Monkie K01

I have Kbear Monkie K01. Very decent. Clear sound (plugged into the PS5 controller) comfortable, not too heavy. £16 from Amazon.

I have Kbear Monkie that I plug into the controller. Good sound, comfortable, no issues

KBear kb01 is almost identical, costing half of the price

Cadenzas were the fastest return I ever made and I didn't even pay full price. I think they don't even beat JVC buds at half the price. I have no idea whay they're so highly recommended when the KBEar KB01 are $10 cheaper and absolutely murder them in every regard.

I've been in audio for decades. I'm a former recording engineer. It's not placebo effect. Also, just because manufacturers say that they are beryllium coated DLC drivers doesn't mean it's the exact same driver (until someone does a teardown to prove they are, they aren't) I owned both at the same time and the Cadenza was a bloated, slow mess while the KB01 was quicker with better mid representation despite having almost identical graphs.

Kbear KB01 is practically a cadenza clone and it’s cheaper

It didn't gain traction unlike its twin, but the KBear KB01 is basically the Cadenza for half the price. Imagine the Cadenza... but cheaper. You shouldn't, because it already exists.

Kefine Klean if you can find them in budget (they're generally right around that price, depending on sales etc.). Otherwise KBear KB01 or the Kiwi Ears Cadenza. The KB01 is a 1:1 clone of the Cadenza, so choose based on price/looks. They sound identical. Failing that I'd go for the Chu 2 as IMO they sound the best in that price range and have the best build & accessories (only the Klean is ahead of them). But they do need a bit more looking after than most IEMs and can be prone to moisture issues if not kept dry between uses. I've also heard good things about the Bunny DSP, but haven't heard it myself. The fact it's plastic makes it lower maintenance than the Chu 2, but it won't look or feel as high quality. They do have them on Aliexpress, but it's possible they don't ship to your region and that's why it's not showing up. Sometimes Aliexpress search can be a bit weird so try googling it with "site:aliexpress" (you need to add .com to that but I don't want to get caught in the spam filter). That will sometimes help with finding listings that Aliexpress decides not to show for some reason. If you get a "not found" error that normally means it's not available in your country. Also another one that's not on your list but is excellent is the QKZ HBB. It's a very warm, laid back tuning. Quite bassy, but not energetic bass, just really warm. One of my favourite IEMs at any price, because there isn't really much else tuned like that. It's not as good and all-rounder as the others, but I think it might suit the genres you mentioned quite well. I like it for background listening because it pushes vocals back a bit (without making them sound muffled or unnatural) so it can make otherwise distracting music sound less distracting. It also volume scales really well if you decide to crank it up (just don't damage your hearing doing this!)

EQ is the answer. Tinnitus is often triggered by a specific frequency. If you can find out that frequency, you can EQ it away, which won't cure the tinnitus, but it will stop the IEMs from aggravating it as much. Also look for something comfortable so it doesn't irritate your ear canal too badly. So avoid things like the Zero Red unless you have huge ear canals. It may be that having anything in your ear canal will aggravate it, in which case you're stuck with headphones or maybe flatheads (something like the Yincrow X6 for example). Driver types generally won't make any difference, but peaks at whatever frequency(s) cause you the most problems will. Ideally you remove them with EQ, but if it has narrow peaks then those can be harder to deal with, especially in the treble. Planars can be a bit uncontrolled in the treble though, so they might be best avoided. Something like the KBear KB01 is overall pretty safe-sounding and it's a good platform for EQ because it has quite smooth, flat treble, so won't need fine-grained adjustments. If you don't have access to software EQ (e.g., on iOS) then maybe something like the Tanchjim Bunny, because it has a DSP cable that you can burn an EQ profile onto.

