Beginner's Guide

What are IEMs or In-