Moondrop - S8

Adding my experience here. They are really good, imho. They have punchy bass just the right amount, drum pedals and bass guitars sound full. Mids sound natural. They then have energy up top that make plucks sound crisp but shy of any sibilance. As comparison, my Moondrop S8 are way more resolving, but they lack a tad bit of mid bass and impact that makes the Alba great fun.

I've had unvented all BA IEMs before, like the Moondrop S8, Ibasso AM05, Tansio Mirai TSMR 3 Pro, and they all sound great/fine. Orchestra Lite just sounds so dull and blunt to my ears. Pressure build up doesn't bother me as much, especially when I use Tangzu's san cai tips.

7th Acoustics Supernova, AFUL Cantor, Monarch Mk2/3, Moondrop S8, Used Campfire Andromeda are some of my favs under $1000

its crazy tbh, 8 years ago you never would of seen the quality we are getting today at the prices we are seeing, I have owned the moondrop S8's, aful P5, Kiwi ears cadenza, simgot EA500lm and out of all of them I enjoy and spend 99% of my time listening to the simgot's which are one of my cheapest iems. (the aful were my least favourite which were my 2nd most expensive iem) I am eyeing up the simgot ET142 or the kiwi ears aether, back when I used to use headphones I was a huge fan of planar so curious how they are on the iem side.