what exactly is the difference between a cheap and expensive iem?

[castleofargh]

Do you need isolation from outside noises? That's the number one decision factor for IEM. Because if you don't, and also don't care much about bass, then earbuds are the answer you are looking for. They tend to be cheap, yet often have better measurements than some expensive BA based IEMs. And you almost never have to care about what's powering them.

In general, there are, or should be, benefits in expensive IEMS. Channel matching and quality parts somewhat follow pricing, or taken the other way, extremely cheap IEMs are often bad at that and some luck is necessary to pick the one pair that's well match by chance.
For distortions, they tend to go down while price goes up within the offering of a given brand. But overall, price and distortions don't really seem to correlate. Dynamic drivers usually do better than BAs, while multi BA drivers make up most of the TOTL IEMs.

 

[Rackhour]

i am only a few months into this hobby and i have only tried cheap iems but i struggle to understand what expensive iems provides more soundwise, i've seen from youtube videos that some people have mistaken cheap iems for expensive ones which baffles me more. juding from reviews the biggest differences are tuning, which doesn't make sense to me because Eqing exists, and i don't get how tuning affects price and SOUND QUALITY itself since there no objectively "bad tuning". another difference are the materials which from my knowledge doesn't necessarily improve the sound quality just how the iem themselves feel, then there are the drivers which i do not know much about, what i do know however is that a single dynamic driver which is present in a lot of iems from cheap to expensive is more than enough to produce great sound. lastly there are technicalities which i still struggle to understand.. at all, the most i know are that on some iems i can hear the instruments more as in i can tell which instruments are being played better. can someone please educate me? my main motive for this question is because i want an upgrade to my moondrop lan which i found lackluster

Generally speaking, customer service and support also take up a chunk of the price you pay for higher-end equipment. The better known brands like Sennheiser or Shure often have either regional branches worldwide, or formal agreements with certain third-party stores to provide servicing or refurbishments. The thing is that CS is not tangible like an IEM’s material. Note, I say “generally speaking” based on experience with other types of gear; I don’t know what CS is like with Moondrop or other manufacturers like Letshouer and the rest.

And then you have companies like Etymotic that have a niche. Their niche is high levels of isolation, something you don’t regularly see in other models from other companies.

Dynamic drivers usually do better than BAs, while multi BA drivers make up most of the TOTL IEMs.

Can you elaborate on this? My favorite IEMs - Etymotic buds - all use BA, but I bought and use them for the isolation, and I like the sound signatures; the type of driver never was a point of consideration. My TWS sets use what I’m guessing are DD, but their sound signatures are too different from the Ety buds to make a comparison.

 

[castleofargh]

Can you elaborate on this? My favorite IEMs - Etymotic buds - all use BA, but I bought and use them for the isolation, and I like the sound signatures; the type of driver never was a point of consideration. My TWS sets use what I’m guessing are DD, but their sound signatures are too different from the Ety buds to make a comparison.

It's just something I have noticed to be pretty consistent over the years, be it with online measurements or my own.
I also happen to put isolation at the top of my list with IEMs and logically purchased mostly fully sealed BA solutions because of that, including half a dozen Etys. Some of which have dynamic drivers(from memory, ER2, MC5... some even older one, was it hf3 maybe? I'm not sure). They're so-called micro dynamic drivers because... well, they're really tiny ones. But still, they're not BAs.

Anyway, in a very broad and rule of thumby way, dynamic driver earphones tend to more easily have a wide frequency range (seems counterintuitive but good treble extension with multidrivers has issues and too many products clearly fail to handle those). DD also tend to show significantly lower distortion figures.
It might not be significant in most cases, but DD also tend to offer a more consistent response into various amps, while BAs have by nature some more chaotic impedance curves, sometimes leading to several dBs of FR changes between 2 amps of different impedances.

 

[tlite]

I'm just dabbling in IEM's but seems like one of the things you definitely can get at a higher price point is a better seal and isolation (and therefore sound) from custom tips or custom IEMs.

 

[AmericanSpirit]

These days you can have great sound quality from less than $10 (TRN MT1 Max), or Truthear HOLA $19.

It’s already 80% of what $,$$$ expensive IEM’s performance.

The entry grade SQ is getting better and getter, a very very fortunate era we are living in right now

If you want 20% extra, here we have the rabbit hole

 

[phiemon]

These days you can have great sound quality from less than $10 (TRN MT1 Max), or Truthear HOLA $19.

It’s already 80% of what $,$$$ expensive IEM’s performance.

The entry grade SQ is getting better and getter, a very very fortunate era we are living in right now

If you want 20% extra, here we have the rabbit hole

80%? Well, obviously everyone has their own perceptions and parameters…

 

[Rackhour]

I'm just dabbling in IEM's but seems like one of the things you definitely can get at a higher price point is a better seal and isolation (and therefore sound) from custom tips or custom IEMs.

In some cases, customs are the only way to go. Literally nothing else fits.

 

[requal]

For me it's even less then 80 procents.

Most of this expensive ones even don't reach Harman target, let's say: statistically proved reference. Completely useles even to EQ. When I was demoing last times something like KR5 is was wondering what kind of believe system have those ppl who think that is good set.

There's maybe 2 procents of iems which are expensive and significantly better for me.
Good example is Moondrop Variations and Softears Twilight (but completely overpriced).

