3 may be interesting. I'll read some reviews and see where I can order it. I dont mind if it's different from my um2rc's, but what do you mean with "hot in the gain region"?

I have to look into those graphs and how they work, but in general, a higher level in a certain frequency means more of that grequency in the sound right? Where can i find those graphs? Or just google them?

I thought planars always required an open back system? (At least, my big headphones have that). Is that also the case for these 7hz? That would be a No Go...

Your daily Drivers seem awesome! But unfortunately out of my price range

 

[KinGensai]

Exactly. That's why I find it hard to make a decision, lol.

Blessing 3 may be interesting. I'll read some reviews and see where I can order it. I dont mind if it's different from my um2rc's, but what do you mean with "hot in the gain region"?

I have to look into those graphs and how they work, but in general, a higher level in a certain frequency means more of that grequency in the sound right? Where can i find those graphs? Or just google them?

I thought planars always required an open back system? (At least, my big headphones have that). Is that also the case for these 7hz? That would be a No Go...

Gain region means pinna gain compensation, so it's how much your outer ear changes the sound. Generally this is in the 1.2kHz to 4kHz area, and it's very important because your ears are the most sensitive here. Your current set has a pretty flat response curve from what I'm seeing, Moondrop tunes their sets higher in the gain region. It's why some people perceive better soundstage with them, but some will find it too much.

squig.link is where you can find a large database of graphs. Very helpful once you get familiar with reading graphs, it's much more helpful if you have a set that is posted there so you can directly compare and EQ your set to roughly demo other sets using the autoEQ function. Not perfect, but much better than trying to decipher peoples' lexicons. That takes a lot of time.

Most of the planar IEMs are closed. Raptgo makes open planars, but those are an exception. 7Hz planars are closed.

Your daily Drivers seem awesome! But unfortunately out of my price range

I worked my way up to this range all the way through the budget ranges, lot of learning and research. My opinion now is that you don't have to go much further above your budget to reach "good enough".

This isn't a data driven explanation entirely, so don't quote me on this. In a range of 0 to 100, up to $100 is about 65 on average. $300ish reaches up to 85, great value for cash here. $500 ~ $1k is about 90, very diminished returns. Above that, you start paying a lot to get to 92~96 (which is what I consider the V14), and anything more than that becomes difficult to conceive of, let alone perceive.

I have my suspicions on why that is. While some new tech is emerging that may change this soon, most of the endgame IEMs use some mixture of DDs, BAs, and ESTs to solve the problem of nonlinear distortion. BAs are well known for a metallic sheen in their sound, this is due to their rather unfortunately high 3rd order harmonic distortion. The now tried and true approach to fixing this is to overlap BAs with each other in arrays to isolate and mitigate said harmonic distortion, which takes 6 BAs at minimum to cover 3rd order harmonics across most of the audible spectrum. Endgame sets have much more than this (like the V14) applying this concept to attempt to eliminate any audible distortion, and to my ears they practically succeed. Whether they absolutely eliminate nonlinear distortion I don't know, but I don't really care if there is 0.1% or 0.05% THD because I struggle to hear either of those levels, and electrostats are around that level anyway.

 

[pimmedoris]

Wow, thanks a lot for the great and elaborate explanation!

I will need to dig into those graphs a bit better, but that's a cool tool. I can't seem to get multiple iem's in one graph to better compare? Or am I missing something?
Of course plotting and comparing the graphs from different uploaders is kinda tricky, since they may have different measuring tools etc., but still.

I have just read through the planar thread, and I dont'think that planars are the way to go for me.

This isn't a data driven explanation entirely, so don't quote me on this. In a range of 0 to 100, up to $100 is about 65 on average. $300ish reaches up to 85, great value for cash here. $500 ~ $1k is about 90, very diminished returns. Above that, you start paying a lot to get to 92~96 (which is what I consider the V14), and anything more than that becomes difficult to conceive of, let alone perceive.

Yeah, this is also the case for regular hifi. I have a very nice set. I know the sound can be improved, but the amount of money required is scary, lol.

What do you think about running balanced cables (either4.4mm or 2.5mm). Is that something I should take into account when choosing an iem?

I think I will order everything through Hifi-passion.de. That way I don't have the hassle of VAT and import tax, but it does limit my choices. Maybe that's not a bad think, since there's still sooooo much choice there.

 

[KinGensai]

If you want a more natural sounding bass response, I suggest a hybrid with a DD like the Performer 8 you mentioned. Pure BA setups struggle with bass because of the 3rd order harmonic issue, so I would suggest being more cautious with choosing one, but IME BA sets that carefully tune the bass play it back much cleaner than DDs.
Electrostatic tweeters cost a lot, so those start showing up around 500+, and they make a slight difference to the cleanliness of treble response, but they can also be bad if poorly tuned.

I don't run balanced, don't see why I should. I just run my stuff off my LG V50. I couldn't find conclusive evidence that DAPs or balanced outputs make a difference that matters, so I don't bother. Just my opinion.

On squig.link's interface, the plus button adds the item to the graph, so you can add a bunch. You can then click the eyeball icon under the graph to show or hide a particular model.

Under the equalizer interface, there's a drop down menu you can use to select which IEM you want to EQ, and if you have one other IEM or target curve on the graph, you can click autoEQ to approximate the other one. It'll show you the EQ settings to input into your DAP or a graphic EQ text file you can upload to Wavelet to try it on your android.

 

[pimmedoris]

I pulled the trigger and went for the dx170 and Performer8. Currently (im)patiently awaiting their arrival...

Thanks for the help and suggestions!

 

[o0genesis0o]

What do you think about running balanced cables (either4.4mm or 2.5mm). Is that something I should take into account when choosing an iem?

Some IEM works better with single ended output. Not magic or anything, but just output impedance (higher on the balanced out). For example, campfire andromeda 2020 would lose bass impact with some balanced output with > 1 ohm output impedance. With some dongles (e.g., Hidizs S9 Pro), balanced output is also too loud even at the lowest volume.

I recommend prioritising 4.4 over 2.5 and don’t disregard 3.5.

Oh, and you can always change cable. Or get a modular cable from FiiO, Dunu, or Effect Audio.