SE846 (Gen 1)

I’ve owned the original SE846 for a long time. To my understanding the only change with the V2 is the addition of an extra nozzle. I would agree that the SE846 is not a particularly spacious sound, but I don’t find them to be congested either. To my ears they are tuned incredibly well and their instrument timbre is engaging and exquisitely natural. I’d wager that many listeners might find them too dark. The treble is textured and smooth but I certainly wouldn’t call the sound airy by any metric. Your perception of the bass being lean does surprise me. I listen with the “balanced” filters—blue, I think—and the bass has tons of weight. Although, bass texture could probably be better for the asking price I never feel them to be lacking in body. The other filters kind of made the treble a little too “etched” and harsh for me. You might experiment with different tips. Foam tips seem to seal better for my ears and bring the low frequencies into focus. All in all I don’t find your perceptions too different than mine. The SE846 aren’t perfect IEMs and definitely could be better in soundstage. They may feel lacking if you prefer a more expansive and diffuse sound. I think the target audience is more for people looking for naturality and richness of texture in the vocal region, perhaps similar to headphones like a Sennheiser HD650 or some of ZMF’s offerings. For my personal taste they pretty much have the ideal tuning with the blue filters—warm mids, impactful but not overbearing bass, and slightly dark yet refined treble. However, IEMs have come a long way since they were originally released and the SE846 probably aren’t as competitive with modern IEMs in their price bracket as they used to be. I’m not sure how they landed on that narrow nozzle size. It sure is limiting when trying to find aftermarket tips. I assume other brands leaned away from this sort of proprietary sizing to make tip rolling more convenient. I’d also be curious as to how a wider nozzle bore may change the sound.

Damn. A lot of the ones I think hit the mark are either discontinued or recently went out of stock. I really wish they still had the Westone Mach 60s deal for $350. They used to have this deal where it was the Westone Mach 60s + Ifigo for $350. That imo is pretty spot-on accurate with vocals, microphones, etc, and doesn’t compromise on soundstage. Overall it’s like perfect for your application. But yeah, they don’t have the deal anymore. That said, here’s what I’d recommend, trying to calibrate to what you’re saying. Since you have the Studio 4, I can calibrate to that. If you want something with more bass than Studio 4, accurate vocals, but less soundstage and technicals than Studio 4, you can go for the Xuan NV. They’re basically like the Audio Technica M50x, over emphasized bass but accurate vocals. They imo completely replace the Audio Technica ATH-E40. TLDR: accurate vocals, exaggerated bass, not as good soundstage. Shure SE846, 1st gen or 2nd gen, but go 1st gen. Use the neutral blue filter and either the included yellow sponges or just plop on a Final Audio E large. This imo gets pretty close to JBL 305s. Don't bother with the 2nd gen. The only draw of the 2nd generation is the red filter and the red filter isn't even good. Blue filter is closer to neutral. Zigaat Lush with Moondrop spring tips. I tested a bunch of tips but for some reason the Spring tips help a lot. These have an HD600 tonality and sound. It does tend to dull out sibilance a bit, so it’s not good for critical editing, but it’s pretty warm-neutral. Tanchjim Fola, but use the D filter. D filter equals a better Nora. Warmer than Truthear Hexa, but a bit less warm than Truthear Pure. This is the Truthear Hola upgraded, if you have it from years past, but with better technicals and better vocals. Hard to explain, but you’d only understand this if you have all of these to understand: Truthear Hola, Truthear Pure, Truthear Hexa. Totally different company though. If you use the S filter (default filter) it'll sound like a 90% Tanchjim Origin. Which still actually is useful for your application too. Dusk, Tea Pros, RSV Mark 1 if you’re looking more for the Meta sound and you think Meta is neutral. Beyerdynamic DT70IE. These are very accurate with vocals, but also have bass. These are sort of a refined version of the Xuan NV. Think Xuan NV but better soundstage. A bit overpriced as all Beyer stuff are, but even voiceactors swear by this (they talk about how accurate vocals are on it). I have it and these have amazing comfort. I feel like the fair price for this is $300, but these are great for what you’re looking for. Cadenza 4. Odd choice, I know. But I pegged these as accurate enough for mixing and critical editing. No weak bass on these. Vocals are accurate. U-shaped. Excellent for enjoyment. You might love these. Letshouer Galileo. This is honestly the closest I’ve seen to dead-neutral. I have these and these are insane. When I wear a microphone and speak into this, this sounds exactly like me. It’s insane how neutral these are. But good luck finding these. They’re very hard to find. But imo much closer to my notion of neutral. Kiwi Ears Aether. Think better Hexa. This is not an enjoyable set at all, but I respect its existence. It’s neutral-ish, less harsh than the Hexa, and has better soundstage than the Hexa. But it’s joyless. You might like these. Keep the Studio 4s since they bring so much joy.

