[fendiking]

I feel like a significant percentage of discovery thread posts are essentially variations on the question - can I get champagne performance on a beer budget?

I see it this way - if you're desperate for Porsche 911 performance but can only afford an MX-5, then my advice is just buy the MX-5 and be happy because they're awesome cars that will give you a very large slice of the 911 experience, and they're terrific value.

Unfortunately some people will buy an MX-5 then claim they're every bit as good as a 911 and that people who purchase 911s are idiots wasting their money. They do this largely to reinforce their purchasing decision, alleviate any residual guilt, and make themselves feel better about not buying a 911 which may be the car they really want but can't afford. It's this sort of behaviour that's contributed to a lot of the IEM hype bubbles we've seen over the years.

The difference between cars and earphones is audio is very subjective & there's so much variation in the way people hear things that it's easy for the waters to get muddied when it's so difficult to quantify sound quality to begin with. Some people attempt to counter that by clinging to measurements as a form of objective truth, but they're merely one data point that doesn't convey the full story.

So if someone claims "this new $100 IEM sounds as good as that $2000 flagship I heard the other day!" they may be telling the truth, but there's often more to it - that $2000 flagship may be a bass-light reference tuned IEM with great resolution, but the $100 earphone has harder-hitting bass with a more prominent midrange that suits the hip-hop and R&B genres the person listens to much better, so naturally they prefer it.

Most earphone manufacturers use off-the-shelf drivers from Sonion, Knowles or Bellsing, along with DDs that I assume are produced in a relatively small number of factories for a large number of brands. However tolerances & driver matching are generally going to be much stricter on higher priced IEMs, they may use drivers made to their exact specifications or even in some cases DDs or BCDs they've designed themselves, and of course IEM driver counts tend to go up with higher-priced IEMs. The shells themselves are more carefully designed on higher-end models and they'll often have more sound tubes, and crossover components that are more carefully chosen.

How much of that actually translates into audible improvements is completely subjective. You can't measure earphone performance with lap times or 0-100 numbers.

I honestly believe for the overwhelming majority of hobbyists (let alone those outside the hobby) the differences in audio performance between IEMs in the several hundred dollar range to those worth thousands is probably not worth the massive price jump. Especially once you pass USD $500 or so, diminishing returns start kicking in pretty hard and the improvements become more & more incremental. It's actually amazing the quality of sound you can get for very little money these days.

IEMs do keep on improving as you get into higher & higher stratospheres however - even my USD $1799 Noble Spartacus are trounced in a number of areas by more expensive IEMs out there! That's what you tend to notice as you climb the ladder, that IEMs don't necessarily improve across the board in every single performance department as you might expect, but rather their potential to deliver in any single area can scale up much higher. So for instance the USD $3k Elysian Annihilator has the highest quality treble and possibly the widest soundstage I've heard, but I'm not a huge fan of its' bass performance - you can probably find an IEM under USD $500 with higher quality bass output, so does that make the Annihilator overpriced? If you're someone who prioritises bass it might.

I'd love to discover an IEM under $200 that delivers performance on par with my USD $1599 UM Mest MKIII, I seriously would. I'm also pretty sure that if UM could build them for that price they'd do so because then they'd move a LOT more units and make much more money. Of course there's always the dream that some unknown brand out there stumbles on a magic formula and bingo, high-end IEMs for entry-level prices - I've no doubt it's the thrill of hunting down the white whale that motivates many people to keep on purchasing budget IEMs, the danger is after awhile when you add up what you've spent you could've bought an actual high-end IEM instead.

So ultimately the answer is no, if you want ultimate performance I'm afraid you do need to pay through the nose to get it - why else would we spend the amounts we do on high-end IEMs if we didn't have to? It isn't for bragging rights, as a music lover I mostly care about making music sound as good as it possibly can for as little as I can get away with spending, but having heard the high end stuff it then becomes more difficult to settle for entry-level or even mid-range gear you know is inferior.

