Oh sure, as a musician myself I understand that very well! There are many horrible sounding albums out there... Guess that was my compulsive perfectionism kicking in :) I'm better now, haha

Oh that's cool, will consider it then, thanks!

Does that HiBy dongle have an app with volume control? Been looking into balanced dongles today, and somehow it seems like a rare feature, though I find it to be essential, as android's own volume control is not granular enough. My iBasso has that and it's a must IMO

Dang, been reading about bit perfect streaming all morning and my head is beginning to hurt, there's just so much more stuff to learn... guess I'll do my research before any future upgrades regarding DACs, DAPs and streaming

Wow.. Yeah, the volume thing, I noticed the S8 to be a bit power hungry, or maybe I just love to turn them up. You mean bass gets more energetic at the same volume relative to unbalanced? There's no way I can demo it, so I guess I'll just go balanced then, thanks!

Also, what kind of a dac would you recommend? I recently learned about the moondrop dawn, would that be a good match? I don't want to use a DAP and would gladly just continue with a dongle

Yeah, I was playing around with wavelet on my old iems, EQing them to Harman and IEF target, and came to a conclusion that the Harman has just enough bass to sound substantial, but not overly bassy. IEF neutral tune sounds pretty brittle. OFC there are limitations to EQ, I understand that, but otherwise I had no opportunity to fiddle with different targets, so.. I was shocked by the sheer extention of the S8's bass, like, all the music just has an extra sub bass layer now that I never heard before. That's crazy to me. Maybe that's cause of its unvented fit, I dunno

Yeah, there is an issue with the monarch that it's shell is very large, so that's a no go without a demo, however I would consider S8 to be a relatively safe purchase because of the safe tuning and adequate fit

Oh, really? That's super interesting, can you please tell me more about the differences? I am a little skeptical about the balanced connections, but was considering upgrading the dac, so why not?

Yay! Congrats! Yeah, dongles are a must, as even KZ stuff shows just how shitty my built-in phone dac is (cheap samsung..). Did you notice those artifacts too? I am using the iBasso dc05, didn't even try to run the S8 out of the phone jack, as my ears would probably bleed. Are you planning to run your dongle balanced?

Yeah, those are some of the tips I had lying around, they work best for me at the moment, but still I'm waiting to get some spinfits. I also cut up one spare eartip to make a ring that serves as a bushing that doesn't let an eartip go too deep on the nozzle to better fit my right ear (not on the photo, as it looks janky)

Haven't tried the b2, but also am very curious to try, especially now that they have these crazy new wooden faceplates! There must be diminishing returns, so yeah, I'd expect 80-90% performance out of b2. I hope one of my friends gets it so that we can properly demo them head to head. Another difference between the two is that the S8 is unvented, and I was curious to experience that isolation. I love it

Oh, thanks a lot!

Yeah, that ambivalent feeling of hitting the endgame(?) like, I'm happy but kinda hope that there will still be surprises ahead..

I had the CRN, but then my gf's brother borrowed and lost them and got me the ZSN pro X instead (he isn't into iems, and I didn't want the CRN anyway after all that transpired, haha). The CRN were well-tuned, sounded a bit wider then the others, but didn't resolve that well (duh). The ZSN are OK for a gym beater. I mostly used the NiceHCK nx7 pro, these have competent, but scooped mids and the harshest treble imaginable due to its piezo driver, which I mistook for resolving ability at the time. Still, these were better then all the KZs I tried

BTW, how do ppl in here put their gear into their profile? I only registered my account today and am still figuring things out

Whew man, yeah I paid a lot more than that and there was only one in my country.. S8 for 250$ is to die for

Sure! I kinda hesitated at first, but then I figured that my ears don't get better as I age, so I pulled the trigger

I'm pretty sure the dusk's bass is also dynamic, it has 1DD+3BA setup. I doubt that the DD is dedicated to some other frequency band other then the bass. On the other hand, I'm not sure I believe the stereotypes about the driver types anymore, such as BAs being thin, DDs not resolving as good etc.

Got them used, so was REALLY hoping I would get the box. Glad I did, uwu

Yeah, I dismissed the Variations based on looks mostly (kinda cringey to admit lol), but I was also worried that they have too much bass. Also I already have a tribrid (insert a joke about fake drivers), so I wanted a pure BA set to try something new. And on the contrary, I was concerned about b2's treble not extending enough and decided to skip them, not being able to demo. But now I will shill b2 dusk to all my friends as a cheaper alternative to my holy grail s8

Yeah, kinda went from 0 to a hundred there lol :D maybe that's slightly overkill, but that's OK, no regrets

Thank you! That's an interesting take on the Kato, I never even considered them as they are single driver. You mean they have smoother treble response then the dusk? Did you demo them too? How well do they resolve compared to dusk?

I thought of myself as a treble lover cause my NiceHCK nx7 pro's have the sharpest treble imaginable, which I endured stoically. I kinda mistook their sharpness for good resolve, only now do I realise my mistake. Still, pretty good iems for the first one, I guess

Thank you very much! Arias are great too! I mean, I'm just happy to find that those $100-ish iems are not yet on the quality/price plateau, which means there is something to look forward to!

I upgraded from KZ and NiceHCK to Moondrop S8 and here are my impressions. (TL;DR: great bass)

I've been in this hobby for a year, my first IEM being NiceHCK nx7 pro. I never upgraded until recently, except for getting some KZs for beating at the gym. I used Wavelet to eq them to Harmann, so getting a Moondrop was a logical step. I was worried that the b2 dusk would be not enough of a step up because of diminishing returns, so I decided to go straight for the S8. Didn't have the opportinuty to check them out before purchase, so I only relied on reviews. Finally they have arrived, and here are my impressions:

The first thing to catch my attention was, surprisingly, the bass. Not its quantity, rather quality. I wasn't expecting anything, as the reviewers warned about the S8's BA bass lacking punch and weight, but that was not my experience at all. This bass extends DEEP, like I never heard before. It's like having a subwoofer in my head. This bass never gets in the way of other frequencies, but makes every track sound really fat and substantial. The transients are fast, and this combination makes listening to drums simply amazing. I am not a basshead, but I just love the S8's bass.

Then, other aspects of the sound grew on me. The soundstage is wide, and the resolving ability is excellent across the board (this I expected, but still, wow). The highs are never sharp, and I found mself turning the volume way up because the highs are much more tame then on the KZs etc. The usual stuff about hearing new nuances in my fav tracks, yada-yada... They are also immensely beautiful. My only issue, apart from trash stock cable, is the fit. i will have to find the right tips, as my ears get a bit tired after a while.

I was afraid to set my expectations too high, but I got so much more then I expected. The diminishing returns thing was holding me back from upgrading, but I'm glad I did. It's a shame that Moondrop IEMs are hard to come across to try them, so the purchase kinda requires a leap of faith. They are worth every penny. If the b2 dusk are even remotely comparable to the S8 for half the price, then you should probably get them right now.