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June 2024 - Need a good transparent sounding IEM - budget $60 max

Current shortlist of what to buy to complement the CCA CRA, includes :

Artti T10
Simgot EW200
Salnotes 7hz Zero
(Salnotes) 7hz Zero 2
Kefine Delci
Truthear Zero - Red
Truthear Gate
Tin T3 Plus
Tin T2 Plus
Moondrop LAN
Moondrop Chu II
Moondrop Aria (refurbished)
KZ PR1,PR2, or PR3 (manufacturing consistency is a bit of an issue here, due to alleged changes in the design over time, so prior reviews/measurements/user opinions, and what one receives from current orders, may differ) - This risk does apply to pretty much any product, but is particularly highlighted for he KZ PR series, from my brief investigation.
KZ ZVX

Two things have changed since I started this thread.

1. I now have the CCA CRA, and I am pretty satisfied with it without EQ, and with EQ using AutoEQ, it takes listening to an even higher quality, in my non measured subjective estimation.

2. My apprehension with ordering products from China, has been reduced. I have had a good experience with the CCA CRA order, via AliExpress - received a brand new item, no issues, which was delivered in pretty stunning time. Normal delivery in country - typically I expect 3 to 5 working days, cos I rarely pay for expedited delivery. The CCA CRA arrived 6 days after order, all the way from China, now that is mind blowingly phenomenal.

So now, I'll take my time, really take my time to take a decision of what else to buy.

Long term, as money becomes available, with the excellent performance of the CCA CRA's, this has given me confidence to be more adventurous. Final list of headphones, that I'm hoping to have over the next year or so would be :

1. CCA CRA IEM (owned)
2. Another dynamic IEM
3. A planar magnetic IEM
4. AKG K702 (owned)
5. A planar magnetic Over Ears, most likely one of the HIfiMans. (This is optional and only if I'm flush with cash).
Aside from those you mentioned, I'd take a look at the TRN Conch, as it beats all of them for construction, accessories and fit (for me and for most users, I think, due to the prolonged design):

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Just checked out the Truthear Gate - seems to be new/recently released product, low cost, entry level. And another decent "starter" IEM. Bonus- it comes with a leatherette pouch.

Challenge is now I have the CCA CRA, not sure of the benefit of getting another "starter" IEM. Sure these things are now thankfully inexpensive. Last thing I want is a pile of inexpensive - good quality IEM's lying around, doing nothing, just because I want to feed my gear lust. Must resist the temptation. Hate to waste money.

From what I can deduce so far, the CCA CRA sounds as good as the source. Feed it some modern saturated audio, it shows you exactly what is there. Feed it a high end jazz, or well mixed song - from one of the top artists, e.g Natalie Cole, Beyonce, and you hear a better result.

I had thought of getting one each of the popular DAC chips - e.g CX-31993, or the ALC5686, and the CS43131 and maybe the ESS90382M, in either dongle or desktop form factor, but I'm not a lab, or a collector, already have too many audio interfaces which I do not use daily, so as I do not need or value MQA, bought a Tempotec Sonata BHD which was on sale on AliExpress - awaiting delivery. This has dual CS43131, and superb measured specs - more than good enough for desktop use - several times more power than the Apple dongle. I'm estimating I'd have to attenuate by about 60dB in the digital domain, to match these with the CCA CRA, for normal long term listening. Which introduces its own issues. Ideally I would like to have the audio coming out of the dongle at its ideal operating range - not hitting the limits like 0dBFS, but somewhere between -5dBFS and -20dBFS. One more dongle DAC to join the Apple dongle is enough. No more dongle DAC purchases, after the Tempotec Sonata BHD arrives.

With low impedance, high sensitivity headphones, causing one to resort to huge attenuation like -50dB or -60dB, wondering if I'll not be ruining the quality of the audio. From my review of the linearity tests on most DACs on ASR, I think most DACs should still be ok, and produce clean flat frequency at up to -60dB. Nevertheless, thinking that I'd prefer to attenuate in the analog domain, to avoid any potential frequency accuracy anomalies in the DAC at very quiet output levels, from needing to attenuate far too much in the digital domain, when I have these low impedance high sensitivity IEMS.

Solution would be - to attenuate no more than 15dB in the digital domain, i.e max peaks coming out of the dongle would be about -15dBFS, feed the output of the dongle DAC, to my Sabaj A20h headphone amplifier, which is then responsible for any further attenuation/loudness management, in the analog domain. Of course I may be overthinking this, as digital attenuation down to -60 or -70dBFS may still be perfectly OK and do the audio output from a dongle DAC, no audible harm. With many dongle DAC's reaching SINADs of -109dB or better, that still leaves approx 39dB dynamic range, (109 minus 90). which is more than enough for most modern pop music.
I'm sure Tempotec Sonata BHD will serve you well.

