Budget IEM for travel

[Naturelover]

Need to buy an IEM within 5-10k range.
Or lower if anything worthwhile.

Almost exclusively for travel.

I am 66 with small ears. This is important.

Need V shape or smooth signature. Non-fatiguing.

Music is mostly old Bollywood and Indian Classical.
A smattering of Jazz and vocal music also.

 

[arj]

Need to buy an IEM within 5-10k range.
Or lower if anything worthwhile.

Almost exclusively for travel.

I am 66 with small ears. This is important.

Need V shape or smooth signature. Non-fatiguing.

Music is mostly old Bollywood and Indian Classical.
A smattering of Jazz and vocal music also.

Wireless or Wired ?

For wired the Sennheise IE200 is really good. I generally like senns tone across their range.
Even in wireless, i would choose one.

 

[hifimaddy]

I bought the Truthear Crinacle Zero Red last year. Pairing with a smartphone is not great. with a PC and headphone amp/DAC, it comes to life. It has a good mid-bass and highs but is lacking deep bass, and I don't like it too. But the only downside I feel is that long listening feels uncomfortable for my ears, and it's not a very small IEM

Post in thread 'suggest DAP (Digital Audio Player) around 10 to 20k'

Apr 21, 2024

using TRUSTEAR Crinacle Zero:RED for 2 days. This is a fantastic pair of IEMs with great vocal presentation. Mid-bass is great, and the resolution of red is class-leading. They mentioned subwoofer-like effects, but the base performance is not outstanding but better than other IEMS. detail and vocals are outsanding. Now I am curious to experience Crinacle Blue, so I am going to return this red and order blue.

• hifimaddy

 

[Naturelover]

Wireless or Wired ?

For wired the Sennheise IE200 is really good. I generally like senns tone across their range.
Even in wireless, i would choose one.

Thanks
Looking for wired only

I bought the Truthear Crinacle Zero Red last year. Pairing with a smartphone is not great. with a PC and headphone amp/DAC, it comes to life. It has a good mid-bass and highs but is lacking deep bass, and I don't like it too. But the only downside I feel is that long listening feels uncomfortable for my ears, and it's not a very small IEM

Post in thread 'suggest DAP (Digital Audio Player) around 10 to 20k'

Apr 21, 2024

using TRUSTEAR Crinacle Zero:RED for 2 days. This is a fantastic pair of IEMs with great vocal presentation. Mid-bass is great, and the resolution of red is class-leading. They mentioned subwoofer-like effects, but the base performance is not outstanding but better than other IEMS. detail and vocals are outsanding. Now I am curious to experience Crinacle Blue, so I am going to return this red and order blue.

• hifimaddy

Going through some reviews, I got the impression of them being rather large.

EDIT: Did you exchange them for the BLUE?

 

[hifimaddy]

I have mostly been using it for movie watching from PC. It gives those impacts and punches very well, but after watching the movie, I feel like a fly inside my ears.

 

[Naturelover]

So, you did not get the Blue, did you?

 

[Passive_audio_enthusiast]

Need to buy an IEM within 5-10k range.
Or lower if anything worthwhile.

Almost exclusively for travel.

I am 66 with small ears. This is important.

Need V shape or smooth signature. Non-fatiguing.

Music is mostly old Bollywood and Indian Classical.
A smattering of Jazz and vocal music also.

Actually with iems getting the right tonality is easy with some eq. Only criteria is they should have low distortion so that eq won’t push them into distortion. I had been using a moondrop aria for a long time and I feel they are very good without eq. You can push the treble up on them without any distortion. Since they are old now, they should be having good discounts. Otherwise you should be fine with anything crinacle.com recommends which falls into your budget.


However since you mentioned travel, I think the right choice would be a treue wireless with noise cancellation. Passive isolation is not great as active es specially with train and bus noises around. To compete that we need to keep them too loud which will further affect the hearing. I would choose the AirPods Pro or Samsung buds pro 2 for the same purpose. Despite being stream they are well designed with low distortion and with some eq you can tailor Make the sound to your liking.

Wireless or Wired ?

For wired the Sennheise IE200 is really good. I generally like senns tone across their range.
Even in wireless, i would choose one.

Ie 200 is superb. However the wireless earphone from sennsheiser has no relation to the sound of these wired ones. I had the momentum tws (gen 1)for sometime and to me it was one of the worst earphones. From the reviews they are still following variations of the same sound across its newer generations. Soundstage wise they are huge but tonality are horrible.

 

[hifimaddy]

So, you did not get the Blue, did you?

I didn't; size-wise, it's the same. but they are better in terms of performance, I guess.

 

[arj]

Ie 200 is superb. However the wireless earphone from sennsheiser has no relation to the sound of these wired ones. I had the momentum tws (gen 1)for sometime and to me it was one of the worst earphones. From the reviews they are still following variations of the same sound across its newer generations. Soundstage wise they are huge but tonality are horrible.

good to know.
For wireless I use the Shure Wireless unit but have the 1Custom Jr IEM connected to it, which are really good as they have switches to customise the sound

 

[Naturelover]

Guys, any opinions on Meze Alba?

 

[greenhorn]

If resolution is not a priority then look at the sony extra bass range xb55. Yes it has boosted bass and somewhat dull highs, but the mids are competent apart from a bit of mid bass emphasis. I find them fantastic for listening to older recordings as they are very flattering, especially male voices - the noise and the high frequency artefacts are masked and the mid bass emphasis adds a bit of weight to the voice. They're pretty easy to drive too. It you want a bit more comfort and isolation get the spinfit tips.

A lot of Chinese iems out there that sound great with great recordings, but these ones are good if you listen mostly to the really old stuff

 

[Naturelover]

Got the Sennheiser IE200.
Very nice.