For a while I have totally content with the $500 market. I believed that this was the limit of the Diminishing Returns and for a while it was. A few years back the company, Thieaudio changed all that. With their line up of absolute killer IEM’s focused on Mid range, sub bass, and Vocal intimacy dropping like crazy, the game changed forever. The Oracle MK2 is still one of the very best IEM in the world under $1000 MRSP, if not THE BEST. But when you take the Monarch MK2 at $1000 you see again a jump in quality and overall sound again. And while that difference in my opinion reaching close to the acceptable line of Diminishing returns between it and the Oracle MK2, at $1000 MSRP, it doesn’t reach it fully. For this reason alone …I can’t recommend the Monarch MK2 to Oracle MK2 owners at MSRP. However, if you are like me and manage to pick it up for $700-$800 then yes it does reach and nail the Diminishing returns threshold.
This is what I did with the ” The Music Store”. I picked this exact IEM up (this is my IEM’s picture directly from their site) and haven’t found an Equal to this IEM, especially at the price of $740 that The Music Store had them for, ON PLANET EARTH. In fact this IEM is so great that I have no other way to listen to anything that isn’t at least the quality of the Oracle MK2 anymore. I tried to go back and listen to my Dunu SA6 MK2, My Blessing 2, My blessing Dusk, etc, etc. All of them sound like weak and cheaply made sound systems in my ears now. The levels that Thieaudio has exposed my brain to is beyond anything I’ve ever been used to. Before I could always go back to a $500 IEM and still find enjoyment and even questions on why I needed to spend the money on things over it after listening to it but not this time. The dominance and quality isn’t replaceable with the Monarch MK2 and I can only get by with the Oracle MK2 but that is the limit. Once you are truly exposed to the Full Bodied Bass and Sub bass, along with the Perfect ruler like Mids that create the most realistic Timbre and tonality ever placed into IEM with the perfect Treble with zero harshness or over exaggerations that create natural personal intimacy in vocals, you just can’t go backwards.
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