My First Foray into IEMs
Exploring the world of affordable Chinese hi-fi IEMs, I take on the challenge of testing various driver types and combinations while staying within a budget, to find the best value for money in the market.
The rise of affordable Chinese hi-fi IEMs has inundated the market with options that offer great value for money. As a buyer, this is exciting, but the sheer number of choices and similar performance levels make the decision-making process challenging.
With new IEMs hitting the market every month and manufacturers striving for incremental improvements, narrowing down the options can be a daunting task. After exploring multiple websites and YouTube reviews, it became clear that no single IEM stood out as the best. As a result, I decided to purchase several IEMs for testing.
Narrowing down my selection to five IEMs was a task in itself. I set a budget, aiming to keep all purchases under USD 50, and ideally under USD 25. Additionally, I wanted to test different types of drivers and driver combinations:
Single Dynamic Driver
Dual Dynamic Driver
Planar Driver
Multiple Balanced Armature Driver
Dynamic and Balanced Armature Driver
With these criteria in mind, I scoured Aliexpress for good deals in each category. Thanks to the Ramadan sale, I found great prices on some IEMs and ultimately settled on the following:
7hz Salnotes Zero 2
Truthear Zero Red
KZ x HBB PR2
KZ-AS16 PRO
KZ-ZS10 PRO X
As you can see, two of the IEMs I selected are tuned by Crinacle (real name Corin Ako), while the rest are from a company he has banned from his website one of which is tuned by another famous IEM figure "HBB". For more information about the ban, you can read the following link:
https://crinacle.com/2023/08/17/the-kz-boycott-still-stands/
I agree with Crinacle's stance on the matter, but I have recently seen many positive reviews of newer KZ products. Hoping that they have learned from past mistakes, I decided to include three of their well-received budget offerings.
In the coming days, I will measure the frequency response of each of these IEMs and share my experience with each.
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