I can't know about exactly what goes in to pricing an IEM, but tuning wise I'd easily pay three times as much for Truthear Gate. As a general recommendation I think it's very good, you could bypass all of the budget IEMs you listed, get Gate, and be done.
 
I would not be as eager to crown a winner myself based on that alone. The difference in noise floor would be imperceivable at sane listening levels, assuming a sensitive IEM. For real world use it means more that EU versions of Apple dongle have less available gain range on Android, require jumping through hoops to unlock it every time you use it. At best Apple dongle still cant beat CX dongle in terms of power, so one can keep using CX dongle for some headphones without needing to buy more devices:
View attachment 374787
I'm assuming this is the US version of the Apple dongle, tested by Amir. With the CCA CRA's - official specs - 34 ohms impedance, and 105db sensitivity (not sure whether this is per milliWatt or per 1Vrms - but the difference should not be huge - whichever the case may be), let's just say - with the Apple dongle, the audio - listening to commercial music, is already loud, exceptionally loud. Deafeningly loud, at max volume without attenuation.

The EU version of the Apple dongle, will still be far more than loud enough, cos I'm having to attenuate by 50dB to listen to commercial music on Spotify, at a healthy listening level. Unfortunately I cannot tell you what that comfortable long term listening level is - cos I have no devices to measure the loudness of the earphones.

So pondering the need for an even more powerful CX based dongle DAC. Guess those using a mix of IEM's and Over Ears, and who may have some planars, or difficult to drive headphones, may find the CX 31993 based DACs provide a safety net, to avoid buyer remorse.

I'm unpacking my AKG K702's soon, further to a house move (long overdue the finding and pulling out from some box), so I'll give an impression of how this fares with the Apple dongle.
 
Aside from those you mentioned, I'd take a look at the TRN Conch, as it beats all of them for construction, accessories and fit (for me and for most users, I think, due to the prolonged design):

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TRN Conch - Never heard of this until now. I'll add it to the list. Just to be sure I've done my due diligence.

It has taken me a long time, to become happy with my purchases, went through a bit of hell with some dongles, but with the pairing of the CCA CRA and the Apple dongle, my faith in dongles and IEM;s has been restored. It is definitely possible under $30 (including international shipping) to get a decent dongle DAC as well as a decent starter IEM. Now that is a wow statement, that just shows, there is no excuse for anyone on the planet to listen to poor quality audio - well except for ignorance. Mankind has made huge progress, in the most recent decade, with respect to Audio.

Even without EQ, the CCA CRA sounds ok to me. (of course I have not tried out any other IEM's.) Apple dongle, CCA CRA, both affordable and easily available without the risk of purchasing a fake product, cos you are buying direct from the manufacturer. (I bought 3 fake Samsung dongles from non Samsung sources, thinking I was saving money - all fake, 1 was from Amazon UK, selling on behalf of Samsung allegedly - nevertheless fake - too many issues with the dongle)
 
I hope its not just me, on many Youtube videos, I'm hearing the artefacts of some sort of algorithm, which introduces noise when there is audio, but does not exists when there is no audio, a "noise gate" and by this I mean a real "noise gate" that removes both noise and audio when there is a bit of silence. But what do I expect - Youtube audio is heavily lossy compressed.
 
I hope its not just me, on many Youtube videos, I'm hearing the artefacts of some sort of algorithm, which introduces noise when there is audio, but does not exists when there is no audio, a "noise gate" and by this I mean a real "noise gate" that removes both noise and audio when there is a bit of silence. But what do I expect - Youtube audio is heavily lossy compressed.
That comes either from the video or from your source not being clean enough for the iems. This happened to me a lot when using KZs/CCAs (which are ultra sensitive) on their own bluetooth amplifiers, which were, frankly, garbage. What are you using the iems with?
 
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I added the Truthear Gate to the list. Thanks. Will definitely research it, but may not buy cos I do not want to have too many things lying around, doing nothing.
I can't recommend the Gate personally.

It feels super cheap in the hands and sounds harsh and sibilant to my ears (see below).
YMMV.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/truthear-gate.54785/post-1997144

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/truthear-gate.54785/post-2000500
 
That comes either from the video or from your source not being clean enough for the iems. This happened to me a lot when using KZs/CCAs (which are ultra sensitive) on their own bluetooth amplifiers, which were, frankly, garbage. What are you using the iems with?
Youtube/Spotify, WhatsApp etc, etc -> VBAudio Hifi Cable (virtual audio device- bit perfect) -> Reaper DAW (with Auto EQ derived correction filters, imported as imuse responses into a convolution reverb plugin) -> Apple Dongle (US version) -> CCA CRA IEM.

