Thanks sir
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Just gotta ask, but you arent this guy right?
Cuz thats another one that said the same thing to me lol.
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Guys, plz stop making me want to buy the LBBs -_-
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Nah, that was way before me even thinking about spending 500+ on audio 
@lilhm just buy it already or better wait until I tell you to buy DIY from Riku instead for few bucks more 
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if you havent tried buds, I do recommend that you give them a try before you go deeper into the iem hole.
The KĀ“s K64 has a good rep among diyers, although I havent tried it myself, but thats around 10 usd.
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The Fiio K9 Pro works wonderfully but is more expensive then those other choices. It has 6.35mm, 4.4mm, and 4 Pin XLRās. It also has three gain positions and I have never heard any noise on any of my iemās or sensitive headphones. Drives my Grand Rider 1 buds fabulously (I will be providing a review of the buds in the near future. BTW they are simply the most revelatory thing I have heard under $1000.)
The K9 Pro is a Dac/Amp (I have the AKM version) and has both balanced in and out connections along with unbalanced connections. The balanced in connection is a 4.4mm plug at the back of the unit. You can bypass itās dac and use it as an amp. Also has bluetooth and you can easily connect to it to play music.
It also has a lot of power but even sensitive ismās have a lot of room on the volume knob. The K9 Pro ESS version is a little more expensive than the AKM version but the AKM version is difficult to get know as they ran out of AK4499 chips so itās more of a limited edition. It is expensive at around $699 to 849 US depending on model.
The nice part about this amp is that itās kind of a excellent Swiss army knife with great sound, that being said, I wouldnāt say this dac/amp is going to make your music suddenly awesome and significantly better than those other options.
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I am in full agreement of this advice. I have a series of closed backs and iemās and they have basically been made surplus for me since getting the Grand Rider 1 because I was mostly using them to prevent my partner from being annoyed by my open backs. Buds of course leak some sound but it is so little. I didnāt really need the exterior sound to be attenuated as I usually want to hear whatās going on around me. I have kept my Olinaās but I have sold my Oracles as they just wonāt get any play from me with these buds.
The buds provide a similar experience as compared to open backs. Music is more open and in regards to sound staging, the Grand Rider 1ās have a sound stage that is larger than most of my closed and open back headphones. Itās really surprising.
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K9 looks great, but it is way too expensive for my budget and use case.
DX3Pro+ does almost the same function wise (not using as high end DAC chip and not being balanced), while being 4x less expensive. I donāt mind not having balanced output to be honest as it would let me unify all my cables to standard 3,5mm I could use even directly from my phone. The power is plenty on SE as well, but I am afraid whether Toppings on general arenāt way too clinical and non-musical due to their signal cleanliness. I like the concept they present in their devices design in general (as those are solid state, not tube amps so in principle distortion should be very limited), but from what I sometimes read they lost the general idea that this device is supposed to be used for music listening and not in laboratory for signal measurements
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What do you mean by Riders being revelatory? That they resolve a lot of details or that they "opened your eyers?
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Sorry to hear that you never got a satisfactory fit with the MEST; I find the MkII always fits me perfect with the stock silicone tips, but I have also had IEMs in the past (Dunu Zen, Fearless Provence) where I couldnāt get a comfy fit no matter what I tried. While I find the MkII to be about as good as it gets, I too like buds over a lot more expensive options for non-electronic genres. I donāt know if Iād say the LBBS has better mids than everything I have heard, but Iām not really a mid-head, so thereās that. Buds are certainly the price:performance kings, for sure (and @Rikudou_Goku is helping to push that envelope even further)!
Re: Topping sound, Iāve run a Topping DX3pro (1st gen) since I got it for IEMs when Iām home, and I donāt think thereās anything overly clinical or sterile about the sound; your transducers (buds, IEMs, headphones) still provide their appropriate character to whatever comes through it IMO (and the 1st gen DX3pro is fantastic for sensitive ones like IEMs).
Edit: Just got my Grand Riders this weekend and havenāt had much time on them yet, but between those, the Rider 1, Berserker 1, LBBS and M2s Pro, I donāt feel the need to delve into open backs anymore lol (aside from my Aryas, but those are an occasional treat). I travel too much to really mess with open backs anyway, but the aforementioned buds basically ācure what ails meā on the road.
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I have used many cheap buds over the years for listening to podcasts, and audiobooks, but they never sounded great. Listening to the Gr 1ās really demonstrated to me that good buds are superior to iemās in almost every way (for me) if I donāt need to isolate myself from outside sound. Mostly that they are more comfortable, way better sound stage, and open sounding. The comfort part is going to be subjective, but in general I struggle with IEM comfort, especially since my left ear canal is strangely shaped compared to me right.
As far as tonality and all that, it depends on the tuning and the GR1ās are perfect for me. The GR1ās are describe by Riku as follows:
Warm-neutral: slight mid-bass boost with lots of texture, vocals are slightly on the warmer side and neutral, treble is smooth and airy, current stage king (balanced with great width and depth) and excellent timbre.
None of my iemās come close to the sound staging of the GR1ās and frankly itās better than most of my headphones. For me IEM sound staging isnāt really worth talking about as itās nothing compared to headphones which I have several of. At least to my ears. This was shocking to me.
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Just to add one detail, headphones are still preferable if you want to feel bass hitting the ear, and not just the ear canal, but man like the GR1s blew my Clear Mgās away in almost every way except for Slam and imaging (when EQād). I could not use my Focal Clear Mgās without EQ as they sounded like warm poo. Sold them last week to fund other purchases. Had them for over a year.
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Wow guess I gotta give buds a try 
Can they slam harder than iemās tho?
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IMO, yes, absolutely. Pretty much all the buds I made have more bass texture than the stuff that is above average in the iem world and can rival the top tier ones (EX1000/800st). Sub-bass is where I still give the win to the top tier iems.
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Absolutely, but they are more dependent on your environment due to their open nature (i.e. if thereās a fair amount of background noise, the bass can seem to fall off due to lack of isolation).
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Wait for a sale and then join the Little Black Bell āsā cult.
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That is very convincing to buy this Topping then. It has all the functionality I could ever ask for and could be used as DAC only in potential future upgrade as well.
Thanks!
Regarding the fit of MEST - I am not giving up in my search, it is way too good to resign from it
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Just one further comment - I donāt want to rain on parade, but I just wanted to make something clear, so it wonāt turn that this MEST sucks in my opinion. In fact I claim it kicks asses of all I know and heard (IEM, open back cans, buds) for all the genres I listen to (classic rock, indie, hip-hop, jazz) apart from acoustics (which they are also not bad at at all!)
It is just that priceā¦
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Can you (and everyone else with those at hand) post some pictures of those Grand versions of buds here or on Rikus thread? 
I mean this 140 Ohm transducer would kill my Sony DAP most likely, but I could theoretically upgrade if neededā¦
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I havenāt run a lot of different DACs on my PC setup, mostly because the Topping just does everything that I need it to; itās kind of my ride-or-die DAC.
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