Moonlight vs Mest mkii
So I bought the Mest mkii as an upgrade to my Yanyin Moonlights. The set I bought was used/burned in, but still pretty new. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but so far I actually prefer the Moonlight.
I was immediately blown away by how similar they were. For that much extra $$$ I was expecting a leap in quality and didn’t get it. On the first few hours of listening the differences were so minimal that any small benefit already seemed not worth the extra money. Both sounded better on 3.5 than balanced. And also sounded better with my aftermarket kbear hazy and Nicehck spacecloud cables. (both iems came with balanced cables which I honestly don’t think sound as good with either set).
With more listening. I’ll concede that the slight edge the Mest has is in the bass. Tighter, a touch more depth, and an overall coherency in the lows through mids in general. But the gains are very minimal and come at the cost of a slightly smaller soundstage, less note weight, and most important less detail and coherency in the mids AND treble. Surprising. The mest seems to dip right in the sweet spot for guitars (especially distorted heavier guitars) and hi hats. It almost has a “scooped mids” feel in comparison to how rich and full the mids in the moonlight are. Certain vocals also sounded thinner and this “scoop” loses the coherency in the mids and treble compared to the moonlight. Almost feels like the est and ba’s are fighting a bit, but it’s probably more the tuning.
I ended up using the squiglink auto eq function from 0-200hz and making the adjustments with the PEQ in poweramp to replicate the mest’s bass response on the moonlight (only up to 200hz) and now they’re a mest mkii killer.
I was honestly so excited for this set but I’m a bit disappointed. Glad I was able to test and make an informed decision. I’ll probably let a few weeks go by and see where I land. But I really don’t see much changing.
Just for a reference on where I’m coming from, I’m an audio engineer and do work producing/mixing music (especially heavier music, metal, hardcore, emo, shoegaze, etc but I listen to a wide range of music). Also a touring musician. I was intending for the mest mkii to become my studio set for engineering and production work, and also for listening at home for pleasure. I assumed the moonlight would become my live performance set. Weirdly enough I’m likely sticking with the moonlight for all of it and might just pickup the Aful performer5 for live performance and the gym.
The moonlight is such a slept on iem. Would love to hear from anyone else who has tried both the mest mkii and moonlight. Or mahina.
Quick note on the Mahina, I had previously tried wavelet to replicate mahina’s bass on my moonlights and the results weren’t nearly as good as using the mest mkii for my bass shape template up to 200hz. Maybe that’s more of a wavelet vs poweramp PEQ issue but I sorta doubt that? Would love to hear a direct comparison of the mahina and mest mkii to compare the bass.
Just to clarify, the moonlight has plenty of bass. But after hearing the mest’s specific bass tuning, I did miss it. The differences are subtle and not exactly just a simple boost like the mahina. Luckily PEQ works incredibly well at dialing in the low end. I wouldn’t use it for anything beyond 500hz though because you start fighting the natural tuning of the shell, crossover, drivers, etc. luckily for me I much prefer the moonlights mids and highs.
One last thing… the mest really hurts my ears. The moonlight is so small and fits perfectly. It’s so comfy that I can wear it all day. I can’t wear the mest mkii for more than an hour without it becoming unbearable. The nozzle is too wide and my ears ache after only a short period. It also seems to hit a spot on the outside of my ear that hurts. This is more of a personal fitment issue. But if you have small ear canals like me, the Mest may not work for you. I’ve seen many used sets for sale because people had trouble with the fit. Count me among them.
Also the driver flex on the mest was baaaaad. My moonlight has a little on the left ear but the mest was worse and in both. It seems to be a common mest issue.
