{"id":1755,"date":"2021-02-06T17:54:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-06T23:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/?p=1755"},"modified":"2022-04-25T18:41:25","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T23:41:25","slug":"where-is-the-volume-knob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/?p=1755","title":{"rendered":"Where is the volume knob???"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

I\u2019ve been on a quest for so many years that I\u2019ve lost count for the best IEMs (in-ear-monitor) for the bucks. Maybe, just maybe, it\u2019s been found.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019ve personally had 40+ earbuds\/IEMs in this search. Just a FYI, I refer to standard, unimpressive versions as \u201cearbuds or buds\u201d, because an IEM isn\u2019t the same \u2026 it\u2019s such a different level of performance. A la\u2019 Prius vs. Porsche. And yes, I\u2019m really picky after all the years I\u2019ve spent in tech.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019ve had some great headphones from Klipsch, and they are always a good buy, but for an affordable noise-blocking IEM, the Tin HiFi T2 is pretty much the standard. After you try them compared to wimpy Bluetooth (BT) models like Bose and Beats, you\u2019ll be impressed. Being wired, they don\u2019t suffer from the #1 reason that BT headphones, quite frankly \u2026 suck. Good IEMs require POWER \u2026 and the BT models would be dead in literally a few minutes to deliver this level of performance.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

To get the absolute best from them, you\u2019ll want foam ear tips and a good DAC<\/a> external amp (I use a tiny UAMP<\/a>) as they are a bit power hungry \u2026 even the Alienware laptop beast I use can\u2019t give them what they truly need. But, OMG, they\u2019re worth it. Bear in mind I\u2019m not saying they\u2019re better than a Planar<\/a> or electrostatic<\/a> IEM, but at five to twenty times cheaper, and with benefit of noise blocking, they\u2019re hard to beat for the budding audiophile. Although TIN makes more expensive versions, for the under $100 crowd, this is almost impossible to beat. I\u2019ve never heard an IEM for under $300 that is really much better. My stupidly expensive electrostatic IEMs are audibly untouchable by almost any standard other than a set of full-blown, even more stupidly expensive, full-sized electrically-powered electrostatic headphones, but, they\u2019re effectively useless in any area with any noise whatsoever. In a bar, airport or any area with noise the TIN2 is unbeatable. It\u2019s time to hear what you\u2019ve been missing \u2026<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been on a quest for so many years that I\u2019ve lost count for the best IEMs (in-ear-monitor) for the bucks. Maybe, just maybe, it\u2019s been found. I\u2019ve personally had 40+ earbuds\/IEMs in this search. Just a FYI, I refer to standard, unimpressive versions as \u201cearbuds or buds\u201d, because an IEM isn\u2019t the same \u2026 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1755"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2062,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755\/revisions\/2062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}