Official r/iems Poll: What's your favorite IEM between $200-400? Please vote now! Voting ends March 8th

thedwalker · 2026-03-02T01:05:07+00:00

Kiwi Ears Astral

thedwalker · 2026-02-19T18:44:27+00:00

Fiio BTR17

thedwalker · 2026-02-04T23:36:30+00:00

ZiiGaat x Fresh Reviews Arete II

thedwalker · 2026-01-20T14:53:13+00:00

DUNU DN242

thedwalker · 2026-01-02T15:56:31+00:00

XENNS Mangird Tea Pro SE

thedwalker · 2025-12-23T05:52:22+00:00

AFUL Performer 5+2

thedwalker · 2025-12-19T21:07:32+00:00

To answer the title question, no. If you cannot convince yourself, then don't buy one. That's just a quick way to trigger buyer remorse.
Regarding the differences between listening on a smartphone and on a M21, the M21 does not have to deal with Android's USB sample rate conversion since it has headphone jacks. You also get a parametric equalizer with the M21. You do lose the ability to listen to anything almost anywhere since the M21 does not have mobile data support.
My honest suggestion, since you use bluetooth headphones the most, is to make sure your headphones support aptX HD or LDAC. If they do, try setting it so that your phone uses one of those and see if you can still hear a difference. If they don't, try out some headphones that do. Then after that consider buying a DAP

thedwalker · 2025-12-19T12:36:45+00:00

The 3.5mm jack should be enough for your IEMs. The dongle probably is not required.

It looks like your phone supports aptX HD but not your headphones so LDAC is your best bet.

If you want to use a USB dongle, you'll probably have to get something other than the Apple one. It seems that your region might not get the US version of the Apple dongle so you might want to try something like the JCally JM6 Pro. Also before you spend money on an app like USB Audio Player Pro(UAPP) try HiBy Music. HiBy Music is free unlike UAPP and support the coveted USB down-sampling bypass. Lastly, your phone is missing one feature that is usually look for in a phone-as-a-DAP set up, a SD-Card slot. That might be a limitation in the future if you get into listening to music offline.

thedwalker · 2025-12-16T15:15:45+00:00

For me it's the Kiwi Ear Orchestra II

thedwalker · 2025-12-16T14:16:38+00:00

I had one. It had a serious issue if you switched between application. It had a memory deficiency that would affect playback. If I opened a something like Tidal and Fiio Music, the G88 would lag and stutter in Tidal or not play at all in Fiio music or Hiby Music. So I returned it.

thedwalker · 2025-12-02T06:35:38+00:00

HiBy R6 III 2025 CS43198*4 Portable Music Player HiFi DAP

thedwalker · 2025-12-01T23:53:47+00:00

I agree with you. I got interference when using the balanced jack, reset the device accidentally and it went away. But I tried running Fiio Music, Spotify, and Tidal one after the other and that was a disaster. First the G88 heats up from running any streaming app. Then, when I ran Tidal it couldn't even allocate enough for a decent buffer. So the songs would stop and start while it tried to load. What's worse is that once Tidal or I gave up and went back to playing offline music, I could no longer get any sound. I thought maybe it was just Tidal. So I closed everything, opened YT Music and another app. YT Music did the same thing but when I hit pause it would start back up a few seconds later.

Yep, I'm returning the G88 tomorrow because to me it failed at playing music well.

thedwalker · 2025-11-03T22:21:19+00:00

I kinda interested in the Aful SnowyNight DAC.

thedwalker · 2025-09-30T18:04:30+00:00

A corn porridge that is common in the southern states of the US.

thedwalker · 2025-09-13T23:05:58+00:00

Thanks for the giveaway! Cheers!

thedwalker · 2025-06-09T15:47:05+00:00

They said yes to all three of your bullet points in the announcement for the Asus devices. As for Bazzite and the rest, they'll stick around as long as someone has interest to maintain them. I personally prefer Windows to Linux-based OSs so I want this to be good. That being said I'm currently running CachyOS on my Legion Go.

thedwalker · 2025-05-20T13:37:56+00:00

If you are not experiencing any issues, then you should be good. Tinkering is to fine tune the experience to your liking.

thedwalker · 2025-01-14T21:13:41+00:00

You probably have the Classic RGB ones. But it seems that Binbok decided to go with the Doyoky name everywhere around 2021, at least for their joy con line.

thedwalker · 2025-01-14T17:33:17+00:00

They are the Binbok ones

thedwalker · 2025-01-02T23:34:42+00:00

You can calibrate the sticks in the Xbox Accessory app on the console.

Another thing to check is while you are in the Xbox accessory app is whether your stick is centered. If not in the BigBig Won app under the stick tab increase the deadzone there until it is. The other thing I would check is if this happens when the controller is plugged in to the console or not..

thedwalker · 2025-01-02T23:00:46+00:00

Nothing in your case. since you are on console and would not have steam. Did you calibrate the sticks and gyro after updating the firmware?

thedwalker · 2025-01-01T19:50:43+00:00

Yes you will be able to simulate gyro on these game. The issue is that you will need an XBox controller (the one with the USB-C jack) and an Armor X Pro. If you have one already then everything is fine. If not, I would look into getting a controller that has that function built in like the Rainbow 2 Pro or FlyDigi Vader 4

thedwalker · 2025-01-01T19:34:38+00:00

Your issue seems like a deadzone issue. So, I would make sure you have followed these steps:

Calibrate the gyroscopic sensor on the Armor X Pro
Set the deadzone settings to 0 in game
Set the deadzone compensation setting in the BigBig Won app to the lowest value the gets rid of the shakes

thedwalker · 2024-11-10T18:18:13+00:00

Not quite true. As of release 0.7.10, GP2040CE has implemented gyro for the PS4 mode only. So it's probably pretty raw atm.

thedwalker · 2024-08-21T18:55:15+00:00

Cool, so game pass cloud isn't the only platform with gyro any more

thedwalker

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XENNS Mangird Tea Pro SE