how to shop for earbuds

[invaderzim]

How do you shop for in-ear headphones? There are what seems to be an endless list of ones available for under $100. They aren't really like regular headphones where I can (or want to) try on a bunch of demo ones; especially in this price range. So what, if anything, is there to look for when shopping?

 

[JRG1488]

You could try and find some frequency response graphs, that will give you a rough idea of how they will sound.

 

[esm]

There's crinakle's ranked list of IEMs (his test setup), which is probably a good place to look first.

 

[Tircuit]

How do you shop for in-ear headphones? There are what seems to be an endless list of ones available for under $100. They aren't really like regular headphones where I can (or want to) try on a bunch of demo ones; especially in this price range. So what, if anything, is there to look for when shopping?

Head-fi and then Wirecutter for sound then Amazon reviews for issues. Wirecutter doesn't really review the higher-end stuff.

My headphones I bought based on Wirecutter's recs turned out to be my faves: HE-400i over ear and Final E4000 earbuds.

Wirecutter best earbuds

 

[maxxevv]

Just to clarify, are you talking about 'earbuds' or "in-ear-monitors" ?

For IEMS, there's a few extensive threads over at head-fi that talk about stuff in the sub-US$100 range. There's one that talks about the obscure, Asian origin brands.

Likewise for the earbuds.

For IEMs, I cannot agree on the Marshall's on Wirecutter's list. They are really at the back of the heap in my experience.

In short the current "hype train" for not-so-mainstream IEMs over at Head-fi seems to be centered around a few in order of price (highest to lowest):

BGVP DM6, Kanas Pro, BGVP DMG, CCA C16, BQEYZ BQ3, KZ AS10, KZ ZS7, CCA C10, KZ ZSN. ( US$199 -> US$16 )

As for earbuds, the only "serious" one I own is the ToneKing TO600.