The issue with being a beginner is not knowing what sound you like. While the ie200 are great you might not like the sound signature, so it’s best to get a couple cheap iem’s $20-50 that are different. Get something warm, something bright and something neutral etc. Then once you figure out what you like then you can invest more money into the hobby.

I don’t know much about iem’s but I do have really expensive headphones. I started with 5-6 headphones at about $100, then picked by favorite 3-4 and bought the upgraded versions at $500-600. Once I figured out what sound I liked I went to an audio store and jumped into $2000 headphones and I haven’t looked back.

My audio journey took 8 years so there’s no rush to spend money.

Buy a very cheap DD iem, and a very cheap BA iem to give yourself a frame of reference for driver style and fit. Then research and make an informed decision about one good pair that you’ll be comfortable with for a long time.

I bought Sennheiser IE80 8 yeas ago. They still work like absolutely new to this day, and they do sound better than any sub 50$ chi fi that I have ever heard. They have seen some abuse also, gym use with sweat, cycling use, commute, etc - absolutely like new after 8 years of torture, and they sound better.

I think now looking at these 8 years that 300$ was cheap as fk, even tho it was like half the salary at the time.

get a hexa

IEMs are very personal. If possible try before you buy something expensive, or buy from somewhere with free returns. But yes any headphone upgrade is worth it if you enjoy using them more.

Buy some cheap sets to figure out what you like. Then go from there.

If you wanna go cheap get Kiwi Ears Cadenza

Been using the IE600 as daily iem for about a year and yes its worth it. Used it in gym, bus, work, rain (not like a strong rain airpods’ purpose is the rain), and every condition you can imagine. Still like new.

Less and less these days, because true wireless have gotten so good. You can pickup Airpod Pro 2 (lightning) models for like 150ish on ebay used and they take the fight to most wired iems in that price range anyway

Ive had the 1More Quad Drivers for like 5 years now and the little fuckers are built like a tank, refuse to die (and im NOT nice to them). I think they were $120. The sound is 75% of the way there so i just tweak the eq, and theyre comfortable.

Before that tried many, many sub-$60 iems and none of them lasted me more than a year and none sounded as good.

Only other quality iems i had way back in the day were ER4s and they also lasted years.

nowadays tho, i think most mid-level iems sound like shit. I wouldnt pay 30 bucks for most of the weird tunings ppl seem to like on the $200-500 range. Theyre either bass bloated or super tizzy most of the time.

So i would say absolutely try before u buy. Theres far too many options to choose from compared to 10 yrs ago.

And if u dont like the sound of what u got eq can only take u so far. My rule of thumb for eq is: if i can tolerate the sound it can be fixed, if i absolutely hate it no amount of fiddling will.

If you don’t know your sound signature preferences, if you are that much beginners,i will recommend to buy 7hz salnotes zero(20 dollar).as this item is dead neutral, you can able to realise which frequency you need more or less. Based on that you can invest on higher iem later knowing your sound preferences

Buying multiple sets of cheap IEMs might end up costing as much as one more expensive in the long run. Cheap IEMs have gotten really great, but there still is a very noticeable difference as you move up the ladder a couple of hundred bucks. That being said, value is very personal and depends on how much you care for the improvement in sound quality.

I think sennheisers are always a good investment because of how durable they are. I have chi-fi IEMs (FIIO) that started getting issues after 2 months and I have IE600 and HD650 with 0 problems at all. I dropped the 650’s many times and the IE600 feel way more sturdy than other cheap plastic IEMs so IMO I’d go for the Senn

IE200 is well worth your time

For 150$ I heard the truthear nova is a good option and are pretty durable