Noise most noticeable on some Youtube videos, especially spoken word, cos the inter word gaps have absolutely non of the background hiss. My suspicion is, in the quiet gaps - Youtube is most likely also expanding(making quieter) or gating (cutting out the audio to silence) as part of their compression algorithm to reduce the data transmitted, so it makes the noise, when this comes up, during the spoken word segment, even more pronounced, against the backdrop of silence.

I like the revealing nature of what I'm hearing. Part of my need for good audio is as a mixing engineer. Almost certain I would never hear this noise from Youtube, on my "professional studio" speakers (Alesis M1 Mk 2's). I have not done much listening, but I feel I'm hearing the truth. Why? So much easier to discern the relative volume of things, within a track, and between different source. I definitely prefer to hear the truth, however inconvenient. Yes it has degraded my Youtube viewing experience, but if I ever have to publish any dialogue or music on Youtube, I'll be on the lookout for the solution to avoid this issue completely.
 
Youtube/Spotify, WhatsApp etc, etc -> VBAudio Hifi Cable (virtual audio device- bit perfect) -> Reaper DAW (with Auto EQ derived correction filters, imported as imuse responses into a convolution reverb plugin) -> Apple Dongle (US version) -> CCA CRA IEM.

Noise most noticeable on some Youtube videos, especially spoken word, cos the inter word gaps have absolutely non of the background hiss. My suspicion is, in the quiet gaps - Youtube is most likely also expanding(making quieter) or gating (cutting out the audio to silence) as part of their compression algorithm to reduce the data transmitted, so it makes the noise, when this comes up, during the spoken word segment, even more pronounced, against the backdrop of silence.

I like the revealing nature of what I'm hearing. Part of my need for good audio is as a mixing engineer. Almost certain I would never hear this noise from Youtube, on my "professional studio" speakers (Alesis M1 Mk 2's). I have not done much listening, but I feel I'm hearing the truth. Why? So much easier to discern the relative volume of things, within a track, and between different source. I definitely prefer to hear the truth, however inconvenient. Yes it has degraded my Youtube viewing experience, but if I ever have to publish any dialogue or music on Youtube, I'll be on the lookout for the solution to avoid this issue completely.
CCA CRA has a quirky frequency response which breaks lossy codecs used by YT and streaming services.
 
Youtube/Spotify, WhatsApp etc, etc -> VBAudio Hifi Cable (virtual audio device- bit perfect) -> Reaper DAW (with Auto EQ derived correction filters, imported as imuse responses into a convolution reverb plugin) -> Apple Dongle (US version) -> CCA CRA IEM.

Noise most noticeable on some Youtube videos, especially spoken word, cos the inter word gaps have absolutely non of the background hiss. My suspicion is, in the quiet gaps - Youtube is most likely also expanding(making quieter) or gating (cutting out the audio to silence) as part of their compression algorithm to reduce the data transmitted, so it makes the noise, when this comes up, during the spoken word segment, even more pronounced, against the backdrop of silence.

I like the revealing nature of what I'm hearing. Part of my need for good audio is as a mixing engineer. Almost certain I would never hear this noise from Youtube, on my "professional studio" speakers (Alesis M1 Mk 2's). I have not done much listening, but I feel I'm hearing the truth. Why? So much easier to discern the relative volume of things, within a track, and between different source. I definitely prefer to hear the truth, however inconvenient. Yes it has degraded my Youtube viewing experience, but if I ever have to publish any dialogue or music on Youtube, I'll be on the lookout for the solution to avoid this issue completely.
The only time I've experienced an overly aggressive noise gate, which resulted in artifacts as it was audibly cutting into quiet parts of the track, was when I was using Android at almost zero volume.

It happened with all Apps, and went away as soon as I figured out how to use UAPP to control UAC2 hardware volume, so that I could keep Android at close to 100% volume with still comfortable loudness.

I have never experienced this on Windows, and have never heard an audio track from YouTube with such a noise gate baked-in.
Something might be amiss.

To troubleshoot, I would try to find a YouTube video with an especially obnoxious noise gate behavior, then download the raw Opus track (format 251) from YouTube's servers using the YT-DLP CLI (GitHub).

Then open the track in your DAW, and play it back directly using Wasapi Exclusive or FlexASIO if required.

