Antdroid's In-Ear Monitor Ranking List & Impressions/Reviews

Understood, just minor suggestions.

Impressive game/app! Using your quantitative skills for good not evil.

Interesting chart - thanks. I see it densely packed and going steeply up, then it turns to the right, levels out and gets more diffuse as it goes over to the end of the price scale. It seems to me the ā€œelbowā€ where it takes this turn is a fruitful area for investigation or some posts that discuss the IEMs in this zone. Between 10-14 and under $250 or so sit a bunch of choices - how do they compare? Iā€™m guessing the vast majority of people set their budget in this area. Maybe even a focus on the area between 8-14 and under $150 or so - probably lots of real bang-for-the-buck IEMs in there! Being able to hover over a dot and see the name and x,y coordinates would be useful - not sure how tough thatā€™d be with the way you made this. Anyway, thanks again for putting this together.

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@antdroid I tried copying the data from your web site and pasting it into Excel, and it worked. Then I saved it as CSV and made a couple of charts using R - my tool of choice for this kind of thing. Hope you donā€™t mind. Iā€™m happy to post the charts here - again only if youā€™re Ok with that. If not, no worries at all! I donā€™t know how to make hovering over the dots work, but it was easy to put a label on each dot with the contents of the ā€œIEMā€ column. Plotting it this way came out almost like a word-cloud of IEM names. It actually made it even more clear to me how much work this represents. Many thanks! Again - Iā€™ll delete all this from my computer, data and charts, unless you say itā€™s Ok to use your data this way.

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Yes feel free to use the data as you like!
I totally agree plotting with names would be best, but I am limited by Google Driveā€™s capabilities. Will see if I can figure out how, but thereā€™s no easy way to do it afaik in Drive

I just got the Empire Ears Odin inā€¦ so thatā€™ll be a new top tier IEM to add. :slight_smile:

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Oh forgot, i have a lot of columns hidden too, for scoring/math, so if you want the full spreadsheet, I can post it too.

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I would, as one of my identities is data nerdā€¦

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Brand Count Total Score Avg Score Grade
Hidition 2 35.85 17.93 A+
64 Audio 4 66.4 16.60 A
Vision Ears 4 62.3 15.58 A-
Unique Melody 4 57.8 14.45 B+
Thieaudio 7 97.8 13.97 B
qdc 2 27.65 13.83 B
Drop 1 13.7 13.70 B
Dunu 4 54.3 13.58 B
CustomArt 1 13.5 13.50 B
Campfire 9 121.45 13.49 B
Sony 6 80.95 13.49 B
Empire Ears 4 53.65 13.41 B
Audeze 6 79.75 13.29 B
Etymotic 6 79.65 13.28 B
Fearless 2 26.3 13.15 B
Audio Technica 1 13.05 13.05 B
Samsung 3 36.75 12.25 B-
Meze 1 12.25 12.25 B-
Moondrop 5 60.1 12.02 B-
TFZ 1 11.8 11.80 C+
LZ 1 11.75 11.75 C+
BGVP 5 57.6 11.52 C+
iBasso 2 22.35 11.18 C+
RHA 1 11.1 11.10 C+
Cat Ear 1 11 11.00 C+
MMR 2 21.7 10.85 C
Tin Hifi 9 96.5 10.72 C
F-Audio 1 10.7 10.70 C
Shure 2 21.4 10.70 C
Sabbat 1 10.55 10.55 C
Apple 1 10.45 10.45 C
BQEYZ 1 10.45 10.45 C
TenHz 1 10.35 10.35 C
Blon 2 20.45 10.23 C
Guide Ray 1 10.1 10.10 C
Mangird 2 20 10.00 C
Tripowin 2 20 10.00 C
Simgot 1 10 10.00 C
Peacock 1 10 10.00 C
Whizzer 1 9.8 9.80 C-
Tri 1 9.75 9.75 C-
Final 4 38.65 9.66 C-
Noble 2 19.1 9.55 C-
KB Ear 1 9.55 9.55 C-
1More 2 18.55 9.28 C-
WG 1 9 9.00 C-
NiceHCK 2 17.75 8.88 D+
CCA 1 8.5 8.50 D+
Tipsy 1 8.2 8.20 D+
Focal 1 8 8.00 D+
Status 1 8 8.00 D+
Shozy 4 30.95 7.74 D
TRN 5 37.9 7.58 D
KZ 16 118.15 7.38 D
MEE Audio 1 5.35 5.35 E+
Shuoer 3 14.4 4.80 E
Beats 1 4.1 4.10 E
Audiofly 1 3.85 3.85 E-
Fiio 1 3.25 3.25 E-
Hifiman 1 1.25 1.25 F
NuForce 1 1.2 1.20 F
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Thanks for posting. I dig all this data.

