V. Look at the shape of gaming over ears. V shaped for days. I have Fiio FH3 and they are amazing for gaming. A friend tried their FH5 and had the same impression. Sennheiser IE300 are somewhat V shaped and have huge sound stage which a lot of tech youtubers are using to play games on.
Balanced is nice, but I've noticed for competitive gaming, having good details and clarity in the mids and highs is important. Rarely is bass important for tracking people, so you only need "enough" bass. Personally I like the whack ass W shape, because you get forward bass, mids, and highs in just the right places to keep it good for competitive games, while still having a punchy bass. The Blon BL03 has this rare sound signature, which is also why some people love it and some hate it. V shapes are much funner though, because for some people, the balanced sound as well as the forward mid and high sounds can come off as anemic and feeling not full bodied due to the lack of bass. V shapes are fun and make games more engaging. You can game competitively with them, but the edge you get in games won't be as good, but you'll have a good time. What's also very important is having a good sound stage and good imaging. A big sound stage is cool and immersive, but I actually don't recommend it for competitive games(shooters particularly). I much prefer to have a smaller sound stage so I can hear far off things earlier, so I can have a strategic advantage; it ain't about realism, it's about winning. Some people will complain that their sense of distance is off with the smaller soundstage, but you can train your brain to know the distances in smaller sound stage(unless your iem/headphones have bad sound separation and a really small sound stage, thus jamming all the sounds in one spot). Your idea of things that are yards away are now feet away when you go from a larger sound stage to a smaller one, and your brain will adapt to these changes over time as you play. Once your brain adapts, you now have the auditory competitive edge. For example, I have a friend who I gave a set of more analytic sounding IEMs to, and he originally used large sound stage headphones. The difference in sound in how he could hear people easier made him feel like he was cheating, and that my dear friend, is the edge. Still I do think a bigger stage is more enjoyable, so if you ain't doing hard competitive, then bigger is better. Imaging is self explanatory : more accurate = more precise = good time. Imaging should be good no matter what size the stage and what sound signature the iem/headphone uses. End of the day, just know what kind of gaming you do, what you'd enjoy, and go from there. Gaming are meant to be played an enjoyed, so that will greatly dictate what you'll use, whether if it's only winning games that matters, or whether if it's just exploring a game's world that matters.
@@Teknickel I personally would go with a well tuned V shaped sound signature with a wide sound stage. For me a more realistic sound as far as being able to judge whether a sound is near or far is a must. It might not be the best overall competitive sound, but it is the most versatile for a wider genre of games. That said, any IEM that has too much bass such as the IE 300 can easily overshadow feet steps and other quieter sounds which is not good for competitive gaming or single player games in general. 👍
I just got into the IEM space. I have quickly found my favorite for music. For gaming I have been trying others. So far I have tried the Chu 2's, Snowdrop, and the moondrop May's with the May's being my favorite so far. Been looking for a good mic to pair with it. Was looking at the antlion.
I want to try this, but I think I'm going to stick with my Kinera Gramr cables. It's about half the price so I was able to get both MMCX and 2-pin for the price of this one. I haven't seen direct comparisons, but the Gramr's boom mic is probably a little more low-end heavy than the Ethos. And that's perfectly fine with me.
Great Review, could you do a review/comparison with the NSMO 3D 3-Driver Gaming Earbuds Headset with Dual Mic, it's the 39 usd alternative to the ethos. However, it's not a cable with a mic, but a iem with a mic jack.
To me the inline mic sounded better than the boom mic. The boom mic picked up a lot on the plosives and sounded compressed, while the inline mic sounded more natural and didn't pick up too much on background noises compared to the boom mic. Personally, I use the inline mic by Moondrop, MKI, another 2-pin cable; not a bad one to have at hand.
The inline definitely sounds better, but picks up more background, so if there are people in the room also taking near me it'd be bad. Inline mic's are usually omnidirectional and often sound better(they also don't get plosives simply because of where they sit). There have been tests with gaming boom mics, and omnidirectional ones always sounded better, but also picked up a lot more background noise. I've got a lot of friends who had to change up their mic setup because their inline mics kept catching all the conversations of their family/roommates in the room. Unidirectional and cardioid boom mics often sacrifice sound quality for better background noise rejection/filtering. In the case that they sound better, those boom mics also end up being bigger, like on the Sennheiser gaming headsets. In the end, my best solution to sound rejection is being a room with no background sound. No family, roommates, pets, etc. Then you can use any mic!
