Decommissioning my old IEMs
Story #
I have used my pair of IEMs for 2 years and it has had its ups and downs throughout its lifetime of being used. To start off, I bought my CCA CRA in mid 2021 when my old headphones which are the Razer Kraken X broke apart exactly after 1 year of usage because of its lackluster build quality from Razer on cheap products. When I bought my IEMs I realized how good the sound quality is when compared to the Razer headphones while also being much cheaper than its counterpart.
Before IEMs #
Precursor to when I bought my IEMs, I used the Razer headphones because I had ZERO knowledge on buying good headsets and also because of it being cheap when compared to other gamer-y headsets from known brands. What I didn't know about Razer was their build quality on cheaper products tend to be horrible and I spent a good one year without knowing that. I still have the broken headphones hanging on my wall on display, makes a really good decoration on my wall.
I logged on my usual chatroom and asked for earphone suggestions on there with a budget set in mind. One of the people there who is an audiophile mentioned to buy the KZ x Crinacle CRN but I told them it's not for sale where I'm at, and even then the ones sold in other shops cost a fortune. I asked them about buying other KZ IEMs but they told me not to buy them since the others around my price range are a hit or miss.
When I looked for alternatives around my price range, I was intrigued when I saw a listing for a MYR75 (USD15) CCA CRA (the CRA+ wasn't released around that time). I did know what I was getting for the price and so I ordered it.
Using the IEMs #
The CCA CRA came with a translucent cable showing off the copper wires inside, I don't like how it looked when paired with the earpieces themselves. It also felt cheap and gets tangled a lot but I knew what I got for the price. I never did replace the cable with a different one because the audio quality could vary between cables.
As for the earpiece covers themselves, I have to say it's just plastic with a cheap metal piece glued to give them more weight. It's just not aesthetically pleasing overall however I could roleplay as a racing driver putting on/off their earpiece cover with these. The molding of the plastic is typical to most IEMs you can find on the market.
The box it came in also had three different sized ear plug sets and one set made of cushy foam. I used the foam plugs for a week until it started deteriorating. They fit my ears perfectly but because of this issue I had to use the original ones the IEMs came with. Since these aren't really noise-cancelling earphones I was surprised because the foam plugs cancels out outside sounds much better than the soft plastic(?) buds the earpieces came with.
I can't comment much about the sound quality on these IEMs because I have only used one headphone and a lot of cheap earphones but if I had to, it sounds much much better than everything I've used before with the exception of a Sony earbuds. Once it had broken in, every song I've listened felt like it had more bass than the earphones I've had before. I would say these were great value for the time and even now, they are good IEMs to buy on a budget especially with how cheap they have become. One other pair of IEMs I had in mind was the Moondrop Chu which has better material but it has a non-replaceable cable so if it ever broke, I can't really do much other than buying another set of headsets.
One year of usage #
After using it for a year it started to have issues with one side sounding much louder than the other. Searching around for solutions on the internet, all I had to do was remove the protective piece of paper(?)/plastic(?) (I'm not too sure) protecting the internals of the IEMs from oil. It was said that earwax could block out the piece and I was sort of surprised as I never thought to clean the earpiece themselves. I do clean the plugs when it gets noticeably dirty from all the earwax. Once the piece was removed, my IEMs were much louder than with the piece on.
Around a year and a half or so, the ear plug on one of the earpieces went missing and so I had to settle with the medium-sized ear plugs. They don't really fit my ear best and so I wore them less and lesser as days go by. It just lacks the ergonomics the old ones had.
When it broke #
I wouldn't say these IEMs broke, it's more of them being more unusable in it's lifetime. In September 2023, the left piece became less louder than it used to be. When I mess around with the audio jack the volume gets more different on the left side whereas on the right side it stayed the same. I initially assumed it had something to do with the cables so I ordered new cables(decently priced ones) but the issue persists.
This was manageable up until when the left piece went silent when plugged into my phone(yes, my phone has a headphone jack, its 2023 wow would you believe that) and the sound on it never came back. Using it on a computer, I have had to do more janky tampering with the connector itself just to get the sound on the left side back on.
This got more annoying and I had to use my old Sony earbuds for music on my phone instead. The CCA CRA was a good pair of IEMs I have used and I feel sad for having to leave these unused since it does its job well.
New IEMs #
Ever since my CCA CRA 'broke' I bought new IEMs to replace it which are the TangZu WanEr costing around the same as when I bought my old ones. I chose the jade green colour option and it looks really good in person and in picture. The packaging it came in is also super neat. I wanted the Moondrop Chu II originally since it has a more premium build quality but I settled for the WanEr instead because it has almost the same audio profile as the CCA CRA but a lot better.
Closing off #
In hindsight, I could've gone with a different headset instead of the Razer headphones that broke easily if I had done more research, but without those breaking I wouldn't get introduced to a whole different category of headsets that far surpasses the sound quality of the Razers.