The cabinet resonance is slightly concerning. @hardisj would you consider it bothersome? I wonder if this was present on the LP-6/8 v1, but was not obvious due to less amp energy. @KaliAudio_Official is there less internal bracing for the LP series compared to the IN series?
Looking at the review here:
The Komplete Audio 1/2 has an headphone output impedance of 10.21 Ohms, pretty high compared to the 0.06 Ohms of the MOTU M2 and the 0.35 Ohms of the focusrite 2i2/solo Gen 3.
The focusrite has problems in the headphone out with low impedance headphones, but fairs...
I can't seem to edit the original post, is this a forum restriction? I can remove the reference to this term.
Edit: I guess that means I can't update the original post, maybe I should migrate this to a google doc/sheet?
I've added Vsonic. I guess it depends on what a "chinese IEM" brand is, Vsonic was founded in japan in 1980, but the chinese founders later moved most of the operations to ShenZhen in 1999.
Without a doubt Chinese made IEMs have become really popular in the last couple of years, I thought I would attempt to make a master list here.
A few well known ones to start off:
Moondrop (水月雨) - est 2014
Kanas (2018), Kanas Pro Edition (2018), KXXS (2019), Moondrop (2019), Aria v2 (2021)...
Looking at the proposed solutions so far
MOTU M2 ($180, currently out of stock)
analog volume control
Soncoz LA-QXD1 ($219, in stock at various places)
digital volume control
Both have balanced outputs, and volume controls in front. The Soncoz measures better, but the MOTU can also act as...
Looking at the measurements:
SINAD
BAL - 103.5 dB
UNBAL - 83 dB
THD+N
BAL - 0.00067%
UNBAL - 0.007%
Dynamic range (weighted - probably BAL out, no voltage specified)
BAL (? not labeled) 124 dB
THD+N vs freq (? not labeled - probably BAL out? )
Generally below 0.001 - decent
IMD vs level
ESS...
There are measurements of the Fiio BTR5 here. It is in chinese, but google translate does a decent job.
TLDR: Unbalanced measures poorly, balanced measures decently. Very sensitive to USB jitter/noise, and measurements improved after using a USB isolator.