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Is it just me or is this an IEM T-Rex chart?

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haha Now i cant get this out of my head when I look at it!

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RIP to Thummim, Sultan and Wraith. I might start a dedicated Vision Ears thread if thatā€™s ok.

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yea sure, ill move posts over when you start it

Create your own list, put those at the top, and thereā€¦ be happyā€¦ or as Marie Kondo says - ā€œspark joyā€.

In case it didnā€™t come across that way, I was joking in that post

Or the Loch Ness monster. ;~)

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Small Update:

  • Added Empire Ears Odin, Campfire Comet, TenHz T4 Pro, and others
  • Re-scored a few IEMs
  • Fixed Graphs
  • Added Brand Index
  • Added Review Links
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Here are some alternate visualizations of @antdroidā€™s data. He was kind enough to share the source files for post-processing. These are intended add to the material he already created (and reveal that I indeed like to mess around with data).

Section 1: Product scores (Antā€™s ratings) by name and price. The first slide (bubbles) shows all IEMs as a whole. The next four slides show (1) the best rated IEMs from the entire database, (2) the best in the $151 to $500 bracket, (3) the best in the $51 to $150 bracket, and (4) the best at $50 or below.

Bubble charts are flashy but kind of loose and goofy too. The largest circle IEMs cost the most, while the darkest green received the best Ant Scores. The red ones received the worst Ant Scores. Take-away: Expensive IEMs are rarely ā€˜bad,ā€™ and some cheap IEMs compete well with expensive ones. We all knew thisā€¦but the chart reveals the magnitude of the price differences. People will spend what they have and want to spend.

This treemap should be read from left to right and top to bottom for the best scores. Larger blocks = better scores and smaller blocks = worse scores. Dark green = cheaper and yellow = expensive. Also note the strong quality and low prices of the Dunu, Moondrop, and Thieaudio products on the top right edge. They arenā€™t the best but plainly offer the best value for top-tier quality (in Antā€™s rating universe).

Treemap for the $151 to $500 category only. This makes the labels visible and compares products in a similar price range. Moondrop and Theiaudio stand out as having the best products and best value.

Treemap for $51 to $150 IEMs. Samsung and Tin Hifi seem to provide the best bang for the buck. The best is a ā€˜Bā€™ product, so all will involve compromises in Ant world.

Treemap for IEMs up to $50. Tin products are the ā€˜bestā€™ here, but cost far more than the Sony, Apple, and Samsung products. Those on very small budgets and/or those who donā€™t care may prefer to spend $8 instead of $50.

More charts in the next messageā€¦

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I split my post into two messages because the first one was getting too big, and some of this content is dubious per the small sample sizes. Iā€™m showing (1) brand roll-ups despite the very small number of IEMs from various companies, and (2) details that reveals @antdroidā€™s rating practices and/or tendencies. This could be described as ā€˜biasā€™ in a technical sense, as all human raters have their own distinct characteristics.

Here are Ant Scores by IEM Brands. This shouldnā€™t be taken too seriously, as @antdroid hasnā€™t rated everything from every vendor.

This weird looking slide looks at cost for quality. Some stand out as very expensive for what you get (MMR, F-Audio, and Noble). Vision Ears, 64 Audio, and Hidition are expensive but solid in Ant world.

Hereā€™s a technical slide that reveals how @antdoid generates his Value ratings. It shows there are no products with a Value rating above 0 if their Score is less than 8. With higher Scores (10 to 20), price will drive down the Value rating (e.g., a $4,500 product at 10.5). Be aware. This is Antā€™s process.

Hereā€™s a comforting rating chart. It shows a pretty reliable correlation (modest) between Tone Score and Tech Score. You want to see patterns like this. Review Antā€™s original tables for more info on the best products per Tone or Tech.


Finally, this slide compares Antā€™s scores by the sources of the IEMs. It could be used to detect bias in loaners versus personal purchases versus tours. The sample sizes are small, so donā€™t read much into it. Iā€™m not seeing any reasons for concern here.

Thatā€™s all for now.

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This ā€œmathā€ is extremely flawed. I need to make a better value rating system :slight_smile:

Anyway, cool charts. I think the last chart declares that I am a shill. Send me stuff and I shill :slight_smile:

Note, I see that Linsoul Sample and Linsoul Sampler are two categories. Should be the same oops.

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