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Setup: Moondrop Blessing 2 with my old Pixel 2 XL running a (completely) neutered LineageOS just for PowerAmp and Wavelet to emulate a DAP.

Disclaimer: I'm an audio noob so I can only go as in-depth as my very limited knowledge goes (but I'm still learning). Coming from budget IEMs like the Moondrop Chu, TinHifi T2 (and several KZ IEMs in the past), I've finally caved and gotten my first IEM over $50 after eyeing them for 2 years.

The Chu and T2 have been my daily driver for the past 6-ish months and 3 years respectively, and have served me well. But recently I've delved back into my collection of Cpop and Kpop after adding some newer additions to it, and found something missing that I couldn't put my finger on. Originally I was leaning towards the Aria but they didn't seem like a true upgrade from the Chu's, so I bit the bullet on the Blessing 2's. Right off the bat, I notice the difference in soundstage (I believe that's the term), where I could separate the different instruments in the background, and the vocals were more 'forward' as opposed to blending in with everything. Mind you I've never really used full on headphones before unless you count the Sony WH-1000XM2 which was waaayyyyy to bass heavy. I'm still listening and learning the terminology and the Blessing 2's themselves and what they're capable of, but the below are some of the stark differences I've noticed.

• IU's My Sea at 3:54, the high note did not sound harsh and leave my ears ringing like with the Chu, the strings could be differentiated and came off less muffled, and IU's voice was more 'forward'.

• IU's famous E5,F5,F#5 in Good Day at 3:25 - the Blessing 2's did not comes off a little harsh and ringing again with like the Chu and the T2, the strings and brass could be differentiated more clearly throughout the entire song,

• IU's Love Poem at her higher notes would come off a little muffled and ringing on the Chu and T2, but on the Blessing 2's, it sounds less muffled and doesn't leave my ears ringing a little towards the middle/end of the song.

• Taeyeon's 11;11 come off warm (I believe that's the term) compared to both the Chu and T2 for me without EQ (and slightly warmer when EQ'd), and the instruments and bass are a little more defined and fun.

• Sondia's Grown Ups/Adult - the Blessing 2's soundstage is very apparent in this song with all of the instruments being very well defined and not blending together, from the 3:00 mark where the song comes off more energetic and impactful, it's not fatiguing to the ears on the Blessing versus the Chu and T2.

• Polyphia's Playing God comes off more fun, and I could practically feel the guitar strings vibrating in my ears. The song sounds good on the Chu, okay on the T2, but much more enjoyable on the Blessing 2.

Overall, the Blessing 2's sound very pleasant and correct(?) with the music I primary listen to, and I've noticed I've been listening more than I usually do. I was originally afraid of whether or not the nozzles were too big, but they're actually more comfortable and sit in my ears better than the Airpod Pros do with the stock medium sized tips. If I can manage to somehow get the spring tips on the nozzle, I've read that it does play around a bit with the sound so I'm interested to hear how they sound. I'm no longer left wanting 'more' out of my music with the Blessing 2.

Good read, upvote for listening to IU💜

Thank you for the read 🙏🏻

Definitely recommend listening to Polyphia's Ego Death. Have fun with the Blessing 2's I really like my pair.

hey just curious what phone that is, and what app are you using to play music?

Great buy.

But one small heads up; the terminology for noticing different instruments clearly in a mix is under the umbrella term imaging of which there are two sub sections, separation and layering.

Soundstage is just the perception of grandness in how the audio is presented... So if it sounds like it's coming from a small room, a larger hall, a stadium and so on... That is soundstage... Has nothing to do with locating instruments in a 3D space

Also what EQ do you use, u/forthelol?

For sure! I actually listened to on Spotify (I know) and it didn't come off any different to me vs the Chu. I'll see if I can borrow my friend's Tidal account to experience it in higher res.

It's a Google Pixel 2 XL from back in 2017 that I had laying around as a backup phone. The app is Poweramp that I purchased at a steal for $0.99 way back when it was only $3.99 for the full version. Currently it's priced at $6.99, but I feel that it's worth it. You can also wait for it to go on its periodic sale, last time it went on sale during Thanksgiving I believe for $2.49 if you want to save a quick buck.

There's also a skin applied that I got for free years ago called Aurora now priced at $1.49. It gives Poweramp a cleaner look compared to default.

Additionally I use the Wavelet app for it's AutoEQ feature.

Thank you for the clarification! The terminology gets thrown around a lot so I'm still trying to figure out what they're actually referring to, especially in my own experience and words, so definitely duly noted my friend!