I suspect that the noise gate will be gone, leaving you with clean audio, which would suggest that it's not the Opus compression that's causing this, but some other part of your digital signal chain.
 
Youtube is most likely also expanding(making quieter) or gating (cutting out the audio to silence) as part of their compression algorithm to reduce the data transmitted, so it makes the noise, when this comes up, during the spoken word segment, even more pronounced, against the backdrop of silence.
Either that or the source video has elevated noise, and/or, like markanini said, the CRA is amplifying the frequencies of those noises. In my experience, this happens when the transducers exaggerates the upper higher frequencies >8kHz:

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The only time I've experienced an overly aggressive noise gate, which resulted in artifacts as it was audibly cutting into quiet parts of the track, was when I was using Android at almost zero volume.

It happened with all Apps, and went away as soon as I figured out how to use UAPP to control UAC2 hardware volume, so that I could keep Android at close to 100% volume with still comfortable loudness.

I have never experienced this on Windows, and have never heard an audio track from YouTube with such a noise gate baked-in.
Something might be amiss.

To troubleshoot, I would try to find a YouTube video with an especially obnoxious noise gate behavior, then download the raw Opus track (format 251) from YouTube's servers using the YT-DLP CLI (GitHub).

Then open the track in your DAW, and play it back directly using Wasapi Exclusive or FlexASIO if required.

I suspect that the noise gate will be gone, leaving you with clean audio, which would suggest that it's not the Opus compression that's causing this, but some other part of your digital signal chain.
All points noted. I'll double check using the procedure you have outlined, whenever I hear any prominent noise on spoken word on Youtube.

What I did quickly to zero in on the source of this issue was listen to Spotify - and I could not hear anything definitive, definitely on music tracks, nothing untoward, no hiss of any kind, whatsoever. Even when I turned it up above what would be my comfortable listening level. No spurious noise whatsoever. I'm using WASAPI exclusive to send the audio from my DAW into the Apple dongle., and the rest of the chain from Windows audio, all the way to the dongle is using components I've used for years and in some cases like the convolution plugin, or gain plugins, measured the vanishingly low distortion levels - typically below -160 dBFS.

So I then played via Spotify - Tracy Chapman - Behind the Wall, which is only her sung vocal - no instruments. All I could hear that was spurious, when I listened really intently and turned it up, was the decay portion of whatever digital reverb had been applied to the voice, i.e at the end of each segment of singing, a faint really faint noise in the decay of the reverb. With really intent listening, there is a faint noise when she is singing. Who knows, could be resonance, in the headphones, I have no idea. I'll check on vocal recordings on the songs I mix, which have original vocals But it's definitely NOT a constant noise, that could be attributed to high sensitivity headphones. It's the kind of noise which I would never hear on a set of speakers - most likely not.

On other music on Spotify, nothing untoward. It kind of narrows this down to something on Youtube, as I said, I'll investigate further, whenever I hear this noise on Youtube spoken voice.

On that note - the rest of Tracy Chapman's eponymous album, sounds AMAZING, I owned the original CD, from a time in the 90's when all I could afford was a good Pioneer CD player, which is still in storage in another country(one of these 64 times oversampling beauties), and my listening was on some really terrible ear buds. Right now I'm in absolute audio heaven, everything sounds perfect., super clear, distinct, life like. It's hard to describe. Amazing. So been listening to this for 30+ years. Never heard it like this.

My thoughts are - if there's anything that does not sound this amazing,, it's the recording/mixing/mastering that is substandard. If this same audio chain can resolve Tracy Chapman, in such a faultless manner, the audio chain is NOT to blame, for anything less awesome. The audio chain is definitely good enough. Now I can appreciate why that album was so well received, it sounds amazing, crystal clear like nothing I have ever heard before. Must go and study in detail, how it was produced. It sounds incredibly detailed. Wow. So now I know - if it's not clear, its the music/audio - the source, that's where the issue is..

In future I'll do more tests, such as extract the audio of music tracks direct from CD, and play back via my DAW, instead of Spotify. I'm using the free Spotify, and I am 100% confident that the extract of the original CD will sound much better, cos I've done similar comparisons on other music - e.g Black Eyed Peas, where I own the CD. I'm satisfied with Spotify for casual listening - even critical listening at that, but definitely the CD of Tracy Chapman will be even more awesome.

On some quiet Tracy song segments, e.g when its only acoustic guitars playing, I can hear a very faint noise, in what some may call the air zone. - on "For You", really faint, but I can hear it. It is not a constant noise, but varies during the quiet guitar part.

This is fantastic, the vocals, diction, everything is so clear on Tracy's album. A very well produced album. That I am finally hearing for the 1st time properly. Wow.

