I've always thought of this idea, very cool to see someone put it in action!
Additional-Basil-893
If the EF400 is indicative of hifiman standards, I wouldn't expect great things from the EF600 measurement wise - https://www.l7audiolab.com/f/hifiman-ef400/
Honestly none of these measure that well compared to other options out there, if you're looking to power IEMs then I would look towards one that measures cleanly e.g. moondrop dawn/dawn pro, tanchjim space, tempotec sonata bhd pro. When you have messy measurements I'd imagine tonal balance would be affected as well and not just clarity, but I'm not sure in what way
It's sad you're getting downvoted for this, this subreddit is so reductivist and loves trashing any advice that doesn't validate their budget options. Yes, there are diminishing returns and e.g. although an apple dongle is amazing for what it is, there are definitely better sources out there whether or not you are willing to admit/perceive they provide better sound. There are definitely differences in IEMs besides frequency response e.g. detail retrieval etc., and although some people may suggest frequency response may play a role in shaping these differences, it doesn't mean they're not useful in addressing them directly and independently.
Q5K is very versatile but doesn't measure the best in terms of sound quality, if you prioritize audibly transparent sound over BT+EQ I would look at the tanchjim space or tempotec sonata bhd pro. I'm using a tanchjim space and the sound absolutely blows the Q5K away for me. Even the apple dongle measures better than the q5k.
Oof I imagine iem selection must be pretty limited for your ears, Blessing 2 was hard to fit sometimes but Blessing 3 fit for me is effortless, I think they cut the diameter down by around 1mm or something which I definitely notice
Completely agree, it handles bass amazingly with EQ
Completely agree, it handles bass
Nozzle diameters:
From Thieaudio support when I emailed them:
"The nozzle size (stem) of the Monarch MKII is 5.4mm, and the nozzle size (lip) is 6mm.
The Monarch MKIII has a nozzle size of 5.2mm."
Blessing 2 has 6.5 mm nozzle
Blessing 3 nozzle is noticeably smaller at 5.8 mm
Realistically you have to try to get your family to respect that you need time on your own to enjoy yourself. I personally got one of those tiktok scrolling Bluetooth rings to control playback on my DAP to quickly pause audio because if not someone can literally be shouting in front of me and I wouldn't be able to hear a single thing.
Pretty much just terminology, every dongle DAC pretty much has an amp inside it but the issue is how clean the output is and how powerful the amp is. You can compare how different dacs perform on audiosciencereview and l7audiolab