The other person listening to you during normal use (phone calls, zoom meetings, or gaming while on Discord) doesn't care about the "sound quality" of your voice as much as they care about how well the mic is picking up your voice AND ONLY your voice, meaning not other people in the background, not your computer speakers playing the game audio, not your fans you have on you cuz it's hot in your room, etc. And in that regard, the boom mic is vastly superior. Like Teknickel already said, yes, no one is arguing that the inline mic doesn't have better "sound quality" than the boom, but it's at the sacrifice of sound isolation. If between those two mics you needed a better sounding mic for some professional recording, then sure, the inline is better in a sound isolated room (though at that point if you're really serious, you'd get a much better mic than either of these for professional recording). But for general purposes like I mentioned above where you're not in some isolated studio booth, whether you want to admit it or not, for the people on the other end of your calls, trust me, they rather you use the boom mic than your inline. I've had both type of mics and would always ask my friends on Discord which they prefer me to use, without telling em which is which, because I want to be considerate to them since they're the ones listening to me, and they always end up choosing the boom.
It's a use case sort of situation. It's not great with plosives and sounds not as good in terms of sound quality compared to the inline. If you just play in your room or in a place with little background noise, the inline is just fine. But if you have noise in the background in your gaming environment, from people to even just your PC/Laptop fans ramping up, then the boom mic will save your teammates ears. I'm hoping this video will grow interest for this kind of mic so we can get much better and cheaper options.
Sad that the inline mic is better than the boom mic in over all sound. The boom mic is suuuuuper compressed and nasally compared to the BLON in line. It also grabs way more wind from expressive words than the inline for obvious reasons.. I'm a mic snob... and was really interested until the mic test/comparison
Oh no, inline for sure sounds better, but it unfortunately picks up a lot of background noise, which can be jarring to team mates over comms. The boom mic isolates your own voice better, but yeah, it unfortunately sacrifices sound quality, which seems to be a common problem for small boom mics. I'm also sliiightly a bit of mic snob, but I'm also a pragmatic snob, if that makes, so while the sound was sub par, I still felt it did its job well enough for gaming comms. Still I'm hoping a better mic comes out for IEMs, because the main thing that makes this mic worth the money is the fact that it's basically the ONLY boom mic for IEMs right now. I actually really want this thing to be dethroned, and at a much lower price with higher availability and better sound quality. But for now, it izzz what it izzz.
Yup, that's why we need competition, but for competition we need a discussion to show a need for it, and BOOM this video was born. Seriously I really want this mic dethroned, and at a lower price, better sound quality and higher availability. I'm hoping this video and the comments can help show mic makers, iem makers and gaming companies that there is indeed a demand for this kind of mic.
low - Moondrop Aria Mid - Fiio FH3/FH5 High - Sennheiser IE300 or IE600. Any more than the $600 IE600 is a waste of money and negligible gains for gaming.
the quality of the content is quite good but why does the mic just sound cheap? it has a hollow almost tinny sound to it, hell, my cheapo saramonic sounds better than that thing. windows is partly to blame, but not that much. i suppose things like the bridge/join and the chin slider were a clue..
seens like a choices, but i dont really like a, i rather stick with the old tradition, mics on the wire. wish you could find a good IEM Cable with a Mics on wire.
89 Dollars for Such Cable are they crazy or what ?!?!?!?!?!?!? .......... Cable should not be more than 7 Dollars,,,, Am already a user of KZ products so know this Stuff very very well. What a Crap...... and @Teknickel before making such video did you do you homework ??????????
LOL being a KZ user gives you zero cred as for knowing anything about cables. One this is a balanced cable. TWO this has a mic. Those two factors alone along with there not being many competing items in this space = higher cost because NO COMPETITION. Go back to your ok sounding budget KZs. You add this cable to more premium in cost and sound IEMS. As for Teknickle doing home work. There is not much to do. There are maybe one or two current on the market cables with attached boom mic and they are both MORE money. It seems you missed the point of the video and don't seem to understand that the cable HAS A BOOM MIC ON IT.
@@Teknickel I had too... I've seen too many KZ fanbois who have zero actual knowledge of why you'd buy a more expensive cable for an iem. Now, that could be an interesting video topic. Sure sound is subjective but seems some people need to educated imo.
@@NyteStalker89 I mean I thought about it, but my channel is little more gaming focused, so I'm not sure how many gamers would care to know about cable material, conductivity, construction and such, and how it affects sound. Right now, I can guarantee that its very few, but that might change in the future.
I wonder what signature of iems would be most suitable for gaming. Like v, neutral, bassed or what
V. Look at the shape of gaming over ears. V shaped for days. I have Fiio FH3 and they are amazing for gaming. A friend tried their FH5 and had the same impression. Sennheiser IE300 are somewhat V shaped and have huge sound stage which a lot of tech youtubers are using to play games on.
it's better being balanced than a v
Balanced is nice, but I've noticed for competitive gaming, having good details and clarity in the mids and highs is important. Rarely is bass important for tracking people, so you only need "enough" bass. Personally I like the whack ass W shape, because you get forward bass, mids, and highs in just the right places to keep it good for competitive games, while still having a punchy bass. The Blon BL03 has this rare sound signature, which is also why some people love it and some hate it.
V shapes are much funner though, because for some people, the balanced sound as well as the forward mid and high sounds can come off as anemic and feeling not full bodied due to the lack of bass. V shapes are fun and make games more engaging. You can game competitively with them, but the edge you get in games won't be as good, but you'll have a good time.
What's also very important is having a good sound stage and good imaging. A big sound stage is cool and immersive, but I actually don't recommend it for competitive games(shooters particularly). I much prefer to have a smaller sound stage so I can hear far off things earlier, so I can have a strategic advantage; it ain't about realism, it's about winning.
Some people will complain that their sense of distance is off with the smaller soundstage, but you can train your brain to know the distances in smaller sound stage(unless your iem/headphones have bad sound separation and a really small sound stage, thus jamming all the sounds in one spot). Your idea of things that are yards away are now feet away when you go from a larger sound stage to a smaller one, and your brain will adapt to these changes over time as you play. Once your brain adapts, you now have the auditory competitive edge. For example, I have a friend who I gave a set of more analytic sounding IEMs to, and he originally used large sound stage headphones. The difference in sound in how he could hear people easier made him feel like he was cheating, and that my dear friend, is the edge.
Still I do think a bigger stage is more enjoyable, so if you ain't doing hard competitive, then bigger is better.
Imaging is self explanatory : more accurate = more precise = good time. Imaging should be good no matter what size the stage and what sound signature the iem/headphone uses.
End of the day, just know what kind of gaming you do, what you'd enjoy, and go from there. Gaming are meant to be played an enjoyed, so that will greatly dictate what you'll use, whether if it's only winning games that matters, or whether if it's just exploring a game's world that matters.
Balanced and lots of soundstage. I use Tin T2 pro for my daily gaming.
@@Teknickel I personally would go with a well tuned V shaped sound signature with a wide sound stage. For me a more realistic sound as far as being able to judge whether a sound is near or far is a must. It might not be the best overall competitive sound, but it is the most versatile for a wider genre of games. That said, any IEM that has too much bass such as the IE 300 can easily overshadow feet steps and other quieter sounds which is not good for competitive gaming or single player games in general. 👍
Bro, how does it feel to be the only Chad to have a review like this in the whole fricken internet? Well done sir. You’re a real one
I hope there'll be a moondrop chu review somewhere near in the future
with a mic test too hopefully owo
@@madborne3372 yiss
I just got into the IEM space. I have quickly found my favorite for music. For gaming I have been trying others. So far I have tried the Chu 2's, Snowdrop, and the moondrop May's with the May's being my favorite so far. Been looking for a good mic to pair with it. Was looking at the antlion.
thanks, there are hardly any reviews of this. I'm honestly just waiting for a cheaper alternative
Same dude, the primiary reason it's worth it is because it's the only one that exists
@@Teknickel LOL
I want to try this, but I think I'm going to stick with my Kinera Gramr cables. It's about half the price so I was able to get both MMCX and 2-pin for the price of this one. I haven't seen direct comparisons, but the Gramr's boom mic is probably a little more low-end heavy than the Ethos. And that's perfectly fine with me.
We have competition! The Kinera Gramr just got released.
Using Samsung C to 3.5 adapter, or HiBy FC1, FC3 gives you the best recording quality for TRRS connector, they have ADC.
Great Review, could you do a review/comparison with the NSMO 3D 3-Driver Gaming Earbuds Headset with Dual Mic, it's the 39 usd alternative to the ethos. However, it's not a cable with a mic, but a iem with a mic jack.
To me the inline mic sounded better than the boom mic. The boom mic picked up a lot on the plosives and sounded compressed, while the inline mic sounded more natural and didn't pick up too much on background noises compared to the boom mic. Personally, I use the inline mic by Moondrop, MKI, another 2-pin cable; not a bad one to have at hand.
The inline definitely sounds better, but picks up more background, so if there are people in the room also taking near me it'd be bad. Inline mic's are usually omnidirectional and often sound better(they also don't get plosives simply because of where they sit). There have been tests with gaming boom mics, and omnidirectional ones always sounded better, but also picked up a lot more background noise. I've got a lot of friends who had to change up their mic setup because their inline mics kept catching all the conversations of their family/roommates in the room.
Unidirectional and cardioid boom mics often sacrifice sound quality for better background noise rejection/filtering. In the case that they sound better, those boom mics also end up being bigger, like on the Sennheiser gaming headsets.
In the end, my best solution to sound rejection is being a room with no background sound. No family, roommates, pets, etc. Then you can use any mic!
The other person listening to you during normal use (phone calls, zoom meetings, or gaming while on Discord) doesn't care about the "sound quality" of your voice as much as they care about how well the mic is picking up your voice AND ONLY your voice, meaning not other people in the background, not your computer speakers playing the game audio, not your fans you have on you cuz it's hot in your room, etc. And in that regard, the boom mic is vastly superior. Like Teknickel already said, yes, no one is arguing that the inline mic doesn't have better "sound quality" than the boom, but it's at the sacrifice of sound isolation.
If between those two mics you needed a better sounding mic for some professional recording, then sure, the inline is better in a sound isolated room (though at that point if you're really serious, you'd get a much better mic than either of these for professional recording). But for general purposes like I mentioned above where you're not in some isolated studio booth, whether you want to admit it or not, for the people on the other end of your calls, trust me, they rather you use the boom mic than your inline. I've had both type of mics and would always ask my friends on Discord which they prefer me to use, without telling em which is which, because I want to be considerate to them since they're the ones listening to me, and they always end up choosing the boom.
What is the name of the inline mic you were using?
thank you for letting me know the existence of this product
Sounds like it doesn't handle plosive very well.
Blon inline mic sounds better for me.
It's a use case sort of situation. It's not great with plosives and sounds not as good in terms of sound quality compared to the inline. If you just play in your room or in a place with little background noise, the inline is just fine. But if you have noise in the background in your gaming environment, from people to even just your PC/Laptop fans ramping up, then the boom mic will save your teammates ears.
I'm hoping this video will grow interest for this kind of mic so we can get much better and cheaper options.
"handwriting as good as mine" 🤣
:')
I need a iem cable with a mic for the fiio fh3, it uses mmcx connector, any suggestions?
me too
Great review and example audio.
Sad that the inline mic is better than the boom mic in over all sound. The boom mic is suuuuuper compressed and nasally compared to the BLON in line. It also grabs way more wind from expressive words than the inline for obvious reasons.. I'm a mic snob... and was really interested until the mic test/comparison
What's your favorite mic 2pin cable?
Oh no, inline for sure sounds better, but it unfortunately picks up a lot of background noise, which can be jarring to team mates over comms. The boom mic isolates your own voice better, but yeah, it unfortunately sacrifices sound quality, which seems to be a common problem for small boom mics. I'm also sliiightly a bit of mic snob, but I'm also a pragmatic snob, if that makes, so while the sound was sub par, I still felt it did its job well enough for gaming comms.
Still I'm hoping a better mic comes out for IEMs, because the main thing that makes this mic worth the money is the fact that it's basically the ONLY boom mic for IEMs right now. I actually really want this thing to be dethroned, and at a much lower price with higher availability and better sound quality. But for now, it izzz what it izzz.
@@Teknickel have you tried JCALLY inline mics right now this 8 core one is my favorite at the cost it's only 13$ while still being 5N OFC copper
@@Justacapybara9000 nope, but i just might
ok this is actually cool and needed
Yes, but what's really need is better competition for it, with high quality sound, a lower price, and better availability.
I have the original model, by kingfish with the silver cable. The microphone is too heavy and eventually dislodges my headphones
Oof
Audio on PC so much better 😃
I was looking for this exact type mic to play on xbox one.... However the price, makes it impossible to wanna get into the market
How much does it cost?
@@houssam19941 $89 😳
Yup, that's why we need competition, but for competition we need a discussion to show a need for it, and BOOM this video was born.
Seriously I really want this mic dethroned, and at a lower price, better sound quality and higher availability. I'm hoping this video and the comments can help show mic makers, iem makers and gaming companies that there is indeed a demand for this kind of mic.
does it have a type C version?
can you review a budget microphone to use with iem; i own KZ ZST X
They don't really exist. Most people using IEMs for gaming use a stand alone USB or XLR Mic on a boom arm
@@NyteStalker89 oh i see
thanks
How you get it work with pc? The Microphone dosent work for me on a Headphone + microphone jack
Bro this review is 🔥🔥
Can u review cca cra since its so cheap and compare it with kz zsn pro x
Best iem for gaming ?
Cheap
Or
Mid
Or
High
Any recommendations if possible for each one in your experience ?
Planing on playing Escape from Tarkov
low - Moondrop Aria Mid - Fiio FH3/FH5 High - Sennheiser IE300 or IE600. Any more than the $600 IE600 is a waste of money and negligible gains for gaming.
cca cra is a no brainer at 15$ if you have a lower budget than moondrop arias
Can you review truthears x crin and
Another Boom mic iem cable called kinera gamara
compativle with ks zs10 pro???
the quality of the content is quite good but why does the mic just sound cheap? it has a hollow almost tinny sound to it, hell, my cheapo saramonic sounds better than that thing. windows is partly to blame, but not that much. i suppose things like the bridge/join and the chin slider were a clue..
Stealth Sonics also makes one
Will this work on KZ ZS10 Pro?
which IEM with mic will beat my 7.1 hyperx in locating footsteps? i don't care about anything else 🤣
Very helpful video
No mute? Tragic.
Can someone tell me if the fiio fh3s are good for games like valorant?
Impressive product. Disappointing that there's no option for MMCX connectors though. Would love to use these for my modded KSC75s.
What in line mic did you use?
Go with Antlion it's the one I tried and I really like. I use the moondrop may's for my gaming IEM.
Lol I thought the chin slider was just a piece of tape to hold them together in the box.
It might as well be
Any boom mics for dual entry headphones?
Only the vmoda boom pro and boom pro x come to mind
I need that
Or u can use tripowin c8 cable best mic quality bet cable quality ever
seens like a choices, but i dont really like a, i rather stick with the old tradition, mics on the wire. wish you could find a good IEM Cable with a Mics on wire.
Ohhh shieeeet I’m paying only for the body but not with the head
90 баксов за микрофон и провод для ИЕМ ушей. Поржал, спасибо не надо.
89 usd? these people are crazy lol
They are new breed of crazy post Covid era,,,,,,,, I thought the same this must not be more than 8 Dollars or so....... They are indeed messed up.
No competition yet so it's a unicorn product
@@Reeeepicheep People not understanding how no competition influences cost is crazy
89 Dollars for Such Cable are they crazy or what ?!?!?!?!?!?!? .......... Cable should not be more than 7 Dollars,,,, Am already a user of KZ products so know this Stuff very very well. What a Crap...... and @Teknickel before making such video did you do you homework ??????????
LOL being a KZ user gives you zero cred as for knowing anything about cables. One this is a balanced cable. TWO this has a mic. Those two factors alone along with there not being many competing items in this space = higher cost because NO COMPETITION. Go back to your ok sounding budget KZs. You add this cable to more premium in cost and sound IEMS. As for Teknickle doing home work. There is not much to do. There are maybe one or two current on the market cables with attached boom mic and they are both MORE money. It seems you missed the point of the video and don't seem to understand that the cable HAS A BOOM MIC ON IT.
OOF, that KZ user comment
@@Teknickel I had too... I've seen too many KZ fanbois who have zero actual knowledge of why you'd buy a more expensive cable for an iem. Now, that could be an interesting video topic. Sure sound is subjective but seems some people need to educated imo.
@@NyteStalker89 I mean I thought about it, but my channel is little more gaming focused, so I'm not sure how many gamers would care to know about cable material, conductivity, construction and such, and how it affects sound. Right now, I can guarantee that its very few, but that might change in the future.