Damn me, bought both variants of tips + LBBS. Just realized that price on shopee is like 60% of what is on AliExpress, so I paid 40$ in total for buds and foams, totally in line with life motto that purchases under 50$ does not need to be well-thought through 
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Yeah I’ve already received my Qian39, it’s pretty neat as an open back, for work mode. But they keep slipping out of my ears so I’ve got some Hiegi doughnut foams incoming. It also made me realize that Qian39 is my first and last bud; there’s no reason to get buds when IEMs sound a whole lot better than them with great fit.
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That is an interesting take, but I agree that fit in sense of bud being secure in ear is the big problem.
On the other hand I myself realised that earbuds sound very different to IEMs and I would rather explore this world than try to find some holy grail in IEMs (where I suppose I would need to spend close to 1k $ to hear the huge improvement over either Tea, S12 and coming Olina).
And come on, it was 8$ set - it cannot have the technicalities of your MEST 
It probably still sounds better than most 15$ IEMs if not 30$ IEMs (there would be outlaws like CRA of course), don’t you think?
The small weekend personal problem with IEMs I have is all that I tried in order Pinnacle P2 → WF-1000XM3 → ZEX → Mele ->T800 → Tea → S12 sound incrementaly better/kind of different, but there was never huge leap up in direct improvement or sideways in the way making my music sound very different (I was trying to justify purchase of 4th set like Softear Volume for 1,5h of daily music listening in total). And with earbuds this side leap is easily achievable
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oh, earbud value shits on iems IMO.
(and lets not bring DIY buds into it as that is embarrassingly bad for iems lol.)
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Speaking of DIY/custom/boutique - have you tried any other blur earbuds (like 266r) other than ones in your ranking list?
There is one offer on 300ohm aps 266r on head fi for 120 EUR, but it looks like bud made of those shells for 3$ on AliExpress… And 300ohm earbud with no measurements?
Someone is gifting me 2 blurs, so I will hear more sooner or later (CNY holiday atm).
DIY buds are super cheap, most drivers costs between 5-20 usd.
Here are some i made.
Will probably start selling my own diy buds soon.
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Will you do comparison FR measurements in your new rig for your sets?
Can you tune those buds a lot if you use the OEM shell and OEM driver? Adding filters, holes etc?
Not sure tbh, the bud graphs are very much a meme. But I think about it later.
My plan is to buy a lot of different drivers, to try them out and see which ones have the most potential, then work more on tuning those.
There are a lot of ways to tune buds and honestly the possibilities feel endless, so I have to start from a solid ground before I do anything more complicated.
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Hahaha I’m not comparing Qian to those sets! Qian has ridiculous resolving power for $8 fricking dollars… I’d wish I could love it more, but it’s just the fit that needs fixing. I’m pretty sure I’ll be using it a lot more once I get the pads, but I just don’t see the urge to get LBBS or any other buds in the future. Qian is perfect in it’s own purpose in my usage 
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The qian39 uses a very small shell, MX500 buds should work better for you.
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Speaking of buds:
Anyone wanna try this? 
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Im curious 
Im guessing it will be unveiled in 3 days.
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Sony designers sure have very interesting ears.
They are too special, that’s for sure
Most iems they do are an abomination.
I guess they have to do it differently when they use huge 16mm DDs.
2022-02-11: KZ DQ6S review: Knowledge Zenith (KZ) X HBB: DQ6S - Reviews | Headphone Reviews and Discussion - Head-Fi.org
Rank: A
Default rec if you want something for rock/metal at this price range. 
But if you have a library similar to mine, the modded DQ6 is better.
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My wife buys 5 packs of Glracd brand on Amazon for $12, given that she loses and/or puts them in the wash, I won’t argue. They don’t sound great, but for that price, they are impossible to beat, and it means we always have them for the grandkids.
Try the Yincrow X6.
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