Why I'm going to CanJam Socal

What's your price range, sound preference, and use case (commute, work, home, travel)?

I'm looking for IEM's in the $350 max range. If I can find better cheaper. Same for sealed over the ear cans for work.

I'm also going to look for heapdhone amps, but mainly to listen. I want to see if I can recreate the magic I heard from Woo amps ages ago, and also get a listen to the Ayre Codex and anything else.

The truth is while I like headphones, I hardly listen except at work, and for that I really need sealed or IEM's with intrinsic noise blocking.

For $300 I really like my Massdrop Plus with a balanced cable. Pretty good isolation and comfort too. https://drop.com/buy/massdrop-plus-universal-iemsFor similar money some people like the Fiio FH5 or FA7 but I wasn't impressed by their sound although I like and have their Q5 dac/amp. BGVP DM6, Moondrop Kanas Pro, Tanchjim Oxygen always come up in sub $300 IEM discussions. If you can find a used Ibasso IT04 I've heard good things.

The only headphones I own are the closed back Mackie MC-250 which are a good value at $99. Under $300 are Audio Technica ATH-MX50, Beyerdynamic DT770, Meze 99 Neo/Classic

The highest rated IEMs in the $350 and under range at least according to Head-Fi’s big review threads seem to be the Periodic Audio Be and the Etymotic ER4XR. If you are open to open-backs, then iSine 10/20 are very well reviewed.

The MD Plus is considered a more "fun" and bassier version of the ER4XR. Haven't heard much about the PA Be on Head-Fi, SBAF, etc. and lower ranked on crinacle's IEM ranking list FWIWhttps://crinacle.com/ranking-list/

I’m no expert whenit comes to headphones but I do have a pair of periodic audio be iem’s.  I also have a drogonfly red dac and jitterbug... the dac/jitterbug/attachment is a pita though as far as how big and unruly the combo is.

I listened to a bunch of different headphones at can jam rmaf 3 years ago and felt like the periodic audio be’s were the best for the $. Dan, the owner, is an awesome guy and has great customer service.  If you have any warranty issues he’s great to work with.

Zreviews on you tube is probably a good source for iem info.

if I were you, I’d probably just find out whats the best iem’s at or below $100, plug them into your phone, stream tidal and be done with it.  I’ve tried to get into listening to a nice headphone setup at work and it never worked out for me; work was always too distracting!

I looked around at Periodic Audio’s site. Lots of plots, but the waterfall shows a lot of ringing around 5kHz for their designs.


I have no way of comparing this to other IEM’s, but it’s curious. Do listeners feel they have lots of "air" ??