Home audio is def a bigger hobby for me, knives were a cheaper hobby to distract me from audio upgrades lol! Plus, I can justify multiple knives in the kitchen but it’s really hard to justify multiple speakers in the same room!
My current IEM’s (and favorites) are Futursonics MG5’s. I will say that its a high cliff you just have to jump off of to get started; unless you go to an audiologist and have your ear mold taken to send away, you’re just using basic ear buds. That perfectly sealed fit and aligned driver in your ear is what makes IEM outperform almost any reasonable priced over the ear (as well as cancel out noise). Ive tried dozens of options and even with swapping out foam or rubber size, those models don’t perform as well as models that are molded to your ear.
Personally, a “monitor” to me should be neutral and analytical. It should not color the music in anyway and yet still be easy to listen to. I’m very sensitive to metal tweeters so I am really hard to please in any speaker. I ended up with egglestonworks because of the esostar silk dome tweeter they used was the easiest for my ears to listen to. When listening, pay attention to your body. If your ears/shoulders/neck tense up, make a note of what components you were using and start eliminating what you dont like. You should be able to listen to something for 4-6 hours with ease. Read reviews and use that as your starting point only; just cause it looks good on paper doesnt mean its good for you. On paper, berylium tweeters “perform” the best but you couldnt give me a pair of speakers using them!
Step 1: what is your source? Listening at home on an amp or portable player? If on the go, what player do you have? using a portable amp? File type and size?
If you’re going to invest in decent IEM’s, you gotta feed it from a decent source! My ipod is for the gym with Monster in ear sport headphones I dont care about and used to drown out the treadmills only. When doing any focused listening I’m using As tell & Kern AK380 with dual DAC, and a connected amp. I have a mix of flac, aflac, and dsd files copied directly over from SACD (the reason for the ak380 was it’s unique ability to store and play dsd files). There are cheaper hi-res portable players but equally important to what you put in your ears is what DAC you’re using. The ak380 is def worth the investment!
Step 2: what types of speakers do you generally like? What over ear headphones give similar sound? What do you like as far as driver material and technology? Audeze gets amazing reviews, considered an industry standard for performance but I found the electrostatic speaker creating slight pressure in the closed back models (and really, why bother with open back headphones! If you dont mind others in the room listening to your music, just use speakers!), and the presence of a buzz (not an actual hum but that noise floor your can sense when you turn on an average amp/speakers but don’t play anything) Offered a pair of Focal Utopias for $1800 from same AD (retail is $4k), but after a night of auditioning, I confirmed 100% I’ll never be happy with Berylium drivers, no matter what the price. I ended up with Audioquest Nighthawk Carbon’s. In addition to the most comfortable headband system I’ve ever tried on, the bio-cellulose drivers were very easy to listen to and most like the silk domed tweeters in my home speakers I already favored. Needless to say, I know from their headphone demos that I don’t need to waste my time tracking down and auditioning the IEM’s.
Step 3: start auditioning headphones. Find a good retailer you trust. Bring in your own source material, listen to your music...3-4 songs minimum before switching between models. A good AD will let you take home and return/exchange if not happy after demoing at longer interval at home. It’s worth paying a little more for this level of service and building a long-term relationship. High-end headphones are not common and most shops carry only a small selection from the same brands they already carry speakers from. I’m spoiled because World Wide Stereo is local to me and what they don’t have in-store, they have in their warehouse and will bring in for me to demo. The only top recommended brand I have not tried is Hi-Fi Man. It’s on my list to try in near future, just had other recent priorities.
Step 4: plan out the rest of your system upgrades. As you listen more, your ears become more trained to pick out nuances. Adjustable impedance on your amp or player to match your headphones, upgraded cabling, better source material (QUALITY source material gets really expensive!) are all things that will let you further enjoy your mobile listening experience. Little things like adding an amp/external DAC to your ipod is a very worthwhile upgrade (Oppo HA-2SE can be had used for ~$200) and is a night and day difference!
There are many audio forums for more info but take it all with a grain of salt, audio geeks are some of the most closed minded, stubborn and prejudiced hobbyists I’ve ever met. Most of them are loyal to a particular brand no matter what their ears tell them, so no matter what you do, just close your eyes and LISTEN and let your ears decide.
Oh yea, and when you’re ready for true audio nirvana, let’s start talking about getting you into vinyl [emoji48][emoji48][emoji48]
