Two weeks ago I replaced my old Sundaras with the Ananda Stealth. They felt more comfortable and the imaging, soundstage and bass are improved noticeably, so I decided to keep them. Yesterday I listened for the first time to a IEM (EW200), which I bought for 25$ in the 11.11.
To be honest, there is not much difference in terms of detail, imaging and bass quality. Of course, the Ananda a feel fuller, airier and with more natural timber that is very noticeable when watching movies or listening to vocals, but the rest feel kinda comparable. Now I feel like I wasted 400$ with the Ananda. Did this happen to any of you when discovering IEM?
Also, now I wonder if I buy something like the Simgot EA1000 in the 200$ range if I will be blown out or if the improvement would be comparable to jumping from the Sundara to the Ananda.
I would also like to hear from you how you feel comparing IEM with open back headphones. Cheers!
Fiio K11 :/
Yeah, I'd get something more powerful than that. A lot of Redditors think all amplification reproduces music the same. Those folks are very wrong.
Take your Ananda to a good audio store if you can, plug it into one of their DAC/Amp stacks and see how your headphones are really supposed to sound, then decide how much you want to spend to hear something like that again.