However there's countless brands, virtually an entire industry with compelling financial incentives to convince you that yes you CAN have the ultimate in performance for next to nothing, that this is the next revolutionary level sound you've always dreamed of, that you would be crazy to pay more... and so the hype cycle continues!

Wow!! Thank you for such an insightful and thoughtful reply

 

[bithalver]

I feel like a significant percentage of discovery thread posts are essentially variations on the question - can I get champagne performance on a beer budget?

I see it this way - if you're desperate for Porsche 911 performance but can only afford an MX-5, then my advice is just buy the MX-5 and be happy because they're awesome cars that will give you a very large slice of the 911 experience, and they're terrific value.

Unfortunately some people will buy an MX-5 then claim they're every bit as good as a 911 and that people who purchase 911s are idiots wasting their money. They do this largely to reinforce their purchasing decision, alleviate any residual guilt, and make themselves feel better about not buying a 911 which may be the car they really want but can't afford. It's this sort of behaviour that's contributed to a lot of the IEM hype bubbles we've seen over the years.

The difference between cars and earphones is audio is very subjective & there's so much variation in the way people hear things that it's easy for the waters to get muddied when it's so difficult to quantify sound quality to begin with. Some people attempt to counter that by clinging to measurements as a form of objective truth, but they're merely one data point that doesn't convey the full story.

So if someone claims "this new $100 IEM sounds as good as that $2000 flagship I heard the other day!" they may be telling the truth, but there's often more to it - that $2000 flagship may be a bass-light reference tuned IEM with great resolution, but the $100 earphone has harder-hitting bass with a more prominent midrange that suits the hip-hop and R&B genres the person listens to much better, so naturally they prefer it.

Most earphone manufacturers use off-the-shelf drivers from Sonion, Knowles or Bellsing, along with DDs that I assume are produced in a relatively small number of factories for a large number of brands. However tolerances & driver matching are generally going to be much stricter on higher priced IEMs, they may use drivers made to their exact specifications or even in some cases DDs or BCDs they've designed themselves, and of course IEM driver counts tend to go up with higher-priced IEMs. The shells themselves are more carefully designed on higher-end models and they'll often have more sound tubes, and crossover components that are more carefully chosen.

How much of that actually translates into audible improvements is completely subjective. You can't measure earphone performance with lap times or 0-100 numbers.

I honestly believe for the overwhelming majority of hobbyists (let alone those outside the hobby) the differences in audio performance between IEMs in the several hundred dollar range to those worth thousands is probably not worth the massive price jump. Especially once you pass USD $500 or so, diminishing returns start kicking in pretty hard and the improvements become more & more incremental. It's actually amazing the quality of sound you can get for very little money these days.

IEMs do keep on improving as you get into higher & higher stratospheres however - even my USD $1799 Noble Spartacus are trounced in a number of areas by more expensive IEMs out there! That's what you tend to notice as you climb the ladder, that IEMs don't necessarily improve across the board in every single performance department as you might expect, but rather their potential to deliver in any single area can scale up much higher. So for instance the USD $3k Elysian Annihilator has the highest quality treble and possibly the widest soundstage I've heard, but I'm not a huge fan of its' bass performance - you can probably find an IEM under USD $500 with higher quality bass output, so does that make the Annihilator overpriced? If you're someone who prioritises bass it might.

I'd love to discover an IEM under $200 that delivers performance on par with my USD $1599 UM Mest MKIII, I seriously would. I'm also pretty sure that if UM could build them for that price they'd do so because then they'd move a LOT more units and make much more money. Of course there's always the dream that some unknown brand out there stumbles on a magic formula and bingo, high-end IEMs for entry-level prices - I've no doubt it's the thrill of hunting down the white whale that motivates many people to keep on purchasing budget IEMs, the danger is after awhile when you add up what you've spent you could've bought an actual high-end IEM instead.

