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Definitely IEMs in your situation

Posted by texanater (A) on July 11, 2014 at 10:49:03

In Reply to: Help for newbe into headphones posted by ahendler on July 8, 2014 at 19:28:46:

In Ear Monitor (IEM)

There are some absolutely great options as the IEM market has exploded in the past 5 or 6 years. The sound quality is far better than you would ever expect, as good as many flagship full sized headphones. They are infinitely more portable than the big cans and are great and background noise isolation. Since they are so small they can be used in a wide variety of applications to include everything you would use a full sized cans.

I have personally owned:
JVC FX700
Etymotics HF5
Atrio M8

Along with full sized:
Grado SR60 and 80
Sennheiser HD600
Beyerdynamic DT880

My order of preference is DT880, followed closely by JVC FX700 followed closely by HD600s followed closely by Etymotics with Atrios and grados lagging behind. The Atrios have great base and I use them for watching movies, they almost reproduce that subwoofer rumble. JVC has a new FX800 for ~$400-$500 which are supposed to be wonderful. Sennheiser has the new IE800 which review like they are the best thing ever made. I think they go for ~$800. Check out the link below for a review of a bunch of IEMs ranging from cheap to thousands of dollars.

I understand the criticism about comfort but IEMs have really come a long way in the past few years. There are great options that employ custom ear molds which are very comfortable. The JVCs aren't custom but are comfortable enough to stay in my ears for hours too even without the custom molds. The etymotics have the best soundstage I have ever heard in an IEM but lack some base. They have a custom ear mold option that is comfortable and completely isolates outside noise. You could not have a conversation with them in your ears. I had a 50 hour trip to afghanistan and kept them in my ears almost the whole time just to isolate background noise. C-17s are not quiet. Anyway, it was very comfortable and never bothered my ears.

IEMs are pretty durable too. The Etymotics, JVCs and Atrios all survived my deployment to Afghanistan. The Atrios were the worse for wear but they are my oldest. I've had them for 6 1/2 years!

As far as source components go, the lowly 5th generation iPods are really very good. Probably not up to reference system quality but far better than you would expect. The advantage is of course the portability and convenience. If you really require the reference quality then you will need a laptop and a DAC/Amp combo. I have the dragonfly version 1.2 and its fabulous. There are a lot of great USB options that are the size of a thumb drive. HRT (high resolution technologies) makes great products too. I've read a lot of quality control issues with the cheaper options such as Fiio but have no direct experience with them. HRT even makes a D/A converter for iPods but it requires an outlet which limits it.

Anyway, a great IEM and a 5th generation iPod will get you 85% there. If you want that extra 15% and its worth lugging around a laptop get a good usb D/A converter. A $2000 budget will definitely get you what you want!

Nate

You can't cheat an honest man, never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump -- W.C. Fields

• multi-iem review   (Open in New Window)

Edits: 07/11/14

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