KZ - Castor (Harman-Neutral Version)

I had just the OG with Bass , very good The pro with bass is a different beast. If you want relaxed smooth thick bass , the OG is better , the pro has somewhat coloured enhanced mids and all cymbals sound the same . Imagine the old one note bass of cheap speakers , now flip this into treble . I prefer the OG bass than the pro bass

Is the soundstage better than the Hola? My left Hola earbud got damaged, so I'm considering buying a new one. So far, I've only tried the Castor. While it was good, it lacked the soundstage of the Hola.

For me, Wan'er is better than Castors. I've used both and prefer wan'er 8/10 times.

eh the non bass version of kz castor is okay

Look at the KZ Castor they are tunable with the 4 dip switches on the back and they sound great and punch way above the price range.

Hello. I am no means an audiophile and do not have a lot of IEMS tested. Currently owning only KZ castor Harman (Silver) And the improved bass (Black color). If in case i make any mistakes other could correct me. And im only sharing personal experience as a nooby and personal opinion. So since i have switched to the IEMS going to be honest in my personal experience i personally prefer using the IEMS over the gaming headsets. (Only experience before iems was gaming headsets like Corsair virtuoso se, Razer kraken v2, Hyperx cloud 2, and Sony headphones like Sony wh-1000xm3, Sony linkbuds s, Sony wh h910n aka h.earon and some other Sony XB headphones) Reason i wanted to switch to the IEMS was i needed a descent headphones/iems to use with my PC since because of the over ear headphones i had migraines and a lot of of them i had. To the point that i could not play games or even watch the contact im consuming for more then 30 min a day. After switching to IEMS i noticed the sound stage felt a little bigger then the Corsairs i still have and sounded much better with out even using any EQ app on my pc. If being honest i personally doubt that IEMS are leagues a head against higher end Headphones that considered good in audiophile community. Since the IEMS are small there will be limitations. I would even say it would be compering Desktop pc spec against laptop. Similar but not quite. And from what i have read in this group my personal opinion is that the IEMS over 100 maybe even over then 150 have the diminishing returns. If i look at them as a regular consumer then 80% of people might not even feel a big of a difference between iems that cost 150 euros/dollars against any other wireless headphones that consumers buy. But this is only my opinion. So personally since im on a budget i do not see a point buying iems that more then 70 euros (Since im from EU) Becasue a lot of them are definably providing me all i need for musing and playing video games. (Only now considering buying some other options to get a little bit better experience then my KZ castor Harman tuning version) Apologies if i wrote in a mishmash tried to share some experience from a nooby side. And apologies if i have offended anyone.

It really depends on what kind of sound profile you are looking for. Castor is a more capable iem in my opinion. You should check out frequency response graphs of the iems. It may give you an idea of how they sound. It's explained on the headphonezone website. There are two versions of the Castor, bass (black) and harman (silver). If you want to experience a bass head tuning this can do it well. The bass version is a fun set, not particularly correct sounding. The harman might do a better job of that ( I haven't tried the harman). The stock tips on castors are just okay. I highly recommend latex liquid silicone tips from conceptkart. Polaris is a balanced sound, still a v shaped tuning but not as pronounced as the others. It is easy to listen to but in the end is not as resolving as the castor bass. It can bring out some details but there are better iems that do it well. It is still a great beginner set if you are tight on budget. It has decent levels of bass and fairly smooth treble presentation. Widebore tips are recommended with Polaris. I have not tried the zex, partly because of some reviews mentioning harsh treble. I am a bit sensitive to treble, but overall it should give you an energetic sound. With good amounts of bass and treble. The driver combinations and features are different for these iems.

KZ Castor. No bass, shouty, just hurting my hearing

Yes, I meant the Harman version. Their bass is very very lean. The switch adds bass, but it's sound doesn't fit the rest of the tuning. The Castor Bass is much much better.

My personal journey to find the perfect audio setup that works for me was long and expensive. Put simply, I tried a ton of the gamer-focused headsets first. Went through a lot, and some of them were actually decent, but in the end, I realized the truth: gamer headphones are not a good value. They put more resources into the branding and aesthetics than they do for actual audio quality. The one exception to this was the Sennheiser/Drop PC38x. These are wired open back headphones with a built-in mic. For me, these were far and away the best sounding "gamer" headphones I ever tried, and it wasn't even close. The open back really opens up the soundstage, which, at least for me, really helped with directional audio. The convenience of the built-in mic was definitely a bonus too. Sadly, it looks like they are no longer making these... maybe Drop or Sennheiser still makes something similar but I haven't looked. I ran the Astro a40's for a long time too. These also have an open back design, but I always found them to be a bit too harsh, and I spent WAY too much time trying to tweak the EQ to get them to sound good. The terrible software didn't help matters either. IEM's are all the rage now. I was skeptical at first, but have found this to be the best way to go. IEM's were always kind of a niche item that was historically expensive for a decent set, but over the last few years, a TON of really good IEM's have hit the market for super cheap. My current favorite set are the Truthear Crinacle Zero Reds. You can find them on sale pretty often for around $50. If that's too much, there are a lot of great options in the $15 - $50 range too. The KZ Castors come to mind: I think I got mine for like $25 and I like these almost as much as the Zero Reds. The Audiovance Vibes 202's are good as well and can be had for around $30. I like them because they sound really great, and I like the cables they come with. And of course, everyone loves the Moondrop Chu II. I have those as well and they are indeed quite good, especially for the price (around $20). The amazing thing is that all of the IEM's I mentioned above sound way better than the in ear monitors I used to use back in my days of playing live music... and they literally cost hundreds of dollars less. It blows my mind. The one downside to IEM's is the lack of a built-in mic. This is easy to get around if you are playing on PC, but a little less convenient if you play on console. I have a dedicated mic for my setup since I do a lot of music recording so it isn't a problem, but if you need a built-in mic, there are cables for IEM's that you can buy that have a little mic built in. I can't really speak to how good they are, but I would think that would work ok plugged directly into your Xbox or PS controller. Anyway, I didn't set out to write a book here when I started this post, but there it is... TLDR; iems are the way to go. Even the Moondrop Chu II's sound significantly better than even the most expensive gamer-focused headsets. And that's before you even consider cost. If you are like me, and your earholes don't generally like earbuds, you may need to experiment with different tips to find something that is comfortable enough to wear for long periods, but once you do it is awesome, and definitely worth the trouble.

Bunny. I think the sound stage of the Castor Harman is nicer. But your ears might not hear that. Otherwise the detail retrieval, driver quality, and fit and finish of the bunny is much better than the KZ. Unless you ABSOLUTELY need the 3.5mm, get the DSP version, and get the Tanchjim Android App, and use the DSP. It's absolutely fantastic to just be able to change the tuning on thr IEM. No stupid dip switches, no fidly knobs, just click, apply, and go. And it will remember your last setting, SK if you plug it into another USB device, it will keep whatever tuning is set.