So ultimately the answer is no, if you want ultimate performance I'm afraid you do need to pay through the nose to get it - why else would we spend the amounts we do on high-end IEMs if we didn't have to? It isn't for bragging rights, as a music lover I mostly care about making music sound as good as it possibly can for as little as I can get away with spending, but having heard the high end stuff it then becomes more difficult to settle for entry-level or even mid-range gear you know is inferior.

However there's countless brands, virtually an entire industry with compelling financial incentives to convince you that yes you CAN have the ultimate in performance for next to nothing, that this is the next revolutionary level sound you've always dreamed of, that you would be crazy to pay more... and so the hype cycle continues!

This post is so good it should be pinned to front page.

Thank you for teaching us, Master !

 

[o0genesis0o]

I feel like a significant percentage of discovery thread posts are essentially variations on the question - can I get champagne performance on a beer budget?

I see it this way - if you're desperate for Porsche 911 performance but can only afford an MX-5, then my advice is just buy the MX-5 and be happy because they're awesome cars that will give you a very large slice of the 911 experience, and they're terrific value.

Unfortunately some people will buy an MX-5 then claim they're every bit as good as a 911 and that people who purchase 911s are idiots wasting their money. They do this largely to reinforce their purchasing decision, alleviate any residual guilt, and make themselves feel better about not buying a 911 which may be the car they really want but can't afford. It's this sort of behaviour that's contributed to a lot of the IEM hype bubbles we've seen over the years.

The difference between cars and earphones is audio is very subjective & there's so much variation in the way people hear things that it's easy for the waters to get muddied when it's so difficult to quantify sound quality to begin with. Some people attempt to counter that by clinging to measurements as a form of objective truth, but they're merely one data point that doesn't convey the full story.

So if someone claims "this new $100 IEM sounds as good as that $2000 flagship I heard the other day!" they may be telling the truth, but there's often more to it - that $2000 flagship may be a bass-light reference tuned IEM with great resolution, but the $100 earphone has harder-hitting bass with a more prominent midrange that suits the hip-hop and R&B genres the person listens to much better, so naturally they prefer it.

Most earphone manufacturers use off-the-shelf drivers from Sonion, Knowles or Bellsing, along with DDs that I assume are produced in a relatively small number of factories for a large number of brands. However tolerances & driver matching are generally going to be much stricter on higher priced IEMs, they may use drivers made to their exact specifications or even in some cases DDs or BCDs they've designed themselves, and of course IEM driver counts tend to go up with higher-priced IEMs. The shells themselves are more carefully designed on higher-end models and they'll often have more sound tubes, and crossover components that are more carefully chosen.

How much of that actually translates into audible improvements is completely subjective. You can't measure earphone performance with lap times or 0-100 numbers.

I honestly believe for the overwhelming majority of hobbyists (let alone those outside the hobby) the differences in audio performance between IEMs in the several hundred dollar range to those worth thousands is probably not worth the massive price jump. Especially once you pass USD $500 or so, diminishing returns start kicking in pretty hard and the improvements become more & more incremental. It's actually amazing the quality of sound you can get for very little money these days.

IEMs do keep on improving as you get into higher & higher stratospheres however - even my USD $1799 Noble Spartacus are trounced in a number of areas by more expensive IEMs out there! That's what you tend to notice as you climb the ladder, that IEMs don't necessarily improve across the board in every single performance department as you might expect, but rather their potential to deliver in any single area can scale up much higher. So for instance the USD $3k Elysian Annihilator has the highest quality treble and possibly the widest soundstage I've heard, but I'm not a huge fan of its' bass performance - you can probably find an IEM under USD $500 with higher quality bass output, so does that make the Annihilator overpriced? If you're someone who prioritises bass it might.

