I’ve been contemplating this for almost half a year now. I recently moved back to Android from Apple and first I thought I’ll just get another wireless set of earbuds. The more I thought about it though my mind has gone more towards maybe doing a portable DAC + a pair of really nice sounding wired buds.
The absolute max I think I can spend on the buds themselves are around $300. I can be flexible but I am not looking in the Sennheiser 600 ballpark haha.
So if you have any recommendations, experiences or just have some tips to what to look out for please share them with me!
Crinacle’s list is a great place to start. https://crinacle.com/rankings/iems/ If you’re in the US Amazon has the Moondrop Blessing 2 on sale for $279. That would probably be what I’d try in the $300 range.
Thanks for the suggestion! Crinacle completely slipped my mind haha, yeah the Moondrops look mighty inviting that’s for sure!
I’ve had the blessing 2 dusk for about 2 years now and nothing has really seemed like a worthwhile upgrade to me. I’m sure you’ll find a lot of praise for them on the internet so I’ll give you what I dislike about them.
- My pair have spinfit cp155 tips, they stay on snug for about a month or two before they start to feel loose or slip off on their own. I just wipe off the iem and the tip on my shirt every now and then and they go back to being snug.
- I listen to a lot of EDM, Orchestral, Pop, and a little bit of Rock. For my tastes they still lack some Bass and have a tad bit too much treble. For reference I increased bass at 125hz by 2.0db and and lowered the 6-8k range by 1.5db
- They’re pretty big, I don’t have issues with the nozzle size but the body of them butt up against the top of my ear creating a hotspot after a while.
S12
What you get is largely going to depend on your preferences for sound signature.
I would dive into the world of chi-fi IEMs.
KZ make some great IEMs; I love the ZS10 Pro and I’d love to own a PR1 Pro.
Kiwi Ears also make great products.
I’d recommend checking out the Linsoul website as they often have great deals on their headphones.
For DACs, I love the Qudelix 5k myself. I think it’s better than the FiiO DACs.
Can confirm, I have a set of KZs (I forget the model) but they’re shockingly good, even better when paired with a FiiO DAC
Shocking good is exactly how I describe them. And for the money, like $40-90, you can’t beat them!
IEMs are actually advancing at a rapid pace and those KZs are pretty outdated by now. Salnotes Zero or Truthear Hola beat them for less and something like the Truthear Zero are a pretty decent step up.
The PR2 especially is nice though, just sad they seemingly had a silent revision that’s worse.