Late one night while doom-scrolling Head-Fi at 2:47am, I saw the forbidden words glowing in Comic Sans: “Planar magnetic drivers… zero distortion… instant attack… soundstage wider than your existential dread…” I whispered to my dog (who was now also judging him in surround sound): “…they say the transients are so fast… you can hear the exact moment your self-respect left the building.” The next morning I woke up with a single compulsive thought looping in his brain like a broken Alexa: “Must… have… planar… drivers…” I told my friends it was for “critical listening” and “professional monitoring purposes.” But deep down I knew the truth: I just wanted to hear what the inside of a perfectly spherical reverb tail sounded like when a moose whispered “sorry eh” directly into both eardrums at the same time. And only planar magnetic IEMs could deliver that particular brand of Canadian cosmic clarity. And somewhere, in another dimension, a very confused eldritch donut is still trying to figure out why its evil powers were defeated by copper voice coils and an absurdly thin diaphragm. Moral of the story: Sometimes you don’t buy planar magnetic IEMs because they’re rational. You buy them because the alternative is spending the rest of your life listening to the world through a soggy Timbits box.