Looks like your preferences and library are close to mine.
I had a 6xx and Fidelio X2HR but sold them recently to have portability with IEMs.
Now I have Olina SE (amazing for jazz, acoustics and vocals) and Mangird Tea 2 (goes for rock, metal and progressive part of my library). Iām very happy with both.
I know that Tea 2 is above your budget (around $300), but worth the consideration for maybe a future upgrade.
Check @nymz review about them:
Sorry I wrote my reply last night fairly drunk lol
I meant to say this in my comment, I found my OH10 Second hand for $80 - keep a look out on the second hand market, head-fi mostly, Iām sure youāll be able to find a pair of OH10s for close to $100 as theyāre about 3 years old now. If you can, pull the trigger - theyāre great for that money.
Thanks for the recommendation, Iām planning on selling my Schiit stack. So thatāll give me around $250 hopefully, and I could possibly use that cash for another pair. Another thing is I ordered the new Sony Xperia 5 IV (a phone with a headphone jack hallelujah!) bundle. So itāll come with basically a free pair of XM4 earbuds, another thing I can sell for my IEM addiction.
So far the Mangird Tea 2 and Penon Serial are my main 2 interests for stuff in the higher end ($300 range). Do you have any experience in returning IEMs? Just wondering if it is not going to be problematic.
I live in Brazil, so the only option to buy IEMs is from AliExpress and their returning policy is a pain in the a$$.
If I donāt like something I put on sale or try to exchange in some local audiophile groups.
I know that Amazon has a very good returning policy and some guys here can talk more about it.
Iām in love with this set⦠some of the best tonal balance Iāve heard yetā¦
Pros:
Balanced, extremely well for my library
Good quality treble
Best DD iem Iāve heard to date
Cons:
Not bass head level bass
Not treble head level treble
Not planar level separation (but close, damn close)
This is one of my top 3 favorite sets⦠tuning is the closest to āneutralā Iāve heard⦠if I were to have a target curve it would be close to this⦠real close⦠like, maybe a couple db more bass and air⦠thatās it⦠and like Iām talking one or two db more, zeos style⦠haha but thatās nit picking.
You can skip the Starfield entirely: all the new sub 100$ iems are really close to it (Aria, T3+, Titan S, Heart Mirror Pro,ā¦) and it is cursed by the Moondrop QC.