The Cadenza is pretty good. IMO quite a bit better than the Zero 2, both in terms of sound and also comfort (some people find the pointy edges on the Zero/Zero uncomfortable). I haven't heard the Vivian or seen any reviews from anyone reputable that I can think of. You could also have a look at the KBear KB01, which is a pretty much exact clone of the Cadenza, but it's usually around $20 instead of $40. It's a pretty safe all-rounder that most people will like for most music. The Zero 2 is more of a very-warm-neutral that can sound a bit dull and either too bassy or not bassy enough depending on whether you like bass or not. The only potential issue with the Cadenza/KB01 is that the nozzles are a bit above average, so I wouldn't recommend it for anyone with small ear canals. Another option is the Moondrop Chu 2, which sounds very similar to the Cadenza/KB01 as well, just with slightly sparklier but slightly less smooth treble - the differences in sound are pretty small tbh. It's small and the shells are metal. The overall package is quite nice & it's very pocketable. It can have some issues with condensation though, so needs a bit more looking after, especially if you live somewhere humid. And going up from that the Kefine Klean is very good. It's a bit bassier sounding than the Chu 2 but still quite clean-sounding. It's a bit of a step up in terms of the accessories, and I haven't seen as many reports of issues happening with clogged filters on these despite the metal shells - I think they use a different type of filter that's a bit less prone to that issue.

Kiwi Ears Cadenza or KBear KB01 if you have a chance to try them and make sure the nozzle isn't too big for your ear canal. The KB01 is a 1:1 clone of the Cadenza, so the fit and sound is identical, but the KBear is usually cheaper. My standard "blind buy" recommendation is the KZ EDC Pro because you can find them for around $7 normally, it's small, ergonomic and competently tuned, so it competes with the usual recommendations around the $20 mark. I don't normally recommend KZ as a company, so don't recommend spending more than about $10-15 on anything from them, but at this price point they're impossible to beat. Plus the EDC Pro has been out for a while, with no controversies about QC problems or other shenanigans. If you go with this one and decide to keep it long term you will want to upgrade the cable, but it works with standard 2-pin so any upgrade cable you buy should transfer to any more expensive IEM(s) you might buy in the future. Check the sub sticky for the common recommendations, in case neither of these is available or or the Cadenza nozzle is too big. The Tanchjim Bunny is another one that gets recommended a lot (specifically the DSP version because it has built-in EQ), which I haven't heard myself but it's worth considering as by all accounts it's very good (but only the DSP version, so not if you need the 3.5mm analogue jack).

Both have a weird fit, so probably aren't the best buy nowadays. It has trouble staying in the ear because of its shape. The new one has a less weird connector for the cable, which is a good thing. However, they made the tuning worse, so it's not really an IEM anyone recommends. It's pretty meh for the price range and you still have the problems with the weird fit. The original BL03 is a bit of a classic and still holds up for how it sounds, if you want a fun-sounding but competent IEM with good bass and reasonable technicalities. However the stock cable is crap and the weird connector makes it awkward to get a replacement. It's TFZ, but even TFZ cables don't fit perfectly because they made it nonstandard. They fit securely, but there's a gap that doesn't look quite right. I would suggest instead looking at something like the KBear KB01, which is around the same price and is a better IEM overall. Not exactly the same tuning, but it still has decent bass and an overall balanced tuning that works for most music. When you get your phone without an audio jack, buy a dongle DAC at that time. For Apple, you may want to stick with the Apple dongle. For Android, the JCally JM6 Pro is the most recommended. This also has a bit more power, which you won't need for these, but might be useful in the future if you get something else that's harder to drive.

I would get the Moondrop Chu 2. It's very well balanced. Mild v-shape so it's not going to be lacking bass like the Hexa, it's not risking overly sharp treble like the EW200 (this depends on your ears, but you won't know until you try it and you might not like it) and it's a lot more comfortable than the Truthear Zero. The bass is enough, but not so much that it overpowers the mids. It has enough treble that all the details come through without sounding bright or harsh. Alternatively, if you're worried about possible condensation issues because of the metal shells, the KBear KB01 is another good option for basically all the same reasons. If you want to spend slightly more the Kefine Klean is another good option. Metal shells again, slightly better cable and case. Arguably a slightly better driver than the Chu 2 as well, but it's not a massive difference.

I would argue it's overrated, despite not being rated much at all. I paid ~$30 for mine on sale and still feel like it was overpriced. I much prefer the Cadenza or KBear KB01.

