OBJECTIVITY IN AUDIO: When “Bad” IEMs are better

What happens when you find more joy in “bad” IEMs over conventionally good IEMs. 

Recently, I received the IEM called the EPZ K1. It’s a $60-ish IEM with a rather traditional V-shape sound with lots of midbass, and jagged treble and is what one would consider as a “bad” IEM. But my ears found the exact opposite of what my “audiophile” ears have taught me to feel about an IEM that is considered to be a bloated, sibilant mess. I got some D’Angelo playing and grooved to every single track in the Voodoo album. 

But I couldn’t get that lingering feeling in the back of my head that I shouldn’t be enjoying this. This isn’t an “objectively” good IEM for numerous reasons ranging from the bloat coloring the midrange to the treble causing unintended harshness in the music. And yet I still loved listening to this, more so than what some people would consider objectively better IEMs like the Truthear Zero Red which is a smoother, less offensive, and more “accurate” sound. 

So then it got me thinking about the whole objectivity of audio and the review process. As someone who reviews audio products, I always want to take an objective approach to highlight every single aspect of a product. But when describing the sound, I understand that my listening experience can and will vary from person to person. But there has been this underlying idea of the “objectively” good sound. Something along the lines of the Harman target and the likes. 

And I’ve seen many points about this entire concept. Andrew from Headphones.com comes to mind when he was explaining that those that “hate” the Harman target like a slight deviation from the Harman-target. Not following Harman to a T isn’t bad, but it exists to give us the most ideal listening experience. And I completely agree with this. 

But then you have those groups that only believe that a certain “target” or “graph” is the only correct kind of tuning. Deviate from that and they’re going to insult you for liking that thing. A certain individual might even comment that if you say a certain kind of tuning that is conventionally good isn’t ideal for you your ears are broken. Or that if you say that you find a certain tuning boring the music you listen to is boring. 

But I’ve personally experienced both ends of the spectrum from ridiculously weird tuning to the silkiest, smoothest, and more natural-sounding tuning. And there’s just this level of excitement that I feel when listening to music through some dirty v-shaped set like the EPZ K1 that I don’t get from sets like the Truthear Zero: RED. Does that mean that I’m not enjoying the music correctly? Does my liking something that isn’t “conventionally good” make me a worse music enjoyer, nay, a worse reviewer?

And that’s my question for you guys. I genuinely like things that aren’t considered good because I feel joy when listening to music through those specific sets. Do you think that liking something that deviates from the “natural” or “intended” sound of the music is listening to music incorrectly? Do let me know down in the comments as this is one of the things where I really would like to hear people’s thoughts and opinions.