I'd love to discover an IEM under $200 that delivers performance on par with my USD $1599 UM Mest MKIII, I seriously would. I'm also pretty sure that if UM could build them for that price they'd do so because then they'd move a LOT more units and make much more money. Of course there's always the dream that some unknown brand out there stumbles on a magic formula and bingo, high-end IEMs for entry-level prices - I've no doubt it's the thrill of hunting down the white whale that motivates many people to keep on purchasing budget IEMs, the danger is after awhile when you add up what you've spent you could've bought an actual high-end IEM instead.

So ultimately the answer is no, if you want ultimate performance I'm afraid you do need to pay through the nose to get it - why else would we spend the amounts we do on high-end IEMs if we didn't have to? It isn't for bragging rights, as a music lover I mostly care about making music sound as good as it possibly can for as little as I can get away with spending, but having heard the high end stuff it then becomes more difficult to settle for entry-level or even mid-range gear you know is inferior.

However there's countless brands, virtually an entire industry with compelling financial incentives to convince you that yes you CAN have the ultimate in performance for next to nothing, that this is the next revolutionary level sound you've always dreamed of, that you would be crazy to pay more... and so the hype cycle continues!

Great points, @Bosk !

Just to add: the quality and appreciation of the audio chain also depends on the listeners, what they can pick out and what they care about. I saw quite a few headfiers proudly say (write) “I couldn’t careless about soundstage” or “resolution is a meme”. In their subjective world, these statements are right and thus they, rightfully so, find that going above $50 is a waste of money. So it’s important to consider your own ears, your taste, what you want.

That’s why I breakdown IEMs into aspects that matter (at least matter to me), and compare them with benchmarks to put them into practical bands. The relative value of aspects is readers’ decision, not reviewers. “Value proposition”, then, can be easily quantified as a ratio between price and performance.

IMHO, if one does not hear / appreciate “technical performance”, there is no need to buy anything more than around $350. Something like a Dunu Falcon Ultra is an “end game”, with all the necessary accessories, build quality, and cable connections. Personally, the idea of $$$$$$ IEM without technical chop is kinda illogical. But it’s just me. Some like their $$$$$$ IEMs to be soulful and analogue ($ IEMs same sound would be “muddy” and “blunted”, aren’t they? )

---

This album sounds so good with the F1 Pro. The bass is strong, but the transient response across the spectrum is so snappy. It’s addictive. I have some good experience with Two Step From Hell as well. Like I mentioned, I feel the spirit of full-sized planar here. So far so good.

Still not entirely happy with timbre of vocals and violin though.

@baskingshark @NymPHONOmaniac do you have these IEMs? Would love to hear your input.

---

Edit: these F1 Pro comes with a pair of bonus cable. It's a miss for me. It's kind of shocking how the difference is so easy to pick out (I'm using K7, no change in volume, no change in music, same 4.4, just swap out the cable). The bonus cable immediately suppress the vocal and make the drums sound boomy and uncontrolled. No idea what the physical cause is, but no. I don't like it at all.

---

Edit 2: Percussive pieces like this classic sounds great with the F1 Pro.



I'm going through my library to find new songs / pieces to try. This is fun.

 

[Zerstorer_GOhren]

Here's my review on Oriveti OD100

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/oriveti-od100.26851/

 

[Zerstorer_GOhren]

Effect Audio cables:

Effect Audio Cadmus

Effect Audio Eros S

Effect Audio Ares S

 

[sgtbilko]

IMHO, if one does not hear / appreciate “technical performance”, there is no need to buy anything more than around $350.

This is such a good point.

There have literally been hundreds of good/great iems over the last few years - most under $150. Once you've worked out your sound signature/found an iem you enjoy, the improvements from buying other similarly priced iems is a limited one IMO. So it comes down to finding something that teases out more of the missing elements that 'cheaper' iems cannot deliver - such as the aforementioned 'technical performance'.

Outside of this (and similar) forums, most lovers of good audio don't buy tens of iems or headphones each year.

