MEST Indigo

UM MEST MK2. It took me a while to realize, but the bone conduction makes a huge difference to me. Just magical.

UM MEST MK2. Got a very kind offer from Musicteck and jumped on it. I had previously only used headphones but because of a jaw injury IEMs were more comfy, I had saved to get a really nice pair of headphones, but using that on IEMs made more sense. Blew me away and I still have them, though now I use Monarch MK4 a little more.

Nowadays, i have the UM Mest Mk2 and the 7th Acoustic Supernova, although both were bought used. Both deliver and are worth the money. They are noticeably better in technical aspects (to my ears) than other good cheaper sets I own, but not by a day and night difference. Then there is the tuning department, that is where some budget pairs can truly shine (as people use to say, punching beyond the price bracket they retail to) , but that is really subjective.

Nice iem I do have it. Although I am struggling to find eq app or daps.

So someone smarter than me could jump in here but I own the MEST Mk2 and to me the difference is seen in the frequency response graph. BCD + the significantly recessed mids allow for the bass to not wash out the vocals and the highs are boosted late to sync with the bass volume. This creates the spatial phenomenon that the set was designed for which is unique. Other BCD sets would be where I would look, the ISN Audio EBC80 which is a little cheaper. A few people really enjoy that set but I suspect it would have a similar sound profile.

MEST MK2 is my best bang for buck set if you can get it under $1000. Super unique tuning, fun, engaging and scales well with sources. Hard to say it wasn't the set that really opened my ears to higher options. I certainly wouldn't own any summitfi DAPs/IEMs if I hadn't heard the MEST.

For music, I demoed and recently purchased a UM x MT Pentara. If you like engaging IEMs it’s hard for me suggest others and anything else feels “boring”, it does everything well and provides a unique experience that I couldn’t match. Diminishing returns if you find good sets is 1k+, it almost all preference after that point for music and it’s rare to find bad sets. Much has to do with your preferred genres and finding good synergy. For most folk in the hobby there is absolutely great sets that can be had for music ~$500 that I would have stopped at without going to CanJam. For gaming, I would say the finishing returns a lot sooner. You don’t want anything that is going to cover up valuable information. I would say $80-$100 sets that are commonly recommended would be better than splurging for a Tea Pro/Volume S which are commonly recommended. More unique sets have a tendency to mess with the perception of distance and direction more than I had originally believed. In regards to recommendations, it’s expensive to get bass you can “feel”. Lot of folks recommend the Punch Audio Martilo and the Kiwi Ears x HBB Punch come to mind as good bass sets to explore.

If that is in your budget I would recommend having separate sets. For me at least, I love bone conduction and couldn’t enjoy music without it anymore if I am using IEMs. But the MEST and the Pentara have tuning that not be great for gaming. For example, the beginning of the song Thriller the foot steps are very unnatural on the Pentara because of the obscenely large soundstage it feels like it is far too many steps to pan that distance. These tunings can be awesome for music but bad for positional awareness. For gaming, in my opinion you want something with a quick attack/decay on bass region and enough treble to get cues needed through the chaos. The Tea Pros for example have a very slow bass compared to something like the Top Pro (just keep the example easy). The are pretty similar from a volume perspective but the Top Pro has less bleed so it feels more resolving across the whole audible range. This has trade offs between sets that you can find a preference for as well (everything is subjective isn’t it). Mids on the Top Pro are a little too forward so distance feels off to some extent. The Tea Pros bass is too pervasive and washes out important detail in chaos. I am personally still trying to find my perfect gaming set, finding something with a W curve and tight bass response will be my ideal candidate. A few posters mentioned Astral and that is one on my to try list. I mostly play Hunt:Showdown where it is basically an audio simulator game. All of my experience is catering specifically to game with almost 100% audio reliance, so everything is information.

I think you will probably need something a little bigger than the Protocol Max for over the ears. I have a FiiO K7 for my desk since it has easy access to 6.5 mm for headphones and a 4.4 out for IEMs and plenty of power for headphone as well. Your list is a good start, Supermix4 was a little spicy in the table region for me and didnt have the punchy bass I was looking for. The three sets on my list to try are the Kiwi Eas Astral, Ziigaat Arete II, and Tea Pro SE. Arete is a collab with and ex CS pro who does gaming IEM reviews (FreshReviews). Basses purely on graphs, I think the Arete II is not designed with music in mind at all. Which is why it so closely aligns to my theorized ideal graph tuning. Bass bleed would be the only thing I would be concerned on but I’m sure that was considered.