I'll conclude by saying, it looks like a highly resolving audio chain, just separates the good from the not so good, and does this effortlessly. There was once a 7Up advert (7Up is similar to Sprite), with the tagline - "the difference is clear" (guess in comparison to Coca Cola, their main competitor). Listening to Tracy, everything is just that - clear. I am so impressed - so impressed. Apple Dongle, A good quality production, some AutoEQ correction and an unmodified CCA CRA using the default ear tips. I am thoroughly impressed. Struggling to imagine how this could be bettered. All my concerns about soundstage, panning, depth, height, whatever - all gone listening to the Tracy album - nothing to complain about. All the high frequencies I thought were subtle or somewhat subdued in other music, nothing like that here, all present here in Tracy's music. Next I'll check Norah Jones album - "Come away with me" - that should be telling. Not bad, intimate, very clear, only slight hiss in the acoustic quiet segments, but that Tracy album is simply out of this world, in comparison., spacious, more life like. The standard to beat in mixing.

I can imagine that with acoustic instruments, especially when you have a couple of them, playing back together, especially if for any reason, they were recorded to tape or mixed or mastered to tape at any time in their production, a bit of hiss is in order, and not objectionable. C'mon - pretty much every vinyl album will have some snap crackle and pop. ! Listening to modern music - eg Black eyed Peas - Where is the love? - OMG is this what this was supposed to sound like? So balanced, so clear yet so balanced. And the reduced dynamics is also easy to assimilate. Yeah one further confirmation - if it is well produced, you'll hear it. If it does not sound nice on this audio chain, fault is definitely from the source audio. The vocals are so so clear- so so clear compared to anything I ever heard on the JVC's. Must dig out the original CD, from somewhere in my packing boxes, to enjoy the original. Really pleased with what I'm hearing.

Now when the Spotify adverts come through, I can hear how really bad they are, compared to well produced audio.

I think in all of this, one also needs to curate a playlist of similarly well produced music or audio, that will not change (most likely via extract of the highest quality formats - e.g direct from the original CD), to assess subjectively - how good a listening chain is. I mention not changing, cos over time on Spotify we have these "remastered" versions, which sound nothing like the originals. So next step is for me, amongst many other things, to identify really good reference material that sounds amazing on Spotify, then get the original CD's thereof, and use these as my primary references when auditioning gear. Tidal would have been nice - but I hate subscriptions
 
CCA CRA has a quirky frequency response which breaks lossy codecs used by YT and streaming services.
Think you have a point. When I compare the same music via Spotify with the CD version, from my small personal collection, I'll be able to say more about this. All I can say is I am bobbing my head now to Black Eyed Peas, Elephunk, and it sounds amazing. How can $30 or less (thanks also to AutoEQ and those who made measurements of the CCA CRA) for an Apple dongle and a CCA CRA, sound so freaking awesome, totally clear, I am hearing the words of every well produced song, with super clarity - no fatigue. I am puzzled - why spend more?.

If it's not super clear - it's the song that is the problem.. !, not this gear..., that's separating the men from the boys, with the utmost ease. This is what Hi-Fidelity should mean. Super clear, on well produced music.
 
I can vouch for Truthear Red. Truthear Gate is not in your list but is also a good generalist you can plug in to any 3.5mm jacks without worries. Truthear Red is better paired with a CX dongle for maintaining the intended frequency response. CX dongles are available on Aliexpress, any brand will do, the important thing is that the internals match the quality of DAC-amps costing 5-10 times more.
One main reason I stopped short of getting some CX 31993 and ALC 5686 dongles, was I could not find any with ASIO drivers - found one but can't recall if the device was still available for sale.... Happy to use Windows WASAPI exclusive mode, to achieve similar, with these dongles, but that's the main reason I went for the Tempotec Sonata BHD, cos it also has ASIO drivers.
 
@OK1 BTW if you ordered the CCA CRA new you likely have the silen revision with a different frequency responce. Silent revisions is an issue with KZ/CCA.
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@OK1 BTW if you ordered the CCA CRA new you likely have the silen revision with a different frequency responce. Silent revisions is an issue with KZ/CCA.
View attachment 374960

With physical transducers(such as the dynamic drivers), we can expect all manner of variations, from sample to sample, even within the same batch from the factory. As you have rightly said, there have been changes in the design/manufacture of the CCA CRA, over the lifetime of the product, while keeping the product name the same.

Many years ago, when the Sonarworks headphone correction software became a thing, one key aspect of their service was the opportunity to have one's own specific headphone measured - by sending this in to them, rather than use the average from that model - OR purchase the headphone correction software in a bundle, with a headphone and that headphone would be measured. For me this establishes that no two headphones will be exactly identical, even of the same model.