 

[Ruben123]

@ everybody owning or having owned the Hifiman RE-400
How do they compare (@ $19) to their Chinese $19 counterparts? Is it worth the hassle to get them to ship to EU (adds quite a lot of shipping costs)? Just ordered the &hz Zero.

 

[Vonbuddy]

This is such a good point.

There have literally been hundreds of good/great iems over the last few years - most under $150. Once you've worked out your sound signature/found an iem you enjoy, the improvements from buying other similarly priced iems is a limited one IMO. So it comes down to finding something that teases out more of the missing elements that 'cheaper' iems cannot deliver - such as the aforementioned 'technical performance'.

Outside of this (and similar) forums, most lovers of good audio don't buy tens of iems or headphones each year.

Most don't lol.

 

[FlacFan]

I feel like a significant percentage of discovery thread posts are essentially variations on the question - can I get champagne performance on a beer budget?

I see it this way - if you're desperate for Porsche 911 performance but can only afford an MX-5, then my advice is just buy the MX-5 and be happy because they're awesome cars that will give you a very large slice of the 911 experience, and they're terrific value.

Unfortunately some people will buy an MX-5 then claim they're every bit as good as a 911 and that people who purchase 911s are idiots wasting their money. They do this largely to reinforce their purchasing decision, alleviate any residual guilt, and make themselves feel better about not buying a 911 which may be the car they really want but can't afford. It's this sort of behaviour that's contributed to a lot of the IEM hype bubbles we've seen over the years.
...

Excellent post.
You just forgot one tiny piece.
Once you can actually afford a Porsche 911, you no longer can get into one...

Cheers.

 

[lgcubana]

I feel like a significant percentage of discovery thread posts are essentially variations on the question - can I get champagne performance on a beer budget?

Answ: No, but you can (every once in a while) find a really good beer
&
I’ll take a good sippin, double fermented , Belgian beer any day (and twice on Sunday) of the week, over a flute of champagne.

Currently switch hitting between two heavy “beers”: Xenns Mangird Top and Moondrop Blessing 2 Dusk

 

[fidgeraldo]

Dunu Falcon Ultra

Hi, what do you think about Dunu Vulkan vs Falcon Ultra?

I had Falcon Ultra on my list, but then I read impressions about Vulkan and decided to get one.

I am interested in seeing how they resolve bass. With cheaper IEMs, I have IE200 or Salinotes Dioko, but I don't find them nearly as good in that term as I do find the quality of the bass in headphones such as Fostex t5050 or Monoprice monolith 1060C, which are at the same price as Dunu Vulkan.

Your impressions of F1 Pro are pretty interesting, but I wonder if you really get with F1 Pro, snappy thick and good resolved bass as with the over-ear headphones I mentioned.

I like and appreciate reading your comments.

Cheers!

 

[fidgeraldo]

I’ll take a good sippin, double fermented , Belgian beer any day (and twice on Sunday) of the week, over a flute of champagne.

I will join the club!


Cheers!

 

[bithalver]

Currently switch hitting between two heavy “beers”: Xenns Mangird Top and Moondrop Blessing 2 Dusk

Sure I understand the jokes but: if those IEM are just beers then I drink only water - only question is: tap or mineral .

Yep, beer is good (belgian cherry or wheat for me), but I drink much more water. Also, no champagne for me (not even for free). Mean the previous 2 sentences for IEMs, too.

Above 300 USD IEMs will sound the same for me (mean: alike FR ones) so I will not go there EVER.

My main is a Hidizs MP145, also listening to Raptgo Hook X (green)(most expensice until now), Monndrop Aria2 and Nicehck F1 Pro.

 

[superuser1]

Hidizs MP145

Do you have scaffoldings holding it up?

 

[Vonbuddy]

I saw Noble Stage 3 at Musicteck and was very interested in it. It sells for $600 and Bloom Audio gave it rave reviews, but otherwise there is practically nothing else out there on this iem. Have any of you listened to it?