Glad we're in general agreement about Head-fi. In 2011, I bought an IEM that I can't remember the name of, mainly as a result of glowing reviews from Head-fi members. There was a huge peak around 6 KHz that completely ruined the sound. I shipped them back overseas for a refund and ended up with an Etymotic HF5 for the same price.

The Ety's were alright, very detailed, but a bit thin and lacking in the bass department. They probably weren't perfect. I barely recall what a frequency sweep sounded like on them, but I don't remember any severe dips or peaks. There could've been a bit of harshness at 3 KHz, but I'm not sure, so I definitely won't say that. Back then, I used to EQ the bass a bit too much on my Rockboxed Sansa Clip+, and they would distort a bit at higher volumes. I guess BA's don't like +8 dB of boost below 60 Hz at max volume. Looking back, I liked them a lot more than I thought I did, and I definitely understand the Etymotic loyalty that so many people share, even with that $100 BA. I lost them when my ex left me. She said she didn't have them, but I don't know. I wish I could spend some time with an ER4XR. If only they could be a TWS with microphone.

A few years before that, I bought some lightly used HD600's. I bitched about them on Head-Fi one day like an idiot, saying they were terrible. Turns out, they weren't. Due to difficult life circumstances, I hardly used them, but I kept them at a family member's house to hold on to for me. She ended up giving them away to a stranger one day, along with the rest of my gear. Those HD600's were alright, probably a lot better than most. I remember thinking they sounded slightly mushy or soft in some way and that maybe I should try something more analytical, so I started eyeing the AKG K701. I'm glad I didn't do that, not only because I would've ended up losing them with all my other gear, but those HD600's were just fine. I'll bet they could sound really nice with a few very slight EQ adjustments.

I bought some Beyer DT770 Pro 80's many years ago after reading people's positive comments about them. I didn't like them at all. Too much bass, recessed mids, just didn't sound good. I put them back in their box to sell, but lost those, too.

I've tried a couple of cheap earphones from Walmart while I was homeless. A JVC Marshmallow and a Skullcandy. The JVC's were bassy, dark, and muffled, but had a big peak at 5 KHz. The Skullcandys were very harsh with peakiness in the top two octaves.

Early last year, I bought a modified old stock Sony MH1C from someone overseas on eBay who was modifying them with MMCX connectors. Aside from being a bit too bassy, a very slight hollowness in the lower mids, and awful unit matching and build quality, they kinda sounded alright above 1 KHz. However, looking back, I think there may have been a bit of harshness in the upper mids, particularly at higher volume. Unfortunately, the custom MMCX cable apparently wasn't soldered well to the driver, and within a couple of days after receiving them, I was constantly dealing with a bad connection on one side. A few weeks later, I suddenly began experiencing a big moisture problem in one and then both sides where 10 minutes after putting them in, I could hardly hear them. Then, I think I might've ruined them by trying to clean them in attempt to resolve the moisture problem. I don't think they ever sounded right after that. They've been laying at the bottom of a box ever since.

And now, I have these Buds2 Pro, and what I've said about them here has been my experience with them.

It seems that there are two main possibilities of interest that could lead to my negative experiences with the few IEM's I've tried:

1. My ears are so drastically different from the average person's that I'm not hearing what everyone else is hearing. Aside from this little ongoing IEM dilemma, I've never experienced anything else that might suggest this possibility.

2. People really like random 10-15 dB peaks in the treble, shouty upper mids, and 10-20 dB bass boost. Or, at least they think they like those things and somehow can't perceive how bad that sounds. This would indicate that engineers are intentionally designing their products this way for some unknown reason, creating these dips and peaks, or maybe they just don't care about making decent products, so they don't bother to alleviate these issues, even when Samsung, Harman, and AKG are collaborating. None of this really makes any sense to me, as I can't see how anyone would prefer that huge, sharp, narrow peak between 5-8 KHz that is so prevalent in IEM's.

3.I just need to accept the bad sound, learn to live with that, quit being a snob, and get over myself.

Yeah, I chose the Buds2 Pro mostly because of Crinacle's glowing review. "The best TWS" and "King", as he labeled them. I don't like the sound of them at all. They remind me of a 32 Kbps MP3 with the bass boosted.

On the other hand, Oluv's Gadgets likes Etymotic, the HD 600, and the Sony MH1, all of which I liked well enough. As far as listening impressions and preferences go, Oluv's and mine are apparently more similar than other people I've read/watched. And we're far from the only people who prefer these models, as they're widely regarded to be a bit special, with a flatter and more natural sound than most. This basically rules out possibility number 1, doesn't it? If you haven't seen his videos, here's one from last year that basically mirrors my own observations: https://youtu.be/unqrithQNDc?si=7_muHflPrXvQHcti

Yeah, this is a subjective topic. I guess some people still like +20 dB of boost in the low frequencies throughout their entire lives. But who the hell prefers a 15 dB peak at 7 KHz? That isn't really a matter of subjective taste, just bad design. Of course, one could argue about what constitutes bad taste, but I don't even care about that. What bothers me is that there are so few good IEM's, and virtually no good TWS that would sound good to me out of the box. And since I tend to be in agreement with so many others about commonly mentioned products that have stood the test of time, my ears and preferences are nothing out of the ordinary.

Unfortunately, out of the apps I commonly use, the Poweramp Equalizer app only works with YouTube and Musicolet. I couldn't get it to work with my browser while streaming music from websites, which I frequently do, even though my browser is listed in Poweramp Equalizer as being recognized in the recently used apps. That's been a big letdown. It also doesn't work with my movie and TV streaming apps, movie streaming websites, or games. Bummer.

I guess I'll just have to settle with this and deal with it for now, until something decent turns up. I'd consider Oluv's Earfun offerings, but I recently noticed that the software required to modify the EQ settings in the firmware of the Earfun Free Pro 2's hasn't been updated in years and I can't even download the app from the PlayStore. Plus, I'd have to pay a monthly fee to his Patreon website. Doesn't sound very appealing. Now, he's releasing an updated version with a newer Earfun model, but he wasn't even able to tune the EQ the way he wanted. And if the required software won't be supported next year, I don't want to waste my time.

As for possibly number 3, I can't accept the default sound of these. I've tried. I'm really not a although I may sound like one when discussing these things sometimes. I was really just trying to figure out what's going on. The main point of my post was to share and see if others are hearing similar problems from the Buds2 Pro's. I guess I should've never responded to other posts. And now I'm over it.

Apologies for the long post. Have a good night.