My personal "ranking". Yeah, I wasted a lot of time testing tons of cheap, bad headphones
- Sennheiser CX300, Momentum - the worst headphones in the world?
- Sony mh1c - without boosted bass and with a normal cable, these would be good headphones. As it is, they're useless.
- QKZ VK4, KZ EDX (Pro), ZSTX, DQ6, ZEX, ZS10, CCA CSN, NRA - just bad, really bad.
- Blon 01, 03 - maybe a little better than the typical KZ, but still bad.
- Moondrop Quarks - dark, muddy, shouty (3kHz), lacking in detail. But for the price they're ok.
- Tripowin x HBB: Mele - a lot of bass, a bit muddy, no upper treble ... Not terrible, just meh.
- KBEAR Neon - it's something like a broken Etymotic. And with different ear tips they sound completely different.
- Samsung Galaxy Buds+ - unfortunately, they don't sound like the IEM version of the AKG K371 .I just don't like them, maybe because getting a good seal was a problem for me.
- Etymotic mk5 Isolator - extremely bright and shouty. They come without any filters. I've put green filters, but they're still too bright.
- A&K Billie Jean, Diana - weird, dark, muddy. In some technical aspects ("clarity", "separation") they are better than KZ or something like that. But I'm afraid tonality can't be fixed even with the EQ.
- FiiO FH3, FH5 - if you dream of a subwoofer in your head, buy these! If not, look for something else.
- Fiio FD1 - I bought these because I like the look of the cable. This cable is better than this headphones...
- Fiio FD3 - very bassy, V-shaped. Technically they are a bit better than KZ or other cheap IEMs, they have more "clarity" or whatever you want to call it. Nice accessories , as always with Fiio. If you like the V-shape...
- Moondrop Aria, Starfield - Overall, nice tuning and nice soundstage (I thought the Aria had the biggest soundstage of any cheap headphone I tried. But that's very subjective and the differences are small). The problem for me is the huge peak around 14kHz so I can't use these headphones without the EQ. I'm a bit disappointed.
- Aonic 215 - I use these all the time, they are great. Not because of the sound (although I found their bassy, warm, "soft" sound quite pleasant), but because of the amazing isolation and good comfort (with the black cable, the white cable was terrible). I live in a big city (a lot of noise) and I can use these headphones even in the subway and I can hear music with bass, it's amazing!
- Etymotic ER2SE, ER2XR, ER3XR - I just love them
And here's my choice:
For critical listening: ER2SE or ER3XR
For outdoor use: Aonic 215, ER2XR
If you need something really cheap but not sounding very bad: Moondrop Quarks (haven't heard the Moondrop Chu yet).
Overall it was an interesting experience. Most of these cheap headphones sound terrible!
I couldn't believe people were buying it and using it. But then I discovered the Etymotic headphones and wow, these sound great. And some others (Moondrop, Fiio) are good with EQ.