IEMs are ruining my headphone experience

Legacy 3 are probably my next set, if I like them I will wait and save up for an endgame set

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eeyyyyy, those look neat. what about them in particular interest u?

Dip switches seem like a cool movie, but I want the DD bass with BA mids and highs.

I still don’t think that a BA can hit the same as a DD in bass, but solo DD will be too muddy in my opinion so that’s where the BA’s come in.

I was looking at hybrid pairs and they have been getting some hype recently. I also really want a nice looking faceplate for once aha

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wow pretty interesting stuff, tbh i never considered that iems had different drivers besides what headphones have lol. like i’ve never heard of BA or DD drivers. do the blon and tin t2 share one of those?

yeah BA is balanced armature and DD is dynamic driver. The Blons have a single 10mm DD and the Tin T2 have 2, a 10mm and 6mm woofer and tweeter respectively.

There are also, of course, estat drivers for IEMs, most of the Chinese ones aren’t ‘real’ estats, the only pairs I know of that are real estat IEMs are from Stax and Shure make the KSE1500 and KSE1200, all need their own portable amp.

I am yet to hear IEM estats but apparently they are really good for highs, which is why I know that fearless use them in some of their IEMs, the Paladin or Roland I believe.

Many people have said that dynamic drivers reproduce texture better in the bass, something that estats and BA can’t do.

BAs for bass tend to decay quicker but dont have that thump. I don’t know of anyone using estats for bass.

BA are better for mids typically than DD as they are faster.

Edit Check this out:

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I did post this awhile back ref driver config’s…

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My bad, mustn’t have seen that

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Yeah! This is exactly what I’m talking about with educating myself about IEMs. Some just have 1 dynamic driver like a dynamic over ear headphone such as the Blon BL 03 or Moondrop Kanas Pro, KXXS and Starfield. Other IEMs have balanced armatures. The hybrids use both. The hybrids specifically I’ve noticed can put a ton of detail into your ears. I haven’t heard the Focal Utopia but I’m assuming or hoping the Utopia is capable of this kind of detail with its Beryllium driver, but I’m not sure. It’s very possible a really good IEM might always beat the technical capabilities of headphones due to it’s multiple driver capabilities. I’m strictly talking about detail and technical capabilities. In the end, all of this is subjective and it’s unfortunate that many of the technical capabilities of headphones and IEMs can not be measured.

I’m still trying to figure all of this out.

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ill check both out @Felix @Ohmboy! thnx, very curious to do research on this

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yeah pretty interesting stuff, if you go down the rabbit hole with iems and rid of headphones please record your journey lol. i would love to read all about it and ur expiriences

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Oh, I have headphones I’ll never part with, but unexpectedly, IEMs are becoming my preferred listening method. Especially for detail and sound stage. I wish I had understood their capabilities long ago.

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i could be totally wrong but I think iem’s take a multiple driver approach due to lacking the space
to have a single massive driver like you would get in a headphone. I think it just turns out that in some designs, they would rather make more, smaller drivers than one small driver in an IEM but in headphones, there would not be much benefit of another driver (also means more housing)

But dont quote me on any of that

Hallelujah…Nail on the head :+1:

Oh and @Antpage2 needs to seriously get on board with his music dowsing stick :smiley:

I’m missing something. Direct me to a thread.

I’m loving the big driver sound these days. Kind of the opposite of IEMS i think

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Are you talking about some of my music recommendations? glad youre liking them if thats it :grinning:

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i used to think that the small drivers in iems were what turned me off them for a while. but then i realized it was just my iems that had recessed vocals. maybe thats the issue with u too

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@Antpage2 you’d be surprised at what a good iem can sound like, it’s no more of a compromise than say headphones over speakers…speakers = big driver sound, headphones fall short on that but do a pretty good job…IEM’s don’t try to replicate that just give you your music in a more direct and detailed way :+1:

PS have you actually tried any decent iem’s?

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Iems have a much bigger market and much more competitive space. More versatile cheaper to make cheaper to tune cheaper to ship this their value is much bigger. Iems just tend to lose out on imo comfort ,Soundstage and imaging. So they kinda fail to outright replace my headphones . But their value ask is much better than headphones

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