The hobby of IEM’S can be a very expensive journey to come to come to the conclusion of wisdom about the Law of Diminishing Returns. Too many people that enter this hobby learn this all too late. In most cases, we spend way more money than we should have to figure this out. Such is the case with me.
The biggest enemy to all this are forms of other addicted hobbyists of IEM’S. When you find something you like, you want to find others who will validate that feeling unconsciously. But instead of finding others who feel the same way you do about your choice in product, you find a room full of people that need you to feel like they do so they spend all their time telling others to go get something more expensive or different because what you have is just “OK” but not all their great. And so you find your joy destroyed by comparisons. It’s the quickest death to your happiness in all things. So you find yourself buying more and more expensive IEM’S in search of the perfect IEM or Endgame.
The problem that comes in is that we typically define the perfect IEM based on others’ agreement, not just ourselves. We look for others to have the same conclusion as ourselves, same taste, and even same ear frequency sensitivity, and that isn’t possible. And when that doesn’t happen, people tend to look to compare in hopes of convincing themselves or others of their choices. This then leads to purchasing other IEMs to test so you can continue to justify or reconfirm your belief. This leads to IEM jumping. This, of course, is very healthy for the world of IEM but unhealthy for the personal consumer.
The scariest thing or realization is that most of the IEM journey is spent in a zone well passed the IEM that already did everything you will ever need it to do that matters, simply because of others rejection of your choice or classification of your choice below theirs. This typically is an IEM in the $300-$500 range at the very most. Even some could be found for less, depending on the needs of the listener. I’ve found my limits with mine and my wife’s Dunu Sa6 mk2’s. We like them far more than any other IEM for the limits of sound and cost. Not to say that there is nothing that sounds better than these at any price but that the performance to price ratio is at its peak for us. We just found no other real value after this that justified its performance with its asking price.
This, along with the ability to choose the faceplate that I wanted from Dunu, really helped nail the attachment( there are just some really ugly ones out there, in my opinion) to this IEM as my own. And of course, I love the fact that my wife and I both have Sa6 Mk2’s! This IEM helped me understand my true limits from the Kato to the Mk2, understand what price-to-performance choices are, and how far I was willing to pay for sound over it.
So, at the end of the day, the Kato is my foundation, and the Dunu is my true north limit. They are my staples of IEM’S and audiophile equipment for portable sound. They are both IEMs that punch well beyond their price brackets. They are both delivering everything I want in IEMs frequency responsives and are easily all-rounders for genres in music. Everything is done the way they should from ASMR, podcast, audiobooks, rap, classical, rock, house, trance, to even movies or videogsmes. But the Sa6 MK2 is just the most uniquely looking and better sounding of the two, if only by a little.
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