Cadenza 4. Tanchjim Origin. DX1. If you have to go below the price of the Studio4, these are solid picks. Funny enough, that last paragraph you wrote? That’s basically the Shure SE846. (I bought it recently.) Fantastic for critical editing, mixing, mastering, and voiceover work. In blue filter mode they honestly remind me of the JBL 305s on my desk. The Cadenza 4 is near perfect for the task. Great for mixing, voiceover editing, video editing, and monitoring. Ironically, the Studio4 is pretty bad for critical editing. It rounds off flaws so you won’t even realize they’re there. ======= Edit: I mentioned the DX1 because they reminded me so much of the Hexa. LIterally returned them promptly.

**Iems that look good that sound pretty good** Juzear Defiant, Celest Wyveryn Abyss, RSV Mark 1, Tea Pro, Dusk, Tanchjim Origin, Celest Pandamon 2.0 (I like it anyway), Yu9 Que, Elysian Pilgrim, EM6L (with Kiwi ears flex eartips), Dunu Kima 2, Sivga Que, Zigaat Lush, Misty Blue, Cadenza 4, Kiwi Ear Astral, Moondrop Variations, Twistura Woodnote, Fosi IM4 (but some eq may be needed), Xuan NV, IER M7, Kiwi Ear Orchestra Lite (in green), Tanchjim Fola, Softears Studio 4, Truthear Hola, Shure SE846, Andromeda 2020, Softear Volume S **Iems that look good that I don't like the sound of** Moondrop Blessing 3, Tipsy M3 (their shells looks sick), Chu 2 (used to like it but standards have went up), 7hz G1 (looks sick in white) (sounds bad tho), Kiwi Ears Cadenza (purple) (it's pretty but vocals are too thin), Mega5EST (pretty shell) (sleepy sounding to me), RSV Mark 2 (sick design) (but the bass gets overbearing over time), A bunch of Zigaats look nice but I didn't like them (Ziggat Arcanis, Zigaat Crescent, Zigaat Odyssey), Canpur Silver Flash, Inawaken Twilight (Harman 2019, hate it), Chopin (thin vocals), Letshouer S08 (sick in black) (I used to like it but don't like it as much anymore), Kiwi Ears Cadenza v2 (pretty faceplate but cookie-cutter sound), a crapton of Simgots have beautiful faceplates but I don't like how they sound (EW200, EW300, Supermix 4, all of them except EM6L), Crinacle Blue Zero (harsh), Crinacle Blue Zero 2 (harsh at high volume), Truthear Nova (gorgeous shell, quite a unpleasant sounding iem), Phoenix call version 1 (gorgeous shell but lackluster sound), Dunu Falcon Ultra (gorgeous shell but imo can get harsh at times)

Shure SE846. They aren't perfect but pretty good even though more on the pricy side. They have a fairly neutral sound and clear even when a lot of sounds are played at once. I had the Shure SE535 before. They are not as good and need a little bit of equalizer tweaking but have a better worth to price ratio. SE846 are heavier than the SE535 and your ears may need a bit longer to adjust to them. Since you don't seem to listen to a lot of technical music the SE846 are probably overkill but the SE535 may hit the mark.

I think it really comes down to the individual brands, whether IEMs are their main or only business model, how much of a margin they build in, and how much R&D they put into the pair of IEMs you bought. I have tested and borrowed various cheaper IEMs, and I ran Shure SE535 for a while, and then moved onto their SE846 which were highly innovative at the time for the laser welded air path, effectively creating a tiny sub-woofer dampener in the ear. I later moved onto the Sony IER-Z1R, partly because they were consistently in top 10 or top 5 lists on high end IEM review lists. I was also impressed how Sony had put a lot of effort into developing each ot the drivers in them from the ground up (rather than taking parts off the shelf), the stratospheric build quality (solid zirconium shell and kevlar sheathed removable cables). I listened to demo units and was blown away by the bass and soundstage on an IEM, way beyond any previous IEMs I had heard.. and as someone that daily drives and wears at the gym, i didnt want plastic housings, weak 2 pin connectors, or general poor build quality in multi thousand buck IEMs. I haven't regreted owning them once. I also experimented with lots of DACs and settled on the Fiio BTR17 using balanced 4.4 output and FLAC audio via tidal using LDAC codec. I couldnt hear any sound improvement over FLAC back when tidal supported MQA.. but could hear improvement from FLAC over lower bitrates and formats. If listening over bluetooth, the codec is generally the quality bottleneck, so its critical to use the highest quality mode and codec you can.. When it comes to AMPs i found that the additional power delivered over balanced outputs, generally brought better performance out of the IEMs. There are certainly brands at the top who are taking off the shelf drivers, sticking them in a shell, creating a well enough performing IEM with average or below average build quality, the charging mega-bucks for them. But there are others who really put in the engineering time and innovate.. SONY didnt make the IER-Z1R to make a quick buck, or as a primary business model, its a rounding error on a sub-division of a sub-division of their massive corporation - a few engineers did it as a passion project, because they could, and they persued every detail, every component, every material choice; without compromise.

I also have a two pairs of SE846 with the brand name Shuse ;)