Today I attended an EIM consultation at Musicians Hearing Solutions in Beverly Hills, CA with audiologist, Dr. Julie Glick.

Before I even asked, She said the magic words that make every nerd excited: “blind test” and “high-resolution audio at 24-bit, 96kHz.” I also brought recordings from my rehearsals since that is the environment I will be using the IEMs in. I didn’t see the face plates and brand names before trying them out, Julie inserted them into my ear canals and made sure they were properly sealed.

Going into the appointment, I was looking to spend $1500, up to $2000 if the audio was significantly better.

I tested the following IEMs:

Ultimate Ears - UE 18+ Pro - $1,599

JH Audio - JH 13v2 - $1,449 // JH 16v2 - $1,649 // Roxanne - $2,099

Audio 64 - A4s - $1,099 // N8 - $1,699 // A12t - $1,999

I’ll get into the details, but first: a back story, so that I can congratulate myself later on my consistency, and also (hopefully) so anyone reading this can have some confidence that at all times, I was being very discerning while evaluating these IEMs, both in the past and today.

TEST THEM OUT!

One final disclaimer - As with the mic recommendations, I very much hope the main take-away from this is that YOU MUST COMPARE THESE IEMs SIDE-BY-SIDE ON YOUR OWN! Every ear is different, so what works for me may not work for you, but it was critical for me to test them side-by-side.

Some Important Context

Backstory

The way that this appointment came about was that a band I’m playing with currently, the Brent Faiyaz band, had an Ultimate Ears (UE) rep come in and take our impressions, but my memory of UE is that it was harsh, even painful for me, so I wanted to be sure that I really wanted the UEs before dropping $1k+. I went into this appointment with some IEM experience before. As an avid NAMM attendee, I have attempted IEM comparisons before, and I’ve also played a fair share of gigs where the live sound engineers are also reps for different IEM brands - this is a wonderful experience, because they know how to mix for the IEMs. I have played on the JH audio Laylas, Joleens, and Roxannes - the latter I actually played through a whole live-streamed concert with the Marina Diamandis band, and I have also heard some Audio 64 IEMs with 6 drivers, the A6ts. I peviously tested UE 11s.

My Ears

My ears have tiny canals, Dr. Glick said they were pretty average for women, if that’s any help. I have a lot of sensitivity to distortion and harshness in the mid highs and high highs.

My memories going into the testing

My memory was that my favorite practical profile I’d ever listened to was the Audio 64, that it was mellow and easy to listen to and didn’t hurt my ears. My memory was that my absolute favorite, wipe-the-ass-with-sik, decadent listening experience was with the Roxannes, this was one of those gigs where the mixing engineer was also a rep, it was by far the best mix I’d ever heard. Going into this meeting earlier today, I didn’t remember that they were JH audio IEMs, I just remembered I had liked a brand where the EIMs had women’s names that were also famous song titles.

My Priorities

The top priority for me was lack of harshness and distortion, I really want to preserve my hearing for as long as possible, so a nice gentle feel with good noise cancellation in the 30dB range was ideal. Second priority was the mix itself, and I was looking for clarity and a good, but not too heavy, bass response, since most of the time, I’m listening to and blending with the bass player.

The References

My reference tracks were Queen’s Somebody to Love, the Beatle’s Here Comes the Sun (believe it or not the crazy tracking and panning on that album sounds a lot like our shitty piezo signals lol), Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal, a Schubert String Quartet (don’t ask me which one, it was pre-loaded onto their device), and from my own phone I used the tracks from our rehearsals which includes my actual shitty piezo signal.

The Results

Okay, so here were my impressions from the blind test. I’ll list the models in order, but just know that I did not find out the brand/model name/driver info/tech specs until after all of the testing was finished.

Audio 64 A12t
UE 18+ Pro
JH Audio 16 v2
Audio 64 A4s
JH Audio 13 v2
Audio 64 A6t
(This is where the test briefly ended and I will pause here for dramatic effect).

Let me go through these first.