 

[phiemon]

I am out, have no desire and time to discuss this.

Have a nice day!

 

[o0genesis0o]

@OP: a few points:

1. define "sound quality". Is it adherence/worshipping Harman target? Or it is something else? You need to define for yourself, based on what you hear as this is the starting point of everything. For me, "sound quality" is (a) pleasant tonality (Harman-ish, but not true Harman, which I find shrill and shouty) and (b) top-notch "technical performance", meaning very detailed, very crisp across the spectrum, dynamic, and must be able to convey a 3D image of the soundstage. Now, if you ask me to relate those to measurements, I have some guesses where they are on frequency response, but I don't know for sure.
2. if adherence/worshipping Harman target is your "sound quality", expensive IEMs are a waste of money. 7Hz Zero and the newly released Simgot EW100P are some example of near-perfect adherence to Harman at a low price.
3. if you think "technical performance" are imaginary collective bulls**t of the "audiofools" around here, then expensive IEMs are a waste of money. Stick to the options I listed in the previous point, and you are done. You win the IEM games, congrats!
4. if you accept that Harman is not the only, or even the right way to tune an IEM's tonality, then going up the bracket opens up the door for some interesting interpretation of tonality. Many high-end IEMs have a "U-shape" tuning with relatively mild and correct midrange, but boosted in lower bass and upper treble region, which I personally find better than true Harman. This kind of tuning rarely exists in the ultra budget market. Why? I don't know.
5. if you chase the "technical performance", then you need to go up the price. We are not talking about crappy overpriced $$$$ IEMs. It's easy to take an excellent budget IEM and say, "see, it beats the heck out of that (crappy) $$$$ IEMs, so all $$$$ IEMs are snake oils," but that's not the case. The gap is closing quickly between good budget IEM and good $$$$ IEMs, but for now, the gap is still there, as it should be.
6. If you put your fingers in your ears, singing "la la la la la", and shouting out loud "all $$$$ IEMs are the same, my cheap Harman-tuned IEM is the only good IEM", then yes, all expensive IEMs are a waste of money.

 

[requal]

Right. It's about the time and money.

It's my perspective:
Most of audiophiles are not good source of information, they have some kind of mission to have better SQ, and then they are going out of space.

Truth this time is on the middle

 

[hakunamakaka]

Not everything is shown about sound in freq chart and changes with EQ will be limited to the certain degree. You will not make a transducer lacking in dynamics, suddenly become engaging and 'attack' when music calls for it. Mediocre BA driver won't reach qualities of good DD bass no matter how hard you will try to EQ it.

Lot's of marketing in IEM market, multi-driver iem's though sounds different it doesn't it necessarily sounds better and diminishing returns kicks hard as everywhere in audio. I could easily be happy with Tin T2 iem which I bought long time ago for 30$ and can actually deliver not that far from flagship performance, but in the end still got TOTL IEM which simply does everything better and delivers exceptional results with certain music genres that I listen to.

You can find many great sounding IEM's below 100$/50$ marks, even with very good build quality. My Tin T2 was dropped on the floor multiple times, thrown all over the place and still plays music like it's new. Just for a comparison something like airpods pro 2 sounds far less resolving against T2, than T2 against my A8000 TOTL IEM

 

[requal]

What I have learned (you can correct me as well)

Please note that, contrary to appearances, headphones do not add another layer of instruments, musicians in the next row, or some detail that was not originally recorded.

Their addition of "quality" is apparent.

A headphone should be "transparent", and being statistically transparent to the hearing organ is more or less Harman (depending on the person).

"Technology" is mainly about keeping distortion as low as possible. And this is real place where work should be done.

 

[hakunamakaka]

What I have learned (you can correct me as well)

Please note that, contrary to appearances, headphones do not add another layer of instruments, musicians in the next row, or some detail that was not originally recorded.

Their addition of "quality" is apparent.

A headphone should be "transparent", and being statistically transparent to the hearing organ is more or less Harman (depending on the person).

"Technology" is mainly about keeping distortion as low as possible. And this is real place where work should be done.

no headphone adds sounds that are not actually there, but they do have different presentations and better ones makes it easier to hear nuances in music. Once you hear flagships for longer period of time it's very difficult to go back to something like senn 6xx, especially if wallet allows. As well there is stuff that does so many things good like NDH30 and doesn't actually require to break the bank.

You would need far more bang with $$$ to get something like this with speakers. In IEM world you actually need least amount of money to achieve decent sound if you don't mind intimate presentation.

What's worth it or not will solely depend from person to person

 

[requal]

no headphone adds sounds that are not actually there, but they do have different presentations and better ones makes it easier to hear nuances in music. Once you hear flagships for longer period of time it's very difficult to go back to something like senn 6xx, especially if wallet allows. As well there is stuff that does so many things good like NDH30 and doesn't actually require to break the bank.

You would need far more bang with $$$ to get something like this with speakers. In IEM world you actually need least amount of money to achieve decent sound if you don't mind intimate presentation.

What's worth it or not will solely depend from person to person

I wanted to emphasize this because I get the impression that some people lose track of the fact that headphones do not have a set of musicians under the domes.

As far as I'm concerned, the presentation of music from the iems suits me better (my brain have used to it) I also find it the most comfortable way to listen to music (if not from speaker)

Somehow I'm not crying about the lack of Variations or Twilight, which play slightly better.