In a perfect world, closed full BA IEMs should be reserved for stage musicians. They are light and provide the best isolation.
I disagree to some extend. Its not wrong, but its is too pragmatic.
Stage Monitors have been initially designed to protect the hearing of the artist and for no other reason. And that is something that everyone can utilize.
Sennheiser still makes Stage Monitors with DDs and they are all bad, without exception. One is worse than the other and pretty much nobody except indie bands who can't afford real monitors use them.
Even Shure still makes stage monitors with DDs, their cheapest ones for the garage bands^^
But because they are used by professional musicians who are insanely picky, they designed them to reproduce an sound that is as authentic and realistic as possible to enable the artist to perform as good as it can be on stage.
Not just the one on stage, stage monitors are an essential tool for PA engineers and they have one of the highest demands whatsoever. They decide, how the band is supposed to sound. They are basically on-the-fly mixing/mastering engineers and have an insanely high demand for an In-Ear that sounds as perfect as it gets. The IER-M9 is actually used by more PA engineers than stage performers due to not having an custom fit version.
And of course, some consumer want exactly this almost as perfect as possible sound, even though they don't have the demand of an professional artist and don't utilize it to make money with it.
Its not like that someone who has a lot of fun driving sportscars would not enjoy an Formular 1 car or an MotoGP Bike. Honda even sold an slightly modified (to fit street regulations) original MotoGP bike to consumers. You can count on one hand how many people use this professional race bike for professional races. People bought it because they wanted the best because they enjoy it, even though they don't use it to make money. And i think we don't even have to start with cameras.
Of course an average photographer doesn't need an Sony a1 or a7r IV, but who doesn't want one? In an ideal world, everybody would just buy an cheap Entry/Mid Level APS-C Camera and would be happy. But even though you can not utilize the device to make money, if you're very picky, you can see the difference and if you want to have the highest quality, you have to buy an professional camera.
The idea is: Professionals have the highest demand and even though you may not be able to utalize it to make money, you might have the same demand.
So yes, in an ideal world, if you don't make money with music, there is no reason buying anything that is as good as an stage monitor because you never get this money back. In an ideal world, nobody pays more than 1$ for trading card game cards. In an ideal world, an CBR125 or an Volkswagen Polo is enough for everyone.
From a musical enjoyment perspective, nothing beats the coherency and timbre of a single dynamic driver. Unfortunately, the current state of the industry regarding single DDs are as follows:
- Broken, "I don't know what I'm doing" IEMs
Mostly ChiFi though
- Infestation of unremarkable $20 ChiFi sets with their endless approximations of Harman Target
Because the whole reason why DDs where used in the first place is that they were Cheap and for no other reason. So its nor surpise that the cheapest technology is used in the cheapest earphone.
- Companies that try to push their DD too hard, and fail (Sennheiser, Acoustune)
I personally think that Acoustune does not fail. I tested several of them and most (not all, yes, but most) have been excellent.
Sennheiser doesn't develop nor manufacture DDs, they buy them from chinese companies and implement it, nothing more, nothing less.
- Companies that embrace the limitations of current single DD technology but usually translates in darker tunings (Beyer, Final E series, Technics?)
Final A-Series is an Single DD and everything but dark.
Sony gave up on single DDs because they have limits that nobody can break, they actually intended to end DDs once an for all. In several Interviews about the initial XBA Series you can read, without doubt, that Sony was sure, that DDs are a thing of the past.
The reason why they failed was
1. It was too expensive for the average consumer
2. It was too progressive for audiophiles (IT USED TO SOUND DIFFERENT! WHY CHANGE! CHANGE NOT GOOD! UGA UGA!!!)
That DDs still exist is for 2 reasons
1. They are insanely cheap and even though they are cheap, people pay a lot of money for them
2. Audiophiles want them
Attention, now it gets a bit philosophic and dark
If audiophiles wouldn't be as puristic, Class A amps, tube amps, dynamic drivers, all would be long dead. Nobody except audiphiles wants or needs them because most people don't enjoy the worse sound for nostalgic reason that nobody can describe really.
Yamaha invented Planar Magnetic Drivers because they knew, no matter what material you use, DDs will always be inferior. Sony wanted to kill DDs with their own developed BAs. Audiophiles are the reasons why its still there, but this will change slowly over time as more young people join the hobby.
And yes, a lot of people enjoy this inferior sound and think its the best, but, and now it gets dark but real talk, those people will get older and older and be all dead by some point.
In 100 years, nobody will listen to dynamic drivers in audiophile headphones, pretty sure, and nobody will care. The young people don't know it different and the others will be all dead at that point.
We are currently at an way point, the point of migration from one technology to an other. The same happens with Cars that go from petrol to electric, with Bands that suddenly sound more complex and "overproduced" to most 40+ people and so on. "Why is it so fast, Deep Purple sounded different, music sucks these days", well guess what, in 100 years nobody but retro fans will care how deep purple sounded.
Younger people don't care what older people enjoyed becaue they have no nostalgic feeling for it. There will be always retro fans, but they will most likely not listen to bands that have been produced with outdated technology and so profit from the worse rendition due to DDs.
Its the same with every technology. Car fans complain that electric cars arent loud and smell, but guess what, most people in the future will never be able to understand why we liked that in the first place. And yes, right now, there will be people who say there is nothing better than the vibration and the roar of an high power engine, but again, in 100years, they will be all dead and nobody cares what they thought.
DSLRs also died completely. I remember what an outrage that was, how people fightet for their mirror and now, nobody cares. There are people who get into photography who don't even know they had mirrors in the past, and dont' care that they did.
ebooks are replacing books, electric cars are replacing fuel cars, modern high speed trains are replacing steam and diesel trains and BAs will replace DDs, thats just how things happen
