Over the years, I’ve listened to a lot of in-ear monitors (aka IEMs); some good (Tangzu Wan’er 2), some bad (anything by KZ, really), and some ugly (the CCA CRA). They range wildly in price, but I tend towards the less expensive ones just becaus they’re more fun. Very few of them are worth doing a full-on review (which take me somewhere between 10 and 15 hours of listening before I even start engaging with them critically), but I often get asked on Reddit or other forums what my recommendations are for them. I’m in the process of writing a buyers guide to heapdhones to pair with my Hifi 101: Practical Applications post, but in the meantime I figured I ought to publish a version of the spreadsheet I use to keep track of my impressions. A few important caveats:
- These are pretty quick listening sessions for the most part, probably 30-45 minutes each instead of the several weeks I do for full reviews.
- Some of the entries have full reviews (Airpods Pro 2, Status Audio Between ANC, etc.), but most don’t (in some cases, don’t *YET*).
- IEMs move pretty damned quickly; my guess is that most of these will have a replacement version sometime in 2025 or 2026. There’s no way to keep up, but old models are often available for years after they’ve been superceded.
My scoring system is pretty basic; I assign a score from 1 – 5 on each of the following dimensions: bass, mids, treble, soundstage, comfort/fitment, and then combine it to both an overall score and a cost-adjusted score. For most, I also provide some quick listening notes, a note about the fitment that worked for me, and a note on the broad tuning.
These scores are a little different than most of my reviews. A 3 is a competent score for a particular component: it’s what I expect from an IEM. A 2 is disappointing, and a 1 is a clear not for me. On the other side, 4 means good, and 5 means best in class. If something feels like it’s between scores, I let myself assign a “+” to the number. For the overall score, a 3 or 4 is a recommendation to listen, a 1 or 2 is a recommendation to skip, and a 5 is worth a blind buy in my opinion. There are around 10 value-adjusted 5s on here, but all but two of them are under $25 and all but one under $40. That’s the beauty of the IEM market in 2025.
[Sorry for the horrendous formatting; still trying to figure out how to post this cleanly. The actual sheet is public, and available here.]
Phil's Superpower of Enthusiasm 