so i got my first pair of iems back in may for my birthday and theyre ikko OH10's (the old version not the OH10S) which were like $200 so still a lot for me but way cheaper than a lot of other iems
but these are still the best things ive ever heard in my life by far and i dont understand how any pair of headphones can sound even better than this, like it actually feels like the music is inside my soul, i was listening to justin timberlake yesterday and was literally crying and getting goosebumps cause of how beautiful it sounded, and i dont even like justin timberlake ๐ญ๐ญ
anyways the reason im wondering is cause i kinda wanna save up for some even better ones that are a bit smaller cause these ones are kinda big for me and they start to hurt my ears after a little bit, but im kinda scared of spending a ton of money on headphones just for me to barely notice a difference, like do $1,000+ iems sound way better than $200 ones or do they just sound only slightly better?? and what actually makes one pair better than another?? like compared to my basic earbuds these ones are way louder, clearer, and a lot fuller and richer, so would more expensive iems just be even louder and clearer than these ones?
I went from Blessing 2 to Monarch MkII.
Overall there was a noticeable difference, but it wasn't huge. Mostly the tuning sounded better and the highs became a lot clearer due to the Tribrid design of the Monarchs since they have EST drivers for the air.
I think the biggest factor is good sounding IEMs is how many types of drivers there are and the crossovers used. If you have a double crossover to split up low/mid/highs and have 3 different drivers for the crossover zones then you will have 90% of the top end of sound.
Spending $200-$500 will most likely get you 95% of the $1000 mark and spending $1000 on IEMs will get you that little bit extra so if you're someone who wants to not miss out on anything you know you've gone beyond what's reasonable by enough that you feel confident in your audio.
The final 5% is probably how well the BAs are set up for the midrange since they don't cram 6 crossovers for each BA driver. Higher cost IEMs do this best.