December 23, 2010

My IEM ranking list

Moved to here

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

very interesting read there :)

Anonymous said...

Thank You Master!

Xears the best buy

Anonymous said...

Great stuff, but can't believe the SW Xcape, original or current IE version, isn't included in this compilation. These are supposedly the gold standards of IEMs, especially in the "affordable" category. Others, like the Nuforce 700s, are more fleeting flavors of the month and not as overly important. But the Xcapes would make this review complete. (A case can also be made for the Sennies IE 8 and IE7.)

Eswar Santhosh said...

I personally have nothing against SW-XCape / IE8 / NuForce or any other IEM. Given the chance, I'd like to try out every IEM I can get my hands on, even the $2500 FADs :).

Therein lies the problem. Since I am in India, I have to import most of the stuff myself and it's not that easy to consistently to support this (expensive) hobby (shipping charges, custom duty, time, not to mention the difficulty in returning IEMs + INR-USD equations). So, this list is limited to whatever I can buy or can be obtained from friends or in the rare cases, review samples.

I have no restrictions of any sort with respect to brands or signatures otherwise.

- ES

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the reply. I can appreciate the limitations to all of our obsessions with these earphones. None of these comparison charts can keep up with the constant latest and greatest models. I just enjoyed your comparisons and would love to know where the Xcapes and IE8s fit in, so keep updating. In fact, I went and ordered the TD-100-II's solely on your advice, given the almost total lack of reviews of this 'phone elsewhere, though I must admit I fell for the slick, cool look of those things.

Eswar Santhosh said...

Hope you enjoy TD-II as much as I do :)

For IEMs I am unable to try / review, I usually go with Joker's exhaustive thread. Seeing where it ranks in relation to RE0/ZERO, it's highly probable that I would have ranked XCape v1 similarly (i.e., same tier as RE0, ZERO). But then, it is no longer available. Let me try to get my hands on XCape-IE or XCaped whenever possible.

As for IE8, I am not intrigued enough by the signature to buy it. Based on what I've read, IE7 is similar in signature to GR07, but not as good. I'll try to get them on loan for a few days if possible. But due to the high retail prices and the very limited no of people who have them, the chances are not as huge.