[peter123]

I absolutely love my Focal Utopia, HD800s BUT until you experience in ear monitors you’re really missing out. The music ooooooozzzzes out and the music flows so effortlessly into my ears. 64Audio A18t and Tia Fourte just a totally different experience...

Personally I've never heard a pair IEM's that can keep up with a full sized pair of cans in the same price range so (as always) YMMV I'd guess....

 

[wldcohso]

Personally I've never heard a pair IEM's that can keep up with a full sized pair of cans in the same price range so (as always) YMMV I'd guess....

I didn’t either until I listened with Fourte, it’s up there for sure.

 

[peter123]

I didn’t either until I listened with Fourte, it’s up there for sure.

I don't doubt this is how you feel, personally I've always been biased towards headphones (despite having tried over 200 pair of IEM's).

Anyway I'm glad that you've found something that works for you

Edit: Just checked the price of the Fortue if it takes a $3,600 pair of IEM's to beat a $1,500 pair of headphones I'd guess value for money headphones are still the winner.

 

[wldcohso]

I don't doubt this is how you feel, personally I've always been biased towards headphones (despite having tried over 200 pair of IEM's).

Anyway I'm glad that you've found something that works for you

Edit: Just checked the price of the Fortue if it takes a $3,600 pair of IEM's to beat a $1,500 pair of headphones I'd guess value for money headphones are still the winner.

They are expensive for sure....gotta pay to play...

 

[KaiserTK]

They are expensive for sure....gotta pay to play...

The Tia Fourte is the only IEM that has wow’d me in the past couple years. (The price wow’d me in a different way as well)
The soundstage and naturalness of the music is something I never expected an IEM to replicate.

Still, I like my 800S better (of course in very different contexts).

 

[Whitigir]

No iems can outperform Headphones. They are physically limited to be inside your ears, where as full-size headphones are physically outside your ears. Also the drivers of full size headphones are much larger. If any IEMS outperform high-end Headphones such as Hd800S, it will be violating physic itself.

The only debate I accept would be that personally preferences, the person prefer iems for practicality and portability.

 

[wldcohso]

No iems can outperform Headphones. They are physically limited to be inside your ears, where as full-size headphones are physically outside your ears. Also the drivers of full size headphones are much larger. If any IEMS outperform high-end Headphones such as Hd800S, it will be violating physic itself.

The only debate I accept would be that personally preferences, the person prefer iems for practicality and portability.

That’s what Intel said....

 

[Thenewguy007]

No iems can outperform Headphones. They are physically limited to be inside your ears, where as full-size headphones are physically outside your ears. Also the drivers of full size headphones are much larger. If any IEMS outperform high-end Headphones such as Hd800S, it will be violating physic itself.

The only debate I accept would be that personally preferences, the person prefer iems for practicality and portability.

Actually, physics is on the IEM side.
The bigger drivers of headphones is irrelevant. They're bigger because they are much further away from your ear canal & need the size to reproduce the same sound as a IEM can.

Speakers, headphones & IEM are all basically the same things. Just the further away it gets from your ear, the bigger the driver needs to be, to reproduce the loudness to get in your ear. The only real differences is the bass presence on your body from speakers & around your ear with headphones.

I think people said headphones will never replace speakers, but that might have been because the speaker industry had a lot more high end speakers than anything headphones have ever offered. The same way people say IEM won't replace headphones, because there were a lot more high end headphones than comparable IEMs.

With the range of TOTL Headphones & IEM being made today, I think they can all play evenly nowadays.

 

[Sonic Defender]

I think there is some truth to headphones being the better tool for the job of musical reproduction, but I am sure there is some degree of variability, but overall headphones should win. Larger drivers will create a more realistic wave size and the fact that the outer ear structures are engaged are actually, while very subtle, still part of how sound is captured and transmitted into the interior hearing system for processing. I also would never say that headphones can replace speakers, they are very different, but the best speakers in the world will for me anyway be far more musically realistic than the best headphones in the world. I love headphones, but they are different and not directly comparable to speaker listening. A great deal changes when you collapse the distance sound must cover to hit your ears by strapping the speakers right to your ears, and the loss of true channel mixing is not insignificant. I know they have come a long way with creating convincing crossfade DSP, but nothing beats the naturalness of true stereo interpretation done by the most advanced DSP system out there, your brain.

 

[Alson Chua]

Gonna get a 800s soon or maybe 820. Can anyone clarify if both 800s and 820 using the same conntectors?

Also, if I were to get an after market cable for 800s, 4.4mm balance, which cable you guys recommend for 800s without changing the sound signature?

 

[raband]

[QUOTE="Alson Chua, post: 14391002, member: 483037"without changing the sound signature?[/QUOTE]

Any and all, expect for any broken ones

 

[IkSak]

Gonna get a 800s soon or maybe 820. Can anyone clarify if both 800s and 820 using the same conntectors?

Also, if I were to get an after market cable for 800s, 4.4mm balance, which cable you guys recommend for 800s without changing the sound signature?

The 820 has not receive the same praise as the 800 and 800s. Just keep that in mind

 

[donlin]

The 820 has not receive the same praise as the 800 and 800s. Just keep that in mind

I had a chance to do a lot of comparisons between the HD800S and HD820 during a quiet time at Axpona this year and the 800S was clearly better sounding to me.

 

[Alson Chua]

There’s more higher chance I will go for 800S though. But it doesn’t comes with 4.4 plug. On the 820 thread, quite a few people prefer the 820 over 800s

Was wonder if the 800S using the same connectors as the 820?

 

[wldcohso]

There’s more higher chance I will go for 800S though. But it doesn’t comes with 4.4 plug. On the 820 thread, quite a few people prefer the 820 over 800s

Was wonder if the 800S using the same connectors as the 820?

If you sit back and watch, there’s a common trend - all about the latest and greatest and for others it’s all about that next sale. Find what’s best for you, if you do what everyone else is doing you’ll never be satisfied and you’ll be thrown off track as far as knowing what’s best for YOU. Some headphones are technically better but it really boils down to what is your preference based on the genre of music you love and music that moves you emotionally. Once you find the right pair of headphones that bridges that gap between you and the music you love you’ll notice your need to keep searching for the next best thing will will disappear.

You may ask yourself, well how will I know I found the right set of headphones? Well one way of knowing is that no matter what the next new hot item is you won’t be able to partways from your headphones. They’ll mean so much more than how much they cost, you’ll feel something similar to loving someone you really care about. The way you pickup your headphones, the way you lay down your headphones will MATTER to you. You’ll protect them like a child, you won’t take unnecessary chances of your headphones getting broken or damaged. The way you clean them will matter, you may even use a special micro fiber cloth specifically for your headphones to keep them clean, your personal time with the headphones becomes a necessary necessity towards you maintaining a more happier, healthier YOU. my 2 cents...