Agreed with what you said, no need to go crazily expensive setups for end game.
For my setup, I would go with: 1 earbud (LBBS), 1 DD IEM (Mele), 1 hybrid (Tea, or wait for HBBā¦), dac/amps (Avani dongle, Qudelix 5K/BTR5)
After this Iām settled for a while, but it wonāt be the last time I spent on IEMs 
Hoping in few years, some people be insane enough to make 300$ good tribridsā¦ You would see me be the first to step in 
Thanks again @nymz for your thoughts! Always appreciated.
@Rainlynd I also have Qudelix and am waiting for my Avani dongle (have a Zooaux but not the Avani variant)! PSA: for folks who are using standard Apple or Google Pixel or random Android dongle, go get Avani! I say this with the support of many users: Avani is an objective upgrade from any of the aforementioned dongles. Link to AliX Avani.
I try to keep to a pretty strict budget, so my set-up will be: Mele, Tea or 7 Hz (selling Starfield to help fund). When thereās no construction near me (sooo much noise right now), I will use Sundara + ifi zen dac.
Headphones are generally DD or Planars, where as with iems you have multi-BA/hybrids as well (along with lower impedance) which is why iems are generally more picky about OI than with headphones.
VE community is great at making high quality budget dongles now, their buds arenāt a match with LBBS though.
They are also great at shipping. 3 Months and still no RAP5, Odyssey HD or Monk SM 
I live right next to China, so no complain here.
Itās not the distance. Itās the courier they use. Through Aliexpress they sent me stuff in 8 days. Their āSF Internationalā just sucks in my country.
They ship through a midman at my place, so itās pretty easy to order from him.
I prefer the Odyssey HD, around same price. A nice āwarmā sounding dongle is rare. Itās no miracle worker tho since you can only get so much power output from a small ādongleā
You might as well consider the yanyin aladdin
I heard Aladin is very sensitive to sources, is that true?
Yikes and I thought I had a bad experience with their shipping! They used AliExpress to get to the UK, then royal mail. Now itās sitting at the local depot since they tried to deliver without alerting me and I was at work 
Iām prolly done with VE since nothing they will do itās better than what I have. Just waiting on those to get my impressions on them. I might use the RAP5 tho if itās powerfull and good signature.
Maybe the new EXT?
The poor VE = Venture Eletronics. They are a bugdet earbud company that also did 2 or 3 IEMS.
The VE you mentioning = my wallet:
PS: 3k USD and Purple color??? Nice LSD they are taking
Think Chris has them ordered? 
He does. Iād order them too in a heartbeatā¦ 1DD+1DD+4EST = Bingo
Iām just too poor for that.
Speaking of dongledacs, anyone know a better lightning to 3.5mm dongle than apple around the same price for when mele arrives?
YES!
Still talking with Linosul about the not-delivered ādeliveredā Mele for my sister. Would never have expected this from Royal Mail, Linsoul are trying to see where YunExpress can get to with the reference number RM gave me. Thatās itās own little nightmare, and of course not Linsoulās fault. Their communication has been way above average ChiFi responses for timeliness and fluency, and actually listening to what Iām saying instead of canned responses.
Anyway. Back to the āYESā. My personal order was just fulfilled!