hey guys, so i have a set of fearless audio s8f. i really like them, but one of my friends told me i dont know squat and i need to get some 64 audio iems. now, those are stupid expensive, like double the price of mine and with half the drivers!!! i know its not the size… i mean, its not the number of drivers but the quality i guess? but do you guys know how do the 64 audio below 1000usd compare to the fearless audio s8f? is it just snake oil or its def a good improvement?
I don’t think they are worth it.
I have the U12T ($2k) and the Trio ($2.3k) … they’re decent but no way are they worth their full MSRP. I got them secondhand for just under $1k each and while that is palatable they wouldn’t even be my first choice at that.
IMO the likes of the Monarch Mk2/Mk3 are better, at $999.
And there’s huge diminishing returns before that, there’s not a HUGE difference between $300-500 IEMs like the Hype2, Xenns Top, Variations and the Monarch Mk2/3. There is a difference, and I do think the Monarchs are better… but it’s subtle. I suspect I’d include the Blessing 3 in there as well, I haven’t heard it yet.
I get the impression that 64 Audio was more worth it when these first came out, these IEMs came out over 5 years ago, in 2017, and a lot has happened in the IEM market since then, particularly from Chi-Fi, IEMs have just got so much better and so much cheaper in the last 5 years.
They also appeal specifically to stage performance and they do have some features, like the linear impedance on their multi-BA stuff, and extremely high sensitivity, that means they will play with a consistent FR and LOUD on absolutely anything you plug them into. So this is a selling point for an artist who may not know what sort of high impedance low power pack they are going to get, the 64 Audio stuff will just work on it.
The Monarchs will boost the bass to high heaven if you plug them into anything with high output impedance. This isn’t an issue for home audiophiles who can control their sources and it’s not remotely difficult to get high quality low output impedance sources these days, even a $9 Apple dongle is low OI. But that could be a selling point for an artist, between radio packs, studio equipment, audio interfaces, there just isn’t that same attention paid to output impedance with a lot of “pro audio” stuff and a lot of it is very high impedance and would actually be unusable with a lot of modern audiophile IEMs.
The likes of the Monarchs, or just about any other Chi-Fi audiophile IEM are also harder to drive, those specifically are not the worst but there are other IEMs that are genuinely hard to drive. So again, if you were comparing in a stage setting where you need a certain volume and maybe the radio you have is just low power and it can’t get there with a harder to drive IEM but the 64 Audio stuff will play super loud on anything. Ironically though this does also mean if you are using them on a modern device, you have the opposite problem of limited volume range. Even on a dongle like the Questyle M15, in low gain, balanced, I am stuck between 5% and 8% Windows volume with the U12T. Anything over 8% is getting into hearing damage territory.
Don’t get me wrong on this either- these are very good IEMs. I just don’t think they are worth $2-2.3k.