If you need isolation then nothing is going to beat the Etymotic ER2XR. But buy from Amazon or somewhere with a good returns policy in case your ear canals can't handle them. They go in *deep*. Otherwise around $100 I'd probably be looking at the Aful Explorer, as it's very comfortable and has very solid bass, with no Harman tuck or anything (you'll want to avoid all Harman IEMs because of the dip in the midbass, which is exactly where the bass guitar's fundamental frequencies tend to fall). Most 1DD IEMs are going to be pretty safe because, even if they follow a Harman-like tuning, like the Cadenza, it's not possible to fully achieve the Harman bass tuck with a 1DD. You need to be more careful about 2DDs and hybrids though. Cadenza is probably already one of the best budget options. You might be interested in the KBear KB01 which is a 1:1 clone of the Cadenza, using the same driver. The shell is very slightly different but it's basically the same size and the tuning is identical. Not sure what you mean about the faceplate smudge (never seen any other complaints about that), but the KB01 faceplate is different anyway. You might like the black/grey version. The Cadenza has a good reputation for isolation compared to most IEMs. I don't use mine that way, so I'm mostly going off previous conversations with musicians. With the exception of the Etymotics which have special tips, you probably want to look at tip choices if you want to maximise isolation. Foam will be best, but rolls off the treble - though that won't matter for bass and you'll still be able to hear the rest of the mix. Hybrids like Render tips will also work well, but those are discontinued. If you sweat a lot they might not be the best anyway because they're not grippy. There's a new version of these due in the future, but no date announced yet & no idea if they'll be as good as the old ones. > i think there should be this list specifically for live performers especially if gamers are going to get their own rank list. Have to say I kind of agree with this, except that the number of people discussing IEMs for stage monitoring in this sub is tiny. You'd be hard pushed to find 5 people let alone come up with a list of 5 IEMs. IEMs for gaming are a bit of a meme, as they make virtually no difference, and yet the sub has been increasingly flooded with gamers over the past few months looking for "wall hacks". It's mostly influencers spreading nonsense.

If they're still available on sale around that price, try to get a Dunu Titan S. It doesn't have a lot of bass, but it's actually my favourite IEM for hip hop because of how well it does the bass and vocals, so they're clearly separated from each other but without an odd dip somewhere that messed up bass guitars or whatever. I think they might be discontinued though so IDK if you'll find one in stock. I'd say overall it's quite neutral, with a bit of added vocal-forwardness (but unlike a lot of "vocal forward" IEMs it doesn't favour female vocals at the expense of male vocals). Failing that I'd probably go with the Chu 2 because it's nicely balanced and is an overall nice IEM in terms build quality, accessories and so on. The EW200 is good as well if you want a slightly more aggressive sound, but the EW200 can be a bit picky when it comes to eartips, in that if you don't get a good seal it will sound bright, thin and tinny (that isn't how it's tuned, but it's a common complain because people often don't get a good seal with the stock tips). The Cadenza is pretty good as well, but I'd probably look at the KBear KB01 instead because it's a 1:1 clone and slightly cheaper. Sounds very similar to the Chu 2 so it mostly comes down to whether you want metal shells or plastic, but I'd say the Chu 2 is a tiny bit more vocal-forward. Personally I don't think the Zero 2 is very good. One that I haven't heard myself but is nonetheless my default first IEM recommendation now is the Tangzu Red Lion. From what I've heard the tuning is more in line with the original Wan'er than the Wan'er 2, and it's a good all-rounder tuning with a bit of warmth (not not crazy basshead levels of bass) and some vocal forwardness, similar to the Titan S. In fact I would say the Titan S is the direct upgrade from the original Wan'er. The thing about the Red Lion is it has a great accessories package, especially since it comes with $15-worth of premium eartips, despite being a $23 IEM. You won't really need a DAC for any of these 1DD IEMs as long as your device has a headphone jack. If you only have USB then some of them come with a USB C cable option, and some don't. But you can always get a cheap dongle DAC like the JCally JM6, or the Apple dongle if you mainly use iOS. There's also the OopusX Op.22 which got some good reviews, but I haven't heard it, so I can't say much about whether it's really any good. It does have an easy-to-use bass switch though, which gives you two tunings without having to mess around with EQ. The accessories aren't as good as the Red Lion though. And since this one is a hybrid, a DAC would be recommended unless you know your source has a low output impedance.