I started the test and immediately noticed how much better these were than the Shure and Westone generics I’ve been using in rehearsals. Even so, I was able to hear through everything since at home I’m used to nice Sennheiser and Yamaha monitoring.

I loved how gentle the first pair was. I could crank the volume pretty loud and it wasn’t hurting. Loved how it pronounced hi-hats and percussion, nice bass. I was a little bummed because I could tell the noise cancelling was not as good as I’d wanted. But overall, this was a hard ‘yes’.

Second pair was really harsh right away, I know in like 20 seconds it was a pretty hard ‘no’. Those ended up being the UEs, and it made me feel so glad I went and did the consultation.

Third pair was interesting, it sounded… fun :) It was really warm in the bass range, and also came with a cable where you can attenuate strength of the bass. There was a little harshness for me and very mild distortion through a couple different bands. Had really good isolation. It was a ‘yes’.

Fourth pair was very similar to the first pair, gentle on the ears. I noticed a little bit of distortion between bands again, and this was something I started to notice across the board. There was a little bit of harshness and distortion with these but at normal listening volumes, it was nice.

The fifth pair was like the third pair but for me at least, there was a more pronounced spike in some of the highs - maybe around 6-8khz. I started to feel a little bit bummed at this point that IEMs don’t do well with my ears.

The last pair were very similar to the first as well, so similar in fact that I started to A/B the ones still literally and figuratively on the table.

After some A/Bing, I said no to the JH 13v2s and the Audio 64 A4s.

What was left was the Audio 64 A12t, JH Audio 16 v2, and Audio 64 A6ts. I listened back and forth for a while, maybe 15 mins. And after a time, I started to get used to the way the bands all mixed in this set of IEMs, and realized they all had distortion and harshness that was probably indicative of quality, which was probably indicative of price. So I made the face I make whenever I know my partner Tuomas will kill me lol. I looked up to Dr. Glick and told her I wanted to hear some in the $2000-$2500 price range.

Dr. Glick brought out a couple other pairs in the higher price range. The first pair over $2k she had me try were so clear - but I didn’t catch the name, because the pair I put on next was incredible.

They were different than everything else I had tried because they passed the level of just playing back sound… they had this magic pronunciation - when I actively picked apart the instruments and then listened for frequency bands, I could find the clarity I was looking for, but more importantly, it was so easy to soften my focus, broaden my view, and float back into this wonderfully warm mix and just vibe with it. It surpassed its practical purpose and brought me into my emotions, stimulated my lil vagus nerve and brought me into my lil resonating limbic system. It gets me excited, where the Audio 64s, as gentle as they are, are safe but don’t get me excited. I knew that last pair I tried was the one within about 30 seconds of listening.

When she told me they were the JH Roxannes, I remembered the gig I played with Marina, the mix that was so decadent, and since I couldn’t remember the name I didn’t think I’d ever hear it again. At the time, spending that much on IEMs seemed impractical since it was the pandemic and I wasn’t making enough money from live gigs to justify the purchase, but now that I’m working 8-hour days for the Brent camp with a lot of tours and plans for the future in the works, not only is this level of quality good to have, I’d say it’s necessary.

Total, the Roxannes, plus tax, shipping, and impressions cost me $2463.40.

Final Thoughts

I feel lucky to be in a place where this kind of purchase is available to me and I am hoping that these IEMs will last me for the foreseeable future. I hope this helps people who are trying to decide on their own. One piece of advice: knowing a friend who is a rep who can get you artist pricing is great, but remember this is your hearing for life and having the wrong pair can put your longevity at risk, so I hope I can inspire you to do a side-by-side test, it’s worth the consultation fee, it’s really helpful and eye-opening.

My last thought is that even though these are at a high price point, what you’re paying for is the size and delicacy, and for the custom molds, they are a compromise. IEMs will never and should never be used for mixing in a studio environment, unless they are one of your alternative references, like your car or your laptop. The compromise you have to make to fit that much technology into such a small space will never be what good studio monitoring or good open-back mixing headphones can give you, so please don’t get tempted by claims that IEMs can be reliable reference monitors.