In-Ear-Freak

My name is David Hahn and I work for an event company that specialises in the technical planning and implementation of a wide range of events.
 

Since music is a constant companion in my everyday life, be it by listening to my favourite music on a daily basis or producing my own music, I am always looking for the perfect in-ear headphones, whose sound is convincing and at the same time is easy on the budget.

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This is how I became aware of China in early 2018, where according to various internet forums headphones are produced that are not established on the German market, let alone available in stores, but supposedly offer the same quality as well-known and much more expensive brands. So a real addiction developed, which led to the fact that I ordered a couple of headphones monthly via online shops like Aliexpress or GearBest, as long as my budget allowed it, hoping to discover a new insider tip at best for little money.

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In the meantime, I don't limit myself to budget IEMs from China anymore and even the cheapest possible claim has faded into the background. 
The price range is now from 3 € up to four digits, although my experience so far has shown that expensive doesn't necessarily mean good sound.

Time-consuming hobby

Since I do not want to take my experiences and listening experiences with me to the grave, this page is intended to give you an overview of the in-ears I have tested.

These are sorted by manufacturer and there is also a short test report for each pair.
Some of these products are also clearly listed in the leaderboard in categories. In the overall overview, all headphones can be sorted as desired, so that everyone can search for what is important to them personally (brand, sound behavior, rating).

Since my rating is of course subjective and certainly not coincides with everyone, I am always happy to receive feedback via the contact, or chi-fiear@gmx.de.

For each in-ear you will also find a link to a shop I trust. You can find out what to consider when it comes to AliExpress here .

Everyone according to their style

First of all it should be said that I am not doing this on a professional level and therefore I will not be able to read any vocabulary-based reviews that have been analyzed down to the last detail with empirically measured values. It is much more a simple personal assessment.
For this purpose, I always refer to the highest rated in-ears at the moment, which means that the rating can also change dynamically over time.

Furthermore, I do not pay particular attention to the packaging content, apart from the in-ears, so that this is not decisive in my rating. What do I want with a leather case, 10 silicone attachments and a cleaning set if the headphones are rather modest. Everything else is a nice and of course welcome addition.
 

Since the top is very tight, a rating above 9 also has a higher weighting. The IEMs you can find here are some of the best I've ever heard, regardless of the price. IEMs below that can still be very good, but they don't stand out very much or don't convince me completely. Below 9 there are many very good, up to outstanding IEMs with slight weaknesses or one-sided advantages, below 8 there are IEMs which I would classify as above average to average. Below a rating of 7 is hardly worthwhile for my claim and below 6 the IEM is not worth mentioning. So the range and star rating between 9 and 10 is narrower (0.5 steps) and below that it is more generous (1 step).

The sound is in the foreground for me and therefore it is included in the overall rating at 6/7, the rest at 1/7. In addition, there is, as far as everyday life is concerned (audibility Out-Of-The-Box, usefulness), either a devaluation of -0.1, an appreciation of +0.1, or nothing at all.

Please also keep in mind that the sound can vary greatly depending on your playback device and music content. Headphones that are rated here can sound better or worse for you. I test with and without a DAC Amp (Zorloo ZuperDAC-S & Ztella) on my cell phone (SAMSUNG - S9 Plus), as well as on my laptop with an external sound card (M-Audio - Fast Track Pro), without any equalizer settings. I obtain the audio files (Flac) from the lossless stream provider TIDAL , as well as various test files from audiocheck.