siiiiick, this is so cool man, thank you for doing this!
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HFGF 2023 Songs of the year, now that’s really cool and what we’re all here for…the 
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This is a great idea.
Looks like someone else picked the same album as me!
I’ll have to look some of these up on Amazon music and give them a listen.
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Who ever nominated Fever Ray 
that’s an awesome album so, so close to getting my vote too
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I had thought that was you!
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I guess there’s no way anyone would pick the same album as me 
. But I messed up one of the answers - to the question of whether you use IEM or buds I answered “1”, and I only use IEM, so the answer is “5” for IEM 
. And the idea is very good, no one else thought of it, for which congratulations. Wish there were more creative dudes out there. 
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cool initiative, I set up a daily sync to Tidal:
https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/1a36fedf-35b6-4939-ac03-6d82b5927647
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Hi, you got it right - this is a scale question:
1 is IEMs all the way, 5 is Earbuds all the way. 3 is 50/50
And this poll ideal is an intellectual property steal from Head Fi watercooler and discovery thread, just with different questions (some even the same) 
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Went with Julie Byrne - The Greater Wings…the old folky hippy in me is still strong lol
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This was really easy for me as my listening over the last year for the first time ever was 3 aka 50/50…buds are on the rise for me for sure, previous years was all IEM’s.
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I plan to try Riku’s Saber 3 so I don’t “die” before I’ve tried good buds 
. I will write to him as soon as possible to clarify the delivery.
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Man that’s a dope set…if you were in the UK I’d send mine out for you to try
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I plead guilty.
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never heard of Fever Ray but I love the song in the playlist! Honestly Im enjoying every song so thanks @pylaczynski !
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A shameless and mostly off-top plug, but definitely give this concert a try.
It’s mesmerizing.
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Love this!!!
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Sneak-peak #2
Mid-term polls data analysis based on 38 answers finds quite interesting trend on the earbuds preference being potentially affected quite significantly by the number of IEMs in one’s possession (the orange datapoints. The higher value the higher impact/weight earbuds have in person’s value scale as compared to IEMs)
It may lead to conclusion that is aligned with subjective feeling - the more you have IEMs in possession, the more likely you are longer and the hobby → the bigger chance you started exploring alternative to IEMs “worlds” of music listening options, for example earbuds.
Disclaimer: raw data is flawed, as I made the ranges of IEMs in possession very subjectively and without a second thought (so they are not even) and I really underestimated how many HEAVY HOARDERS of IEMs (20+ in possession) we do have in our community. Thank you guys, you keep the hobby alive by making sure manufacturers have dedicated customers ready to pull the trigger at any given time 
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Just FYI I would be closing the poll on 12PM local polish time on Sunday
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The count is finished guys after more than 2 long days of hard work. Below the official basic level results with advanced analysis to come later (and if we have any data scientist that want to take those GDPR masked raw results into proper math-doing and I happy to share).
This is a long post, so be warned and grab yourself a nice cup of tea, because there are numbers ahead
HiFi Guides IEM of the year raw results
- Number of votes: 41 - I want to thank every single person that spend couple of minutes of their precious time for no direct benefit! I wanted to name each one of you in person, but I underestimated the final interest, so pardon me.
Maybe @Ohmboy has some data on number people that actively post in IEMs/other section so to see what is the voting frequency - Demographics - I am sorry to say, but at least 95% of us are male, so no parities definitely.
Most of us are in best age between 25 and 39 years (joke), but there are people from every single moment of life apart from <18. So quite mature population
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Most of us to my surprise are from Europe, I was completely sure we are minority knowing the best touring group is in North America. Come on EU guys, we need to gather up!
- How many IEMs do you have? - this is a forum of hoarders, with >75% having more sets than anyone would ever need realistically. Good for you!
- What is your favourite IEM driver configuration? - DD rules in short, but hybrids based on DD are significantly the most liked config. I think that question was very broad and some people connected this with the next one and answered about the config of the favourite set of theirs. My honest intention was about the general most liked config that you tend to find the most fun with. But the data is cool as it is presented
- What is your leave-the-hobby IEM? The one you would take on the deserted island with you. - surprisingly the answer that was most repeated was Subtonic Storm. Surprising as it is a set that is relatively rare, but probably it is as good as it can be. I guess this is the most favourite set of the forum.
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For reference it got 4/41 votes, so the votes were very distributed.
On podium to my surprise and happiness there was Softears Twilight with 3/41 votes and ex equo UM Mest series, Thieaudio Monarch series, FatFreq Maestro series, Mangird Tea series (!) and Sennheiser IE900 (!!). All of them with 2/41 votes. I guess having series as common vote was not fair, sorry. Would be better next year - What is your favourite release of the year? Releases dated at 2023. - I thought it would end up being some of the Simgot ones, but the winner is for heavy wallets as well - Thieaudio Monarch III.
It got 4/41 votes, so also extremely distributed voting. On the second place EA500 with 3/41 and on third Salnotes Zero II and Simgot EA1000 with 2/41. The rest got for 1 vote. I would make honourable mentions for 2 buds that made it to the list - Rikubuds Saber 3 of our local friend @Rikudou_Goku and TGXear Desolation Sound (which actually was mentioned in previous question as well!) - IEMs or Buds? (mark your preference on the scale) - no surprise, answers in a poll named IEM of the year were mostly distributed around IEMs being the preference of you guys. Still very interesting, I hope next year we would see some shift to the right, as it is really great area to be explored for IEM lovers
- What types of audio gear do you actively use? - BT headphones and BT speakers being surprsisingly low, but the most surprising is the fact that TWS is used by less than 50% of the people answering!
- What is your primary way of listening to the music? - I concur I thought DAPs are dying breed, but you keep the hobby going. I thought dongles would be dominant within IEM people.
- Where do you put the emphasize on more in the music you love? - I am voting this to be the stupidest question, but here are the answers - 1 are vocals, 5 are instrumentals. As a vocal lover I am a bit disappointed
Once again thank you guys. My plan is to repeat the poll next year to see what was changed and improve on some questions add a few and probably not to remove any, so to see the adjustments in answers. If you have any feedback any suggestions, any questions you would like to see answers for just let me know.
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