I wouldn't say I've found one like that yet, but it's true that there's very little correlation between price and performance, at least in terms of what you like or don't like. Technical performance does tend to increase a bit with price, but also caps out well before you get into TotL stuff. Ironically, if you're very skilled with EQ and have the patience to dial everything in perfectly, some of the best IEMs to use as EQ platforms are some of the cheapest (Kiwi Ears Cadenza / KBear KB01 for instance). In terms of my collection, I probably spend more time listening to the QKZ HBB than any other single IEM and it's only $15. It's not the most technical IEM out there, but it's tuned to its limitations and does what it does really well, which is to be very warm-yet-natural sounding and easy to listen to for a long time. My most expensive IEM so far, the Variations, is one that I almost never listen to. Even though it's technically excellent, the tuning isn't my favourite (tucked midbass) and it's not very comfortable. My favourite IEM overall is the Simgot EA1000 which falls in the middle price-wise, but I wouldn't call it endgame because it's not perfect. It does however do some things other IEMs cannot do (at least none that I've heard), and at least keeps up with others in all areas. Comfort is another big, and often overlooked factor. And the interesting thing there is no only is there no correlation with price, if anything there's an inverse correlation. With the exception of Sennheiser, almost all IEMs get less comfortable as they go up in price, and the cheapest ones are the most comfortable because they're small 1DDs. I expect that when I do find something I would call "endgame", it'll probably be in the ~$300 price range, technically good, comfortable and stable in the ear, with a tuning that I just happen to like. It's entirely possible it will be a $50 1DD though because there's no technical reason why a well-tuned 1DD can't outperform kilobuck IEMs. Sennheiser's flagship kilobuck IEMs *are* 1DDs, they just put more effort than usual into tuning via 3D printing. There are already 1DDs around $50 with among the best drivers you can get, so cost of parts isn't the issue. It's more a question of when/if the market will start releasing such well-tuned IEMs at that price point. Most IEM pricing doesn't reflect the BOM cost at all, and may or may not reflect R&D investment. I also expect the EA1000 will be kept around for a long time because if you remove the imperfections, you most likely also remove what makes it so good. I expect I'll find something that I'll eventually like as much as the HBB but is better in every way. But so far I haven't, so there's a good chance that will stick around for a long time as well. If I had to get rid of my entire IEM collection and keep just one, it would, perhaps counter-intuitively, not be the EA1000. It would be the Moondrop Kato, which is actually slightly cheaper (but now discontinued). The thing about the Kato is it's just a really good all-rounder, that works for all genres of music, both indoors and outside where it's noisy, and has no issues with being listened to all day. The EA1000 easily beats it technically, but the Kato is just a bit warmer and overall I prefer a slightly warm tilt like the Kato to a cool tilt like the EA1000. I can still listen to the EA1000 all day too, but if you have a badly mastered track, the EA1000 *will not hide that fact at all*, whereas the Kato will lie to you a bit and just make it sound good.

*In theory* you can fix anything with EQ, but in practice you can't. Very fine-grained FR features will be almost if not completely impossible to correct with EQ because you can't rely on graphs and have to do it by ear, which is increasingly difficult to do the smaller the features are. The IEM is highly modal then it will be more reactive to whatever ear (or coupler) it's inserted into so ideally you want less of that. You also ideally want the IEM to be as well vented as possible for comfort reasons, but that can affect things like sub-bass extension, especially when BAs are being used to produce those frequencies. The other factor is pure extension and the absence of nulls. If the drivers can't generate sound past 10kHz, no amount of EQ is going to add those frequencies back in, at best it's going to either do nothing or add distortion. Most IEMs don't actually extend all the way to 20kHz, even though they often make nonsensical claims like 40kHz (which nobody could hear even if it were true). It's always possible to EQ down, but again if the response is very jaggy then it might not be possible to get it where you want it. Nulls are where you get certain frequencies cancelling each other out because of resonances, reflections, or phase issues in multi-driver IEMs. That will result in a dip in the FR that doesn't respond if you try to increase it with EQ, although if you do try, you risk accidentally introducing a peak right next to where you think the dip is. Here's a good video about how trying to EQ away narrow features can often end up making things sound worse, which is one of the main reasons why AutoEQ often doesn't work as well as expected: /r/headphones/comments/1ivy4u7/how_measurement_error_hurts_eq/ The general rule of thumb aside from "sounds good to me" is you want the FR to be as smooth as possible, and change as little as possible between different couplers. That way you are really only making HRTF accommodations & preference adjustments rather than trying to "fix" things. One issue about smooth graphs is that the ones you usually see, e.g., on squig.link, are smoothed (usually 1/3 octave I believe), which means there might be features you can't see. Like a slight dip in the FR could actually be a much narrower null, but when averaged out, it looks smoother than it is.

