KXXS

A lot of people don't realize that the reason why your earbuds are uncomfortable for long periods is because the ear tips themselves are not comfortable. Everyone's ear holes are slightly different, with different shape and size. Your left and right might not even be the same size. While custom ear tips do exist, there is hundreds of eartips on the market of varying material, comfort, size, shape and length. I think these days they are starting to make more wireless earbuds aftermarket earpiece. I truly recommend people to take a look at some cheap aftermarket and try them out first. They cost maybe 10-20 bucks for a set of 3 and it's super cheap upgrade rather than spending a few hundred for headphones. Most people even ignore the different size eartips manufacturer give them, try swapping around and see what works, your ears might be smaller than you think it is. Properly fitted eartips also isolate sound far better and for many iem users the goal is maximum isolation for best listening. Likely if you can even hear outside noises like people talking, your eartips are too lose. The eartips I run isolate my ears so well, I can basically sit in a noisy cafe with my IEMs on and forget that I don't actually have ANC. A single mm in any dimension can make the difference between comfortable for hours to this hurts my ears in an hour. I run a 2 system setup for audio solution. System 1 Cmf nothing buds pro 2, this is for ANC, or quick listening. For example, if I'm eating a meal and I want to listen to a podcast or watch a video, I'll pop then out, watch my video, eat my meal then take them out once I'm done. I generally don't listen to music if I'm exploring the area. Other situation would be taking a quick bus or walking between plave of interest where the isn't anything specific between the 2. System 2 Fiio BTR13 + Salznote zero 2 + Final Audio Type E ear tips. This is my travelling setup, say if I'm on a train, long distance bus or plane or any time I have a long period of listening this is my go to setup. The Bluetooth DAC allows me to pair with either my 2 phones. The BTR13 lives on my alpaka hub system and I have multiple attachment points (pant loop, sling and bag) so depending on what I carry, I can hook it somwhere and my phone is not bound by a wire. I was previously running a moondrop KXXS but that died so my salznote is my daily driver for now. It's a pretty decent IEM standard harmon tuning with a bit highs and bass, nothing majorly spectacular. Planning to get the moondrop blessing 3 as a replacement for my KXXS. The real star though has been the Final Audio eartips, I Brough a whole bunch of these because they have fit me so well for the last few years. I can last hours with them with no fatigue, sit more comfortable than other eartips and the frequency response with them is something I like. I have a 3rd system, but it's just a case of alpine music pro earplugs, I use them when I want to sleep in noisy environments and also if I go clubbing. The nicer thing about musician earplugs is that it lowers the decibel floor of the environment but you still can talk to people and they don't have to shout into your ear. I recently had a trip to Osaka and I could hear every announcement on the plane but everything was quiet. Slept well on the flight. There is really no need to wear headphones these days and I have owned multiple pairs of headphones, to which they all live at home by my computer. My whole system fits into a coin pouch and also lives on my alpaka hub system.

I would recommend a single dynamic driver or planar driver iem if you want to get good spacial cues. I know multi-driver iems sounds exciting, they are, and they are able to hit frequency responses more desired by the community easier, making for a pleasant music listenning experience. But after spending thousands chasing imaging for my FPS games, I can very responsibly tell you, stick to a single driver, semi open back is even better. 7hz has a few options for a single planar. Moondrop and Tanchijim would have a mid-fi dynamic driver iems most of the time. These are all safe options. Maybe a bit out of budget, but it hits the tunning, comfort and imaging part. P.s. my personal love-hate iem is the Fiio FD5, which is the most spacious and accurate for gaming. But it is clunky, heavy, and hurt my ears wearing them. The FD15 is nowhere near as good having removed the faceplate vent despite sounding more neutral Edit: cannot give exact names because the ones i had or tried are super-ceeded by new models. The moondrop KXXS is good. The moondrop Aria and SSR are also good, but their paints chip to skin oil. The current KXXS replacement is the Kadenz. Which i havent heard. 7hz timeless is really good at picking up positionals. But you will find it replaced by divine/diablo and timeless 2

Moondrop KXXS for being the first serious IEM I bought that gave me the IEM bug and today even after it's been massively powercreeped, listening to it is like wearing an old t-shirt qdc VX for being the first set that completely blew me away with how IEMs could possibly sound AAW Z06 for being an actually good AAW set, with soundstage and separation (and bass texture) that plays in the range of things double or even triple it's price. Dunu Braindance for being a set that wasn't in any way a safe tuning, with eyecatching, different design, and detail that also belonged on much more expensive sets. People who like this will really like it, and I'm one of them - I initially thought it'd be too sharp for me. Timsok TS-316 for being the least comfortable IEM I've ever worn that I can't bring myself to sell because of the way it sounds, if I could get the exact same sound in a different shape I'd buy it instantly AME Mousa for being WTF ugly and heavy even if it sounded incredible Many current expensive IEMs at the 1.5k+ mark in general trending nothing close to neutral, took me time to realize that people paying that money aren't looking for neutral, they're after specialists or things with specific sound signatures now since neutral can be had at a much lower price

Alright.... Time to show off my age. **Sony EX70/71**. One of the first consumer grade IEM to show what IEM was like before IEM was in the hobby's consciousness. If you know, you know. This was one of the first consumer level IEMs available. This was 2003, and I got mind around 2004/5? **Shure E2C.** Around the same time, Shure released their IEM, the E-series to the general public. Slightly more darker tuning if I remember right, but the E2c was one of the first **professional IEM** that was available for the general public. I think I liked it better than the EX71, because it was more rounder and/or more decent sounding. Few years later, the **UE TripleFi** went on sale on Black Friday for $99. That one holds a special place in my heart. First 3x BA driver with detachable cable and was pretty good sound. Sony got my wallet back in the 2010s with their XBA series. **XBA-3** around 2012, 13? That one still remains one of my favorites and I still have them to this day. It just hits right for me. Then... KZ hit the market with their ATE, then ZS series.... and everything changed, in a very positive way. **ZS5** was the major milestone. And that was amazeballs. Multiple BA and DD drivers? For less than $50, let alone $100? Mindblowing. Was it neutral? No, not really. Was it controversial? Yes. But it sounded really good. And I think I got lucky getting the v1 rather than v2? But still. That was mindblowing. Chinese OEMs were now making stuff that sounded good as mainline brands, at fraction of the price! The new wave of $20 to $50 Chi-Fi IEMs impress me to this day. From the **Wan'er** to the **Moondrops** and maybe even the **KZ ZS12 Pro X** (non tuning). I'm going to jump on the cheap bandwagon with the **ARTTI R6 USB-C** version. $3.50? And it sounds better than what was considered state of the art 10 years ago?! Are you fucking kidding me? You newcomers have it immensely good. Before 2017, 16(?), you had to spend at least $50+ to get something worthwhile (SQ, detachable cables, etc) because that was the state of the market.