I’ve been enjoying the Hook-X a lot lately, it sounds mostly Balanced with some Bass elevation and slightly relaxed upper Mids but it’s got that Planar tonality/timbre to the Bass & Vocals that sometimes doesn’t sound nice to me.
So far I’m leaning towards getting the Fiio FD5 but wanna hear what other’s think.
I liked the Kato better than the FD5 for neutral and the ie300 better for V shape with bass emphasis personally. I found the mids too recessed on the FD5 and the timbre better on the ie300 in particular.
I’m not sure I wanna get another Moondrop IEM, I had Aria & Blessing 2 both were fatiguing and had too much upper-mid energy for me. IE300 seems like a nice IEM, having a V-Shaped signature are the Mids too pushed back?
Some other IEMs I have found are Final E5000 & ThieAudio Elixir.
The mids on the IE300 are a bit recessed but not nearly as much as the FD5 which have the most recessed mids I think of anything I tried (though in their defense, they are detail monsters, I just preferred the others I mentioned). I’ve never tried the Final or the Elixir, though I know the Elixir at least gets good reviews.
I think someone had a thread about this a couple of days ago.
Some good options off the top of my head are
Olina SE (I have the OG Olina with the Tanya mod which is similar)
Hana 2021 (don’t have but it gets a lot of praise)
Penon Vortex ( I have it and it’s my fav single DD in that price range)
Yup I second this 
@John7592jdys I’d avoid Kato since it’s similar tuning as B2 but less detailed. If you want the best bass and heavier note-weight then—>Hana 2021; if you want airy treble and wider staging then—>Olina SE. Haven’t heard the Vortex so no comment on that.
Sorry for the late response, I was busy with something yesterday. I have been looking at all the recommendation and the Hana 2021, E5000 & IE 300 look good to me. The Olina SE & Penon are not available locally so for now I’m considering skipping them.
I also tried to approach this from a different perspective i.e. by looking at graphs and trying to find some commonality or preference and noticed something. IEM’s that I tend to like generally seem to have less elevation in the 2-3k region than diffuse field target.
On the other hand IEMs that I thought were harsh or fatiguing had more elevation in this region
I have no idea if that means something but based on this I tried checking to see how the above IEMs graphed and here is the result
They seem elevated in that region compared to Hook-X so does that mean I might find them harsh? They are different driver technologies or am I looking at this the wrong way?
Penon Serial ($300) and Vortex ($219) is closer to Hook-X in that region. I’d prob take the Serial over the Vortex since it’s a 3DD set vs a 1DD set from the same company unless you strictly only want 1DD.
I am curious about the 3 DDs, was looking for a single DD mostly because I read they are very coherent when comapred to Hybrid IEMs that may have dips or gaps in the crossover.
I’ll replace Hana 2021 with Serial in my list so between Serial, IE 300 & E5000 which one would provide a close to Bass head Bass, full bodied Mids & overall relaxed tuning?
That would be the Serial from your description.
+1 however I wouldn’t consider serial to be bashead bass. It’s elevated for sure but it’s not super prominent
E5000 is definitely relaxed with its VERY dark treble. Bass is more mid-bass than sub-bass, and is very slow/loose.
Gonna say if you want a bassy boy I still recommend the IE300. The bass on that is big and rich and really well done.
So an update: I was able to find a place to audition the IE 300 and so I’ll give that a try first. If I find any issues with sharpness then I’ll get the E5000 instead, if the E5000’s sound is even slightly better than my E3000, then I’m a happy buyer.
The serial for now seems not worth the extra ~100 USD for shipping + taxes so I decided to skip it. The vortex on the other seems like a good option for future purchase.
Anyways thanks all for the recommendations.
It has a slower and looser bass with much more quantity, along with a darker treble.
looser than E3000? I think E3000 had a good enough Bass. I thought E3000 sometimes sounded a bit sharp so a darker treble than E3000 is not an issue.
yes, a lot.
Hmmm, well let me try the IE 300 and see how it goes.
I’ll be curious to hear what you think about them
