Recently became an iem fan. Using final e3000 right now but I’m looking for a more neutral higher detail sound under 200$. Been looking at the shuoer tape or fiio f9 pro. I could be wrong about those two and their sound since i haven’t heard them, but those are some of the ones I’m thinking about.
Any other suggestions? I like crystal clear audio over bassy. Besides the fatigue, i enjoyed the akg q701 sound. Mostly listen to classical, metal and jazz music.
I’m fine with it being under 100$ if the quality is minimally different from that higher price.
I really want to say you should check out the moondrop starfields I would have in the past reccomended the moonbdrop kxxs but the starfields are reported to sound exactly the same if not slightly better
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I agree totally with this choice.
You’re a prime candidate for the Tin Hifi P1’s.
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If you have the amp then yeah lol
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Caveat shmaveat. Everyone’s got amplification by now. 
And do any of you know how the ones i were already considering compare to the suggested? Just curious, because i have so little experience.
Of course another option could be to just get a few different sounding ones on eBay or something. Even though I’m not a basshead, I’m sure higher quality bass iem sound good in their own right and whatnot.
So something a lot of people complain about with the Shouer Tape is “shoutiness”, meaning the vocals and lower treble area and some other frequencies are harsh.
I don’t know about the Fiio, I know that the FH7 and FH5 are good, but they don’t sound up your alley.
I think the Tin P1 would be incredible, but only if you have a powerful amplifier for them. They need the power.
I would say if you don’t have a good amplifier or the means to get one, the Moondrop Starfield like RiceGuru suggested would be good
Ikko OH10 are a phenomenal choice. They can do it all. They have a fantastic sound signature and handle all genre of music. Plus they look beautiful. They would be the perfect IEM. You could honestly get those and be done with IEMs forever.
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Yeah after listening to my final e3000 and my Fidelio x2hr more last night, i think what i wish the iem had was a bigger soundstage, more detail and vocals to not sound so distant. It’s like vocals half the time sound sandwiched between the low and high end if that makes sense. I figured a neutral sound would probably fix that, but i dunno. I don’t mind the bass, but i don’t like the bass taking over and covering the other details happening.
Check out the Audiosense AQ3, seems to be neutral and very detailed…
I am enjoying the FiiO FA1. Great mids, detailed and stylish (imo). Not too much bass but what it has is rather punchy. However at this point I only have the KZ ZST to compare it with (which they beat in everything but amount of bass) and I am new to this whole scene so I have no idea how it stacks up to other $100 IEMs.
Since you have the X2HR’s. It’s kind of old, but worth exploring…
https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/sony-mdr-ex800st.15096/reviews
Not heard it myself but it’s not one of Chris’s recs
Apparently Etymotic ER4SR are basically the benchmark for neutrality and detail.
SR is for “Studio Reference”.
But maybe you won’t find em… “fun” ? I don’t know. They’re on my wishlist for sure.
I’m not against the bass in the fidelio, but I don’t know… I kind of want something new. I’ll be pairing the iem with a dap when I’m out and about and it would be nice to have a slightly different sound than my fidelio, because those are the ones I use at home everyday.
I have the beyerdynamic dt770 pro and I wouldn’t call them “fun”, and if they werent sibilant to me, I would probably prefer the sound. So I’m not worried about the iem sounding fun. I want bigger soundstage and clear detail. If the Final e3000 met those, I wouldn’t get any more lol, but they dont.
I’m ok blaming the music recordings over the headphones if they happen to be analytical. I appreciate effort on the part of recording and whatnot. The akg q701 made bad recorded music very obvious and I kinda miss that.
What ohm rating of the 770 do you have? I couldn’t stand the 80 ohm even, way too sibilant. The 250 ohm version with a good power source toned the sharpness down nicely to where they were enjoyable.
It is the 32, so that’s probably it
Oh yeah the lower ohm Beyerdynamic are pretty darn sibilant. I hear the 32 ohm is even worse than the 80 ohm. Again, the only one I liked was the 250 ohm version, everything was cleaner, and the treble wasn’t too sibilant.