"...maybe you can squeeze even more performance out of them"
Is that extra performance audible? most blind testing says no
edamane12345
joined 1 year ago
And then you have people saying use EQ to match cheap iem $30 against $650 iem. Sure. This hobby is subjective.
But imagine using the cheap iem when riding a bike and then claiming it's a match against higher IEM. At that point, it's just impossible to make a fair judgement as you claim that there is much wind noise and you can't focus on the music.
You tuned a shitty sounding IEM to sound decent. That's it
Get a bang for the buck DAC like Gustard X18. I had many DACs ranging low to mid from Topping D90LE, RME Adi-2, and SMSL. X18 was the best one of them all. It was hard to differentiate between Topping and RME. But I was able to tell X18 sounded the best. It had noticeably bigger sound stage.
Amps didn't particularly improve the sound for me past $1k-1.5k USD. Some amps give you a thicker body while some give you leaner sound. It's just preference at that point.
I wanted the lively/fun sounding headphones and focal utopia was exactly that. Try a demo if you can!