The AutoEQ is pre-defined in the Wavelet app, but it's either the Crinacle target or the Oratory1990 target that's being used. I'll link both of them respectively as well for your reference.

Ah so you use Wavelet... What do feel about ditching Wavelet and getting a true Parametric EQ app that is systemwide.

Also what streaming service do you use?

Honestly the blessing 2 is so good I don’t even miss my two kilobuck headphones while I’m wearing them.

Just insane performance for the price. Truly think I could sell my headphones and be good with the Blessing 2 forever

I'm not as confident with EQ-ing to my own taste just yet, but I've been fiddling around with EqualizerAPO on Windows to play around at home.

I use Spotify primarily just because the family plan made it cheap and easy across the board. But I'm potentially looking into Tidal since it's the same for the base family plan. Other than that, my media are usually ripped from CDs, or purchased through mediums like Qobuz and ProStudioMasters

Nope don't get Tidal... MQA isn't lossless.

Keep the Spotify and use other methods to get local files to listen.

Also I can help set a baseline where you go from with the Parametric EQ... But I understand if you're not interested

I've seen that a lot as well on Reddit and other mediums about the Blessing 2 too. I don't have that kilobuck exposure yet, though I've been offered to borrow my cousin's Unique Melody and 64Audio IEMs when I visit next time just to experience the higher end of the price bracket. Hopefully the Blessing 2 will be enough for me to not dive too deep into the rabbit hole.

That's actually good to know since it's been a lot of back and forth between the two tiers for Tidal. I prefer to just have my music offline so I'm not tied to needing cell reception or WiFi when listening wherever I go.

> Also I can help set a baseline where you go from with the Parametric EQ... But I understand if you're not interested

I think I'll try to figure out a bit more about sound first, just to see what I like/dislike. But when the time comes to jump into that rabbit hole, I'll definitely reach out. Thank you for the offer!

Are the kilobuck headphones better? I mean, sure. But diminished returns already hit incredibly hard in this hobby, even before you factor in gear that far out-performs it’s price point like the Blessing 2.

I got mine on sale for like $270 from Amazon, and if I had to make an ultimate decision these things at the price I got them at is practically unbeatable.

I was recently in a position where I wasn’t listening to my “good” headphones for a week or two (moved into a new home), and after using the blessing 2 pretty much exclusively during that time just for convenience sake, I’m more inclined than ever to settle happily with them and move the rest of my gear to have funds for other hobbies honestly.

Love IU

Yeah diminished returns is definitely something to keep in mind in this hobby and others as well. I think unless they're being used daily for professional purchases where you absolutely need that 'min-max', the difference is very subjective to what you value it to be.

I held out on the Blessing 2 and they were already considered an affordable splurge for the longest time as is, and I've overlooked the sale for $270 on Amazon as well as ShenZhenAudio in the past. I think the Blessing 2 were worth the blind buy (though I easily could return to Amazon if I didn't like it) with absolutely no regrets asides from not getting them sooner, and sits well in that price point where I feel comfortable for the value. For anything above the $400-500 price point, I think I would personally have to test drive them for a bit before making that purchase. Especially since the Blessing 2 seems to fill that niche that a lot of people have between the more budget options (sub $200) and the kilobuck.

Soundstage describes how wide or spacious the sound feels. Imaging describes the level of clarity/instrument separation an audio device has. Good read nonetheless!

Just out of curiosity, why don't you use GrapheneOS?

I have a pair of these actively pumping music into my ears as I read this post. Enjoy!

Surprised nobody said anything about the Google dongle yet 😁 It does the job, but it's honestly nothing to write home about in terms of sound quality. Considering you just got yourself a nice pair of premium IEMs, you might want to consider upgrading to a better dongle / DAC/amp in the future to unleash the "true potential" of the Blessing 2s. Even something as cheap as the $9 Apple dongle was enough for me to hear a noticeable improvement in sound quality (everything sounds tighter and more detailed, soundstage is wider, etc.) Btw I don't mean to spoil your fun, I just thought I'd mention it since the Blessing 2s are apparently great IEMs but the Google dongle is just "meh". Thanks for the review, have fun with the B2s!

Thank you, thank you! Will read more into it and hopefully down the road when I dive deeper, I'll be more accurate with my words.

GrapheneOS was an option, but either ways I was going to neuter it to remove stock apps/services/etc just to push the battery life a bit more. Outside of initial setup of Poweramp for the license, I don't use it for anything web-based, so I don't need a hardened OS if it's not being used outside of storing about 60GB of FLAC. Plus I'd have to dig around for the source and build it, and I was honestly lazy haha.