Thanks for pointing out the most likely issue of a variation in the item I bought, from the original version released by CCA.

I have especially found EQ, particularly using Auto EQ, to be a compulsory enhancement to the presentation of any headphone. It has provided the promise, to my hearing, that products like Sonarworks did not really deliver, to the same extent. So I assume, that whatever headphone I get, I will be using Auto EQ, or any other better option, to improve its frequency response. That being said, I then have to assume that if there will be some variation between my copy of the headphone, and whichever sample was measured by the various sources who provide measurements to Auto EQ's database. So my response to address this issue, which would be the same for any headphone would be to have several levels of quality expectation, based on how much effort I was prepared to expend, to correct the headphone EQ.

Level 0 - Accept whatever the variation from the ideal, my specific copy of the headphone, introduces, and do not bother with any kind of EQ.

Level 1 - Accept the risk of deviation, between my copy of the headphone, and whatever copy was measured, and included in AutoEQ's database., i.e just use any of the measurements in AutoEQ, for that headphone, as a basis for correction.

Level 2 - Use the measured response in Auto EQ's database which from the graph, appears to be a median measurement, and assume that this reduces the risk of deviation from my own copy. It may be assumed that this median measurement is itself derived from an average measurement of several copies of the same headphone.

Level 3 - Create an average measurement based on measurements from different sources, of the same headphone model, and provide that average to AutoEQ, as the basis for correction.

Level 4 - Send in my copy of the headphone model, to be measured professionally, and in particular measure each earpiece -left and right individually., and provide these to AutoEQ, individually, to create corrections.

Level 5 - Invest in a good quality measurement product, and learn how to use it well, that allows me to take an exact measurement of the copy of the headphone I own, and provide this to Auto EQ, one for each Left or Right earpiece, to create unique corrections for my exact copy of the headphone model.

At this time, I think Level 1 and 2 have been more than sufficient for me, and delivered great results, at the level of critical listening I do, at this time. I am thrilled by what I am listening to now, especially when the source audio is well recorded and produced/mixed/mastered to a high standard. Level 0 was already pretty impressive, in the case of my copy of the CCA CRA.

Having said that, the frequency response graphs you so kindly provided conform with my listening, I found the headphone (my copy), did not have the boomy bass and fatiguing high end that I had been expecting., and it's fantastic to now have the objective data to explain this observation.

Thanks
 
@OK1 BTW if you ordered the CCA CRA new you likely have the silen revision with a different frequency responce. Silent revisions is an issue with KZ/CCA.

Absolutely acknowledge the consensus, that KZ/CCA have a history of "product modifications" and "inactive" drivers.
 
In theory, the distortion of the DAC, should be much lower than the distortion of any transducer (such as found in the IEM), and with DAC's continuing to achieve vanishingly lower distortion, and noise, over time, any discussion of the DAC could be academic. After a long search, I've arrived at the TempoTec Sonata BHD, and I think I can close that chapter of my search for a daily driver. From the specs, if they are to be believed, they do NOT leave any audible imprint on the audio. So not worth talking about. I cannot unless I have a double blind test with gain compensation, tell if the Tempotec Sonata BHD is better than the Apple dongle, and my own attempts at comparing, tell me nothing. So I accept that the BHD measures better than the Apple dongle, so the Apple dongle is now "retired".

Which leaves the IEM as the main focus of what I hear. The CCA CRA's have shocked me, and with EQ via AutoEQ, I remain even more astonished. The only other IEM's or headphones I have to compare this with, sound nothing like the CRA. I am also shocked, cos the CRA is not one of the usually mentioned IEM's, at least not that I have come across much comment on it, Must say though, I had not done much research when I ordered it. Bought it cos it was inexpensive and I could afford to NOT have buyers remorse in the event that it was disappointing. I had intended it to be my bargain basement reference, of were acceptable performance in IEM's starts from, kind of like the IEM equivalent of the Apple dongle - subjectively and objectively good enough for a "starter" device, without spending much money. But paired with the BHD, what am I hearing.

1. Intelligibility - spoken and sung word, are so much easier to hear, I can listen at low volumes all day, in a quiet room. No risk of ear fatigue, or damage from loud playback.

2. Dry - Seems a bit recessed in the mid and upper bass, more of a U rather than a V shaped IEM, unless pronounced in the audio, reverbs are not as prominent, in comparison to my cheapie IEM's and earbuds. Reminds me of the kind of sound I hear when listening to Genelec active speakers on demo, in the stores, where things sound more "crisp" and tight. Wonder where the bass overhang I am accustomed to hearing, has gone. Tight is another adjective. Air is one more.