This is a matter of some debate, but if you know enough about EQ, you can. The tricky part is knowing enough about EQ in the first place, and having a good enough ear to make those kinds of adjustments. Another way of framing it is: can you fix those things in a *practical* sense? But it's easy to prove the inverse, because you can absolutely make them worse. And all you're doing is changing the frequency response. So there isn't a magical additional property that they arise from, assuming you're not making big enough changes to push the drivers into audible distortion (which is unlikely on most IEMs unless you're doing crazy things). Soundstage, details and separation are not physically separate phenomena outside of frequency response, but also frequency response at the eardrum and frequency response on a graph are not the same thing, which is a big part of why confusion arises around this topic. It being possible to do something in theory, and it being practical or easy to do it, are not the same thing. Which is why both sides of the argument tend to end up talking past each other.

The crossover just determines which frequencies go to which driver(s), which in turn affects the final frequency response along with other things like acoustic tuning. Badly designed crossovers can cause things like nulls or other phase errors, which I mentioned earlier, can't be EQ'd away. This is why cheap hybrid IEMs are often bad, although the cost of a reasonably well-implemented hybrid has come down a lot in the last few years. That's one of the reasons a 1DD is typically better for EQ than most multi-driver IEMs, because there is no crossover to go wrong (and no possibility of phase errors between the drivers). Doesn't necessarily mean 1DDs are automatically better either. In the end, it's the end result that matters, which is almost entirely about the frequency response. That, alongside HpTF, distortion and time-dependent characteristics, although the last 2 are pretty much always below the audible threshold in IEMs, so there's no point in worrying about them most of the time. Having said that last thing, distortion is one of those characteristics that can't be controlled with EQ, so if it is audible, then it will make a difference. Crinacle actually put some thought into this in the design of the Daybreak, on the basis of "*if*you can hear it, it will sound better like this". He had said he intended to talk about it in the release video, but in the end it's only mentioned in passing, blink-and-you'll miss it sort of thing (I had to re-watch the video to see if it was mentioned at all). The thing about harmonic distortion is that even-order distortion tends to sound good, and odd-order distortion sounds bad. This contributes to why a lot of people like tube amps even though they're objectively bad. They add "good" distortion. Low levels of distortion that don't lead to clipping are typically referred to as "saturation" instead of distortion and are used a lot in mixing & mastering to make things sound fuller. That's another effect that can be added with DSP (not EQ but using the same sort of processing). But you can't *remove* distortion if it's being added by the IEM itself. As a generalism, distortion is always so low that it's not contributing anything to the sound anyway, but that may not have been the case 20 years ago, which may be where some of the myths about technicalities, and *physically* not being able to EQ them (as opposed to it just requiring a lot of skill), came from.

Yes, it's still good. It's definitely bassy, and I would say the best tuned of the bassy IEMs in that price range (and actually better than a lot of more expensive stuff as well). It's very warm rather than v-shaped, so it's quite laid back at low volumes, but it also scales to very high volume, with a ton of bass (just don't go crazy and damage your hearing). It's very different to the Gate tuning so it kind of depends if that's what you're looking for or not. It can take a little while to get used to the bass levels on the HBB, so it can sound a bit muddy at first, but it stops sounding muddy once you get used to it. [Dan's "most important video"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swejkFpZfBM) is about that actually. It's well worth watching the whole thing and listening to the sound demos. It's ostensibly a review, but it's really a detailed study of brain burn-in.

I'd suggest something like KBear KB01 as your first IEM also EPZ G20 is a really good option as a first IEM

Kiwi Ears Cadenza is a really good option, but KBear KB01 exists. It's literally the same IEM as the Cadenza, but cheaper. Like literally, the only difference might be the shell, but from what I've heard, a lot of people prefer KBears shape more. And yeah, I haven't found any info on the silent revision of EDC Pro

I think they are ok, but in my opinion there are cheaper options that could give you the same, if not a better performance. I would choose Tangzu Wan'er SG Studio Edition or KBear KB01 and EQ them, instead of Kefine Klean