I've notice the difference in the stock Pixel 2 dongle vs a Razer dongle I have. I'm not sure if it's because it can drive it a little better, but it does sound a little different in a good way. I remember reading that the THX DAC in the Razer dongle is 'gimmicky', but I've been alternating between the two to see if I can spot the difference in the two. You do bring up a point with the Apple USB-C dongle, which (knock on wood) would be something I would grab if my current dongles fail.

Thank you! Hope you're enjoying yours as much as I am!

No problem... Good luck🤝🏾

I get what you're saying, but just so you know GrapheneOS has its own web installer and you can install it from Linux terminal. You don't have to build it yourself

I think that feature's new no? I remember looking into it when I had the 2 XL, but when I gave up on pursuing 4 and on, I haven't caught up on Graphene. Good to know, maybe down the line if I head back to the Pixel line it'll be an option.

Not sure how new it is, but it's been around since the 5 series at least

Upvoted for iu ,btw if you haven't already, try usb audio player pro, u might get more of ur set up 😊

I've looked into that recently actually. Poweramp actually allows for higher sample rates in settings as well (and differentiable by USB DAC as well). I've compared it to the trial version of USB Audio Player Pro but don't hear any difference in delivery once I adjusted Poweramp's settings for higher sample rate and format even with my Razer dongle. If the audio source doesn't go that high, like USB Audio Player Pro, it matches the audio source. Poweramp is just my choice in this scenario since I got it for cheap years ago and am no longer in the Android ecosystem as my daily driver :P

Register using a VPN from Argentina. Thank me later ;)

Also, looking for a dusk sound? https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/rlnt6w/got_a_moondrop_blessing_2_over_the_holidays_heres/

Ah yes, a fellow IU enjoyer.

try NewJeans album, the mix so good, the girl voice cute. And yes got some English so u kinda understand what are you hearing :p

I would definitely recommend, quite easy to do the flash with the web browser now a days.

IU is the GOAT

you can try a custom EQ by going to oratory1990's wiki and looking up your headphone model. autoEQ uses his measurements and automatically creates an EQ tuned to harman's in-ear target, but oratory1990's measured all of them by hand and created his own EQs for them as well. there's the harman in-ear target and his custom target (which is similar to harman but with more mid bass and less upper-mids). IMO it's worth trying both of them out as well.

if you want, I can create a wavelet file for those that you can download on your phone and import into wavelet

What would you use to create the file to import into Wavelet if you don't mind me asking? I've been trying to get EqualizerAPO to work but I think I'm having driver issues on my PC. But I've been manually playing around with the EQ settings in Poweramp, and have Poweramp Equalizer as well.

A friend of mine made that recommendation as well. I'm trying to get a listen in through higher res audio to see how I feel about them.

You can use online graph tools (the one on Crinacle's website, squig.link etc.). You insert the values in, and then there's an "export to wavelet" function at the bottom

There's nothing particularly wrong with Spotify. Unlikely to notice a difference with Tidal unless you have some configuration in Spotify/Windows wrong that is making it sound bad. I subscribe to both, currently back on Spotify as Tidal is having one of its frequent... buffering... buffering...

I really really want to get this but worried about the QC. Metal plate falling

My King! Great music taste! I'm listening to IU songs with Variations and enjoying it very much

NewJeans songs are just too good, you will definitely get addicted to them with a bit of time

Oh wow, I haven't actually played with that bit because of the paywall bit that shows up after fidgeting a little with it. So if I were to just AutoEQ, would I do a comparison between say Blessing 2 and Blessing 2 Dusk, then under equalizer, select Blessing 2 Dusk > AutoEQ > let it process, then export to Wavelet? And then if I were to play around it myself, instead of AutoEQ, I'd just edit the values myself

For when I'm just putting music on to sleep, I'd just use Spotify for that. I love Spotify don't get me wrong, I frequent podcasts on Spotify since it's easier to access there from different devices just for convenience. But when I'm looking for that detail in dedicated listening, off to the FLACs!!

I read that a while back as well, and not sure if it was just something with the earlier batches or not. I think they might've made some slight adjustments to it that I recall from somewhere, but not sure.

iirc the paywall appears (only on Crinacle's site, squig.link doesn't have it) when you try to EQ one pair of earbuds to another with autoEQ or if you're using another target that isn't the IEF or Harman target. You can autoEQ to the current target, or you can just manually insert stuff and it'll be fine... or use squig.link and EQ the blessing2 to blessing2 dusk

Gotcha. I'll play around with squig.link a little. Thanks a bunch for the info.

I second this. I just got the Blessing 2 Dusk in last week and it’s the first IEM that I can clearly hear each individual guitar part. Blessing 2 / dusk are pretty amazing.