3. Clarity - low level information in music/audio is so easy to hear now. Was listening to a Beyonce track, 1st solo album, and on one track - very faint guitars are being panned over time back and forth from left to right, and it's now audible, easily even listening at low volumes.

4. Easy to hear the difference in "texture" in music, between things that were recorded with a lot of clarity, and things which have had lots of processing added to them in the mix process - deliberate creative distortion such as Princess of China - Coldplay/Rihanna - so much easier to hear. Amy Winehouse - Back to Black another example of deliberate creative distortion - not as bad as the one on Princess of China. I get the impression that the IEM is NOT adding as much of its own distortion - clouding up the audio even further. Year you hear the crunch all over these kind of mixes where distortion of whatever kind is baked into the music. So am able to hear beyond just the frequency signature of the track to the effects and processing, so much easier. Amy Winehouse, everything is crunched, for creative effect. Stylistic.

5. Reminds me of Wire plus Gain in electronics, in products with clean gain, such as Grace microphone preamplifiers, which are reputed NOT to add their own signature, to the audio.The IEM gets out of the way, like a true messenger, and spits out what is there, adding no opinions of its own. Therefore every single audio piece I hear, sounds different. When the advert voice comes up on Spotify, so easy to hear the distortion added to certain voices. So easy. I am shocked. on a headphone costing less than $20. Only thing missing is a headphone case, but one can add this for a few dollars more - for the rare any occasion when I need to travel. Well I could use the original packaging for this.!

6. Does seem a bit bright. But when I check with the frequency analyzer in my DAW, does seem a bit bright, but who can tell what perfect should sound like in an IEM. I'd take the clarity over any boominess, which is definitely NOT there. No bloated bass, None whatsoever - even after EQ via Auto EQ..

This has definitely put a pause to any acquisition plans. I was NOT expecting such a result, cos I'm spending time now, listening to all the music I have been familiar with over the most recent decade. Every thing is so clear. like I said, reminds me of Genelec studio monitors. I definitely feel I can trust these a lot. Panning and spatial cues are like nothing I have ever heard - spacial cues as in whatever reverb has been added to the audio, or the room in which it was recorded. Awesome experience. Every artefact - is dissected and presented as is - Yes I'll add Analytical to the adjectives. I think what I may now do is wait a few months, then purchase one more IEM from the shortlist. Most likely a planar magnetic like the Artti T10, when its on a proper deep discount sale., and maybe one more dynamic or hybrid. But now that decision will be a slow deliberate one with plenty of time to research, no impulse buy, no matter how cheap they discount these products. If one is not careful, one builds up a collection of over 10 of these, from discounted price driven impulse buys to feed Gearlust. I'm aiming for a maximum of 4 headphone/IEM's which I listen to regularly, and that includes over ears. I am reminded that I got an Apple Earpod as a listening reference to simulate what many listen to - when I'm checking my mixes, but have not bothered to open the box, so that's already 2 of the 4. Ok maybe I'll stretch it to 5 head listening devices - max.
 
In theory, the distortion of the DAC, should be much lower than the distortion of any transducer (such as found in the IEM), and with DAC's continuing to achieve vanishingly lower distortion, and noise, over time, any discussion of the DAC could be academic. After a long search, I've arrived at the TempoTec Sonata BHD, and I think I can close that chapter of my search for a daily driver. From the specs, if they are to be believed, they do NOT leave any audible imprint on the audio. So not worth talking about. I cannot unless I have a double blind test with gain compensation, tell if the Tempotec Sonata BHD is better than the Apple dongle, and my own attempts at comparing, tell me nothing. So I accept that the BHD measures better than the Apple dongle, so the Apple dongle is now "retired".

Which leaves the IEM as the main focus of what I hear. The CCA CRA's have shocked me, and with EQ via AutoEQ, I remain even more astonished. The only other IEM's or headphones I have to compare this with, sound nothing like the CRA. I am also shocked, cos the CRA is not one of the usually mentioned IEM's, at least not that I have come across much comment on it, Must say though, I had not done much research when I ordered it. Bought it cos it was inexpensive and I could afford to NOT have buyers remorse in the event that it was disappointing. I had intended it to be my bargain basement reference, of were acceptable performance in IEM's starts from, kind of like the IEM equivalent of the Apple dongle - subjectively and objectively good enough for a "starter" device, without spending much money. But paired with the BHD, what am I hearing.

1. Intelligibility - spoken and sung word, are so much easier to hear, I can listen at low volumes all day, in a quiet room. No risk of ear fatigue, or damage from loud playback.

2. Dry - Seems a bit recessed in the mid and upper bass, more of a U rather than a V shaped IEM, unless pronounced in the audio, reverbs are not as prominent, in comparison to my cheapie IEM's and earbuds. Reminds me of the kind of sound I hear when listening to Genelec active speakers on demo, in the stores, where things sound more "crisp" and tight. Wonder where the bass overhang I am accustomed to hearing, has gone. Tight is another adjective. Air is one more.

3. Clarity - low level information in music/audio is so easy to hear now. Was listening to a Beyonce track, 1st solo album, and on one track - very faint guitars are being panned over time back and forth from left to right, and it's now audible, easily even listening at low volumes.

4. Easy to hear the difference in "texture" in music, between things that were recorded with a lot of clarity, and things which have had lots of processing added to them in the mix process - deliberate creative distortion such as Princess of China - Coldplay/Rihanna - so much easier to hear. Amy Winehouse - Back to Black another example of deliberate creative distortion - not as bad as the one on Princess of China. I get the impression that the IEM is NOT adding as much of its own distortion - clouding up the audio even further. Year you hear the crunch all over these kind of mixes where distortion of whatever kind is baked into the music. So am able to hear beyond just the frequency signature of the track to the effects and processing, so much easier. Amy Winehouse, everything is crunched, for creative effect. Stylistic.

5. Reminds me of Wire plus Gain in electronics, in products with clean gain, such as Grace microphone preamplifiers, which are reputed NOT to add their own signature, to the audio.The IEM gets out of the way, like a true messenger, and spits out what is there, adding no opinions of its own. Therefore every single audio piece I hear, sounds different. When the advert voice comes up on Spotify, so easy to hear the distortion added to certain voices. So easy. I am shocked. on a headphone costing less than $20. Only thing missing is a headphone case, but one can add this for a few dollars more - for the rare any occasion when I need to travel. Well I could use the original packaging for this.!

6. Does seem a bit bright. But when I check with the frequency analyzer in my DAW, does seem a bit bright, but who can tell what perfect should sound like in an IEM. I'd take the clarity over any boominess, which is definitely NOT there. No bloated bass, None whatsoever - even after EQ via Auto EQ..

This has definitely put a pause to any acquisition plans. I was NOT expecting such a result, cos I'm spending time now, listening to all the music I have been familiar with over the most recent decade. Every thing is so clear. like I said, reminds me of Genelec studio monitors. I definitely feel I can trust these a lot. Panning and spatial cues are like nothing I have ever heard - spacial cues as in whatever reverb has been added to the audio, or the room in which it was recorded. Awesome experience. Every artefact - is dissected and presented as is - Yes I'll add Analytical to the adjectives. I think what I may now do is wait a few months, then purchase one more IEM from the shortlist. Most likely a planar magnetic like the Artti T10, when its on a proper deep discount sale., and maybe one more dynamic or hybrid. But now that decision will be a slow deliberate one with plenty of time to research, no impulse buy, no matter how cheap they discount these products. If one is not careful, one builds up a collection of over 10 of these, from discounted price driven impulse buys to feed Gearlust. I'm aiming for a maximum of 4 headphone/IEM's which I listen to regularly, and that includes over ears. I am reminded that I got an Apple Earpod as a listening reference to simulate what many listen to - when I'm checking my mixes, but have not bothered to open the box, so that's already 2 of the 4. Ok maybe I'll stretch it to 5 head listening devices - max.

For me, the MP145s with a little crossover and a pinch of reverb is just the sound of extremely good speakers. Just those and the Apple Dongle are enough to provide me with maybe the best listening experience of my life.

It is astonishing what China has been able to accomplish in the world of audio. I'm repeating myself, but when I was a teenager this experience was simply impossible to achieve. I had very expensive monitors and they sounded like crap compared to my MP145s.
 
For me, the MP145s with a little crossover and a pinch of reverb is just the sound of extremely good speakers. Just those and the Apple Dongle are enough to provide me with maybe the best listening experience of my life.

It is astonishing what China has been able to accomplish in the world of audio. I'm repeating myself, but when I was a teenager this experience was simply impossible to achieve. I had very expensive monitors and they sounded like crap compared to my MP145s.
I agree - and I am so glad to be a beneficiary. The quality of listening is awesome. I have heard of the MP145, and will research it a bit more.

I'm also using a crossover, with my headphones, and it takes things up a notch. Mine is a VST plugin, available for Windows only, so used in my DAW, from here:

 
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