Thank you for the excellent and much needed addressing of the cable issues!! You’re so spot on. I love the Hola cable as well and literally would and do reach for it each and every time over the ‘luxurious’ upscale PW cable that came w my Mest Mkii that they charge friggin $500 for alone on its own. Hola cable is one of the best in the biz when it comes to cable behavior and memory goes not to mention in comfort. Great review btw!
Thanks bro! Yeah Don't get me wrong, that mest cable is beautiful and high quality, but damn as for comfort and functionality the TE Hola cable knocked it out of the park. It blows my mind that a cable like that is included with a sub $20 iem, meanwhile most companies continue to include the cheapest plastic garbage cables with their iem's when I'm sure they'd sell a hell of a lot more if they just included a better quality cable.
I always enjoy watching your teardowns even though I understand very little about IEM manufacturing and drivers in general. In your experience, what makes an IEM driver better than others? Any notable IEMs with drivers that are of notably higher quality than most of their price bracket competitors?
Hey, thanks! As far as what makes an iem driver better, it's more or less just SQ. You can hear it. Even if the iem is not tuned very well you can usually hear the potential of the driver shine through. Also with a graphing rig you could probably measure the performance but I'm not 100% sure about that. A couple iem's of note would be KZ EDXS or truthear hola. Those both have notable drivers for their price. Or the tinhifi C2, that one is very notable when the price was $24 but unfortunately I think the price went up since it came out.
@@hi-friaudioman Thanks for the answer, man. I thought being made of better materials or something would make a driver better, but I suppose it's a bit more intangible than I thought it'd be. Regarding the IEMs, that's interesting. Appreciate the input about it. The tin hifi C2 is definitely one that I have seen many talk about as a cheap IEM with a driver that's better than you'd expect for the price range. For the IEMs made by yourself, do you re-use drivers taken from other IEMs or do you order drivers specifically for that purpose?
For me the opposite dampening in the nozzle once I sweat the sound gets blocked . And then after sometime with the vaporation of the water the wax stays and then I need to break the nozzle and place a sponge filters because they last longer
Sounds like you need iem's with bigger nozzles. Also some dampeners have a bigger glue surface area and I've noticed that helps. Not sure if I shared them with you but there are dampeners I've tried that do not clog as much as others. Their white and they've done a great job for me as far as not clogging.
@hi-friaudioman when you live in dubai and its hot all the time and you workout like a freak in the gym and everything is covered I'm sweat. I notice that the drivers starts to flex ams sound stops. Sometimes I remove them. I blow on them to start working again. And after 2 months. The mesh is cover in wax. So I remove them ans exchange for the sponge ones. And all fixed . They last longer. And then boil them and good as new. The hbb qz lasted one 2 weeks in the gym, because under the grill they have a tuning mesh. I wish they build iem with a removal nozzle that you have to had mesh inside for tuning or replacement. Then would be perfect . Amd I agree with you. The bass with a mesh sounds thicker. But sometimes can affect the all frequency....
When seeing this, I wonder what profit these companies can make on a budget IEM, not a big one I guess. Then, how many units do they have to sold to have investment return ?
You'd be surprised, just going off previous experience my guess is that this iem cost $3 to manufacture, so the profit is around $6 on every unit sold.
In regards to un-dampened being bad, what about high-end models that have open nozzles and sound great? Personally, I have the Oriolus Szalayi and love them. Edit: Oh, I see now in your Kiwi Ears Orchestra Lite video, there are likely dampeners back in there somewhere.
Yeah, normally if you can't see them in the nozzle they are hiding further down in the nozzle, especially if they're hybrid. The lack of dampening applies more to budget single driver or DD iem's.
The driver had that little rubber around it is so nice
Laughed hard at that 1dB change with the switch toggle! 🤣
You are making some great videos. I am still new at this. Do you have a ranking/tier list?
Thank you for the excellent and much needed addressing of the cable issues!! You’re so spot on. I love the Hola cable as well and literally would and do reach for it each and every time over the ‘luxurious’ upscale PW cable that came w my Mest Mkii that they charge friggin $500 for alone on its own. Hola cable is one of the best in the biz when it comes to cable behavior and memory goes not to mention in comfort. Great review btw!
Thanks bro! Yeah Don't get me wrong, that mest cable is beautiful and high quality, but damn as for comfort and functionality the TE Hola cable knocked it out of the park. It blows my mind that a cable like that is included with a sub $20 iem, meanwhile most companies continue to include the cheapest plastic garbage cables with their iem's when I'm sure they'd sell a hell of a lot more if they just included a better quality cable.
great review thank you :)
I always enjoy watching your teardowns even though I understand very little about IEM manufacturing and drivers in general.
In your experience, what makes an IEM driver better than others? Any notable IEMs with drivers that are of notably higher quality than most of their price bracket competitors?
Hey, thanks! As far as what makes an iem driver better, it's more or less just SQ. You can hear it. Even if the iem is not tuned very well you can usually hear the potential of the driver shine through. Also with a graphing rig you could probably measure the performance but I'm not 100% sure about that.
A couple iem's of note would be KZ EDXS or truthear hola. Those both have notable drivers for their price. Or the tinhifi C2, that one is very notable when the price was $24 but unfortunately I think the price went up since it came out.
@@hi-friaudioman Thanks for the answer, man. I thought being made of better materials or something would make a driver better, but I suppose it's a bit more intangible than I thought it'd be.
Regarding the IEMs, that's interesting. Appreciate the input about it. The tin hifi C2 is definitely one that I have seen many talk about as a cheap IEM with a driver that's better than you'd expect for the price range.
For the IEMs made by yourself, do you re-use drivers taken from other IEMs or do you order drivers specifically for that purpose?
Do you have a Squig site where you upload/backup your Measurements?
For me the opposite dampening in the nozzle once I sweat the sound gets blocked . And then after sometime with the vaporation of the water the wax stays and then I need to break the nozzle and place a sponge filters because they last longer
Sounds like you need iem's with bigger nozzles. Also some dampeners have a bigger glue surface area and I've noticed that helps. Not sure if I shared them with you but there are dampeners I've tried that do not clog as much as others. Their white and they've done a great job for me as far as not clogging.
@hi-friaudioman when you live in dubai and its hot all the time and you workout like a freak in the gym and everything is covered I'm sweat. I notice that the drivers starts to flex ams sound stops. Sometimes I remove them. I blow on them to start working again. And after 2 months. The mesh is cover in wax. So I remove them ans exchange for the sponge ones. And all fixed . They last longer. And then boil them and good as new. The hbb qz lasted one 2 weeks in the gym, because under the grill they have a tuning mesh. I wish they build iem with a removal nozzle that you have to had mesh inside for tuning or replacement. Then would be perfect . Amd I agree with you. The bass with a mesh sounds thicker. But sometimes can affect the all frequency....
When seeing this, I wonder what profit these companies can make on a budget IEM, not a big one I guess. Then, how many units do they have to sold to have investment return ?
You'd be surprised, just going off previous experience my guess is that this iem cost $3 to manufacture, so the profit is around $6 on every unit sold.
@@hi-friaudioman Indeed I am surprised 🤨
In regards to un-dampened being bad, what about high-end models that have open nozzles and sound great? Personally, I have the Oriolus Szalayi and love them. Edit: Oh, I see now in your Kiwi Ears Orchestra Lite video, there are likely dampeners back in there somewhere.
Yeah, normally if you can't see them in the nozzle they are hiding further down in the nozzle, especially if they're hybrid. The lack of dampening applies more to budget single driver or DD iem's.