Miscellaneous ramblings on Lime Ears tour kit plus bonus material on Rhapsodio Galaxy v2. Hope you can make it through it, lol
Following up with some objective data for the Lime Ears IEM vs a reference IEM many of you have heard of, the Jomo 6R.
LE2
LE3 with Bass Switch Off & On
Aether with Bass Switch Off & On
LE2 and LE3 + Aether with Bass Switch Off
LE2 and LE3 + Aether with Bass Switch On
BONUS: Campfire Audio Vega, Jomo 6R, Lime Ears Aether, Rhapsodio Galaxy v2
So what did I think?
I wouldn't personally go for LE2. If I were considering Lime Ears, I'd step up to LE3 w/Switch.
Speaking of LE3 w/Switch, I thought it was the bang for your buck champ in the Lime Ears lineup. It stepped-up the clarity, had more expansive soundstage, and warmed-up nicely with the bass switch engaged. My measurements above give you a good visual representation of exactly what that switch does, which is increasing everything south of 1k a few dB. Personally, I preferred these with the bass switch on but was glad to have the option to turn it off if I was listening to music that already had moar bass, lol.
So what about Aether? Well, Aether kicks things up a notch or two beyond LE3 - better clarity, more refined mids, better spacial cues & soundstage, and the bass switch is more focused on lower bass. It definitely plays with the TOTL IEM I've heard to date. My one odd occurrence with Aether was that when I paired it with LPG, I had some of the oddest, most disjointed sibilance I think I've ever experienced with a pair of IEM. This disappeared when I switched to the Cayin i5 and reappeared whenever I went back to LPG. Not sure what was going on there, but I quickly learned not to use Aether + LPG.
To sum up, I give a thumbs up to LE3 w/Switch for bang for your buck winner in the lineup. That's the one I'd recommend as the entry point into the Lime Ears lineup. If you've got the money though, but all means step up to Aether w/Switch without hesitation. And by the way, you can get LE3 and Aether without the bass switch. I'd recommend going for the switch. It works well and gives the IEM increased adaptability / flexibility for different types of music, pairing with different sources, bass-craving mood swings, etc.
Thanks again to
@Barra for throwing together another fun tour, and also to Emil not only for letting us test out his IEM lineup but also for doing a great job tuning these!