This journey has been quite educational to me more than a good rabbit-hole music experience. Just be aware that you're about to read like, 17 paragraphs of my nonsense.

Ehem... Being aware that bluetooth is inferior in quality, a day came I that I want to buy new wired earphones. I don't remember when but mysteriously, the magical algorithm made me stumble upon IEMs. Having no idea what that means, I went to study about it.

What made me sell to IEMs most are how they have more than one speakers inside. Diving deeper to my curiosity, this made me learn about driver types. And so now I felt like ready to buy one.

Now I wasn't the type to ask advice from someone of what my first IEM I should buy. I rather just search about somebody else's review or experiences and process those information to learn buy one under my own choosing.

Seeing the price of multi-driver and their types, I guess there was only so much where my budget can handle. I'm still an unemployed student.

I discovered some cheap IEMs, but I wanted to experience one's that have more than one speakers (or at this point, drivers). I found KZ where according to my first known thought is that they have a reputation for economical IEMs, and hearing that they weight more for their value or the price. I told myself... "Nice, a brand for cheaper IEMs". (I'm only hearing their bad reputation after buying an IEM but I still didn't not care anyway 🗿)

For my taste, I'm all about for the details and instrumentals. Finally, I've made my choice on what to pick, the best that I could simply afford. August 14 arrive, and I now have my first ever IEM the KZ Silver Castor on my hands. I'm a bit envious that this is not my first dynamic driver but my great experience overlapped that. The best way I could describe this joy felt like farting liquid without a single care in this world!

I'm hearing extra instruments I've never noticed before, the bass sounds great and perfect for me with the version I chose, and the stock accessories are better built quality than an ordinary iPhone charger or all my last owned generic earphones despite people saying that the KZ accessory/cable are disposable garbage. The box that came may not be one of those portrait of anime girls, but it sure does make the soundtracks, voices, and seductive moaning in my anime visual novel much more pristine than ever. Also great in gaming immersion.

Since I love this first IEM of mine so much, I looked ways for it to last long. I place it in a TPU coin wallet that I can snuggly bring daily which I prefer over a bulky one, along with a japanese medical-grade silica gel pack and a crappy shoe-grade european silica gel pack

Knowing this experience, I wanted to try what other drivers will sound like. I was now willing to go broke to buy what's going to be my next IEM for a corresponding collection. But I had to postpone that part for now, because I've recently discovered DACs which was out of ny knowledge. I've made a research about it, got fascinated about learning sampling rates, got shock about their enormous price tags, and then end up buying JCally JM6 Pro arrived at September 05. The prestigious Reddit University truly does not disappoint with their bachelors when everyone chimes in with their knowledgeable degrees.

Until now, I've been a decent 320kbps mp3 enjoyer with an basic understanding of can't telling the difference of FLAC and being aware that wireless is for peasants. But this didn't stop my learning... Because of this DAC, I thought I finally had the right equipment and ready hear the difference of FLAC against mp3. I've learned more about the FLAC along with the bits with sampling rates that every music comes along. I still lived in a cave when it came to audio.

I've p̶i̶r̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ downloaded some hi-res FLAC music at qobuz and confirmed that they're legit using acoustic spectrum analyser (Spek). I'm disappointed, I downloaded lots of lossless file extension that's heavier in storage than the lossy one's and still can't tell 2% difference with all this upgrade I've now got. I tested both on laptop (AIMP) and phone (Poweramp), the only difference I knew with the DAC I bought is increasing my volume thanks to the included Amp that I know less about. I was really expecting that it would be like looking at a 240 fps monitor for the first time but I guess not.

The last of my daily brain cells were wondering why before I went to sleep. Waking up led me curious to the capabilities of the human hearing.

I'm currently 21 the moment this post was made. A Two-legged hairless monkey can hear sound of up to 20 kHZ of frequency. Today I realized that It seems I can only hear up to 16.5 kHZ minimum, 18.0 kHZ when I maximized all my device volume and 18.98 kHZ when I shut off all my other 4 human senses. A FLAC has a frequency of more than 22kHZ. I guess this is why I can't differentiate FLAC over mp3. But I'm still going to leave this and wonder... Why I can't tell the difference?

• Maybe my DAC needs to be flagship level. • Maybe my IEM are false advertised which can't go above 20kHZ. (KZ Castor can go 20-40000 Hertz) • Maybe the digital device I store my music is the reason and needing better equipment (eartips, c̶a̶b̶l̶e̶?, 4.4 aux etc.). • Maybe accepting that fact that this is the best capabilities my ears can reach from suffering too much earrape.

But either way, I guess I'm still keeping my FLAC collection for experimental future purposes or when I accidentally become blind with disabilities. My IEM journey made me learn about:

♪ In-ear monitors 🥇 ♪ Poweramp 🥈 ♪ Existence of Qobuz 🥉 ♪ Upgrading to FLAC ♪ Types of Drivers ♪ DAC chips ♪ Amp ♪ Spek ♪ Bitrate ♪ Bits ♪ Sampling Rate ♪ Hearable FR range ♪ Exploring Reddit ♪ Equalizer (Irrelevant) ♪ DSP (Irrelevant) ♥ The next IEM on my wishlist is the TRN ST7 (Irrelevant)