Enough is enough, folks! The Law of Diminishing Returns gets me into more issues than I know what to do with myself. But today was the last straw. I’ve had enough of this rat race of high cost IEM’s. I’ve had them all! The $2000 IEMs and the $20 IEMs. Every time I moved away from a particular IEM… I ended back with a version of the Kato and kicking myself as to why I left.
The Moondrop Kato always pulls me back over and over again. For 3 years in a row, I’ve allowed hype and impressive driver layouts to take me from what I had loved, the Kato. From day one, I knew it was something special about it. I let forms and people’s views about what is superior or defined as a low tier, mid tier, killiobuck tier, or so forth and so on to bother me and change my mind. And even when I got every single one of these categories, I kept asking why they didn’t hit me like the Katos did. Why did the Katos sound better, that I remembered? I allowed people to tell me that it was just an ear programming thing or mind burnin thing. That I was just simply used to its sound. So returnd the first shinny silver Kato(always wanted the Matte Steel) for the blessings 2’s and dusk. The following year, I got the Kato back but in Blue. I was blowed away at how fast my ears adapted to its sound and how great the music sounded along with the imaging and timbre even with the blessing 2’s on my desk. I was told again by others that I needed true mid teir and killobuck IEMs even though I was really happy. So I spent the $600 on the Oracle 2 Thieaudio and struggled for weeks, trying to understand why it wasn’t sounding superior to my Kato. They cost $600, so they had to be better, so I returned the Kato’s again. Then I finally got the Theiaudio Monarch mk2 and U12T because these were supposed to be end games IEMs and was never sold on the Oracles mk2 as the endgame as I thought. I returned the Monarch 2 because how could they beat the mighty $2000 U12T.
And now I sit here again after other IEMs like the Variations and Dunu SA6 MK2 in comparison to the U12T were actually competitive. And yes, the U12T is overall better. But the price doesn’t justify its difference in sound. It was like all of this was just for a 5%–10% gain in sound areas and not even all of them, just certain frequency areas. All of this led me back to the one IEM that I never replaced because I found something truly better in my ears, The Kato! Not only the Kato but finally the Matte Steel version I wanted.
At first, I held my breath because I knew I had some heavy hitters my ears were trained to as all the Tip Audiophile people would suggest. “Your ears aren’t tuned to the right stuff yet.” I thought at first that I most likely wouldn’t find the same sound I was so happy with before because now I’ve had “proper IEM with proper frequency response training my ears.” What a joke! The Kato completely took me over just like they did before. Killing in the timbre, clarity, mid bass, sub bass, and imaging and intimacy. I also had back my favorite case. They were just better, just like they always were for me even after years, and I hated myself for it. I should know better than allow others’ opinions and hype to overshadow what I hear with my own ears. Look, I’m not even recommending them to you and your subjective ears. I’m sure someone else will have a different opinion as always. All I can say is that after thousands of dollars, to end up back here with a $160 IEM is humbling.
Ironically, I took all three versions to come to my hands before the very first one that I always wanted ended up in my hands. And while I am not going to tell you that these are better than the killobuck IEMs like the U12T and Monarchs of the world. What I can confirm to you is that sound is subjective and prices do not supply equal value in sound difference, not even close. So I prefer the Kato’s over every single IEM I have, including my U12T, because its small differences in sound never made up for the price I paid compared to my Kato performance and price. It’s truly the only IEM I can say was better than every IEM that I’ve had that was cheaper and was actually worth the price to performance ratios and yet still able to compete with killibuck IEMs and thats a true miracle combo there. So, not only are the U12T being sold, but the Variations are going back. I might still keep the Dusk blessing still though, for my backup.
I guess the question I asked myself that really hit the nail on the head was this….
“Am I willing to give up 5%-10% of my sound for at least a thousand+ dollars back?”
Answer: “Yes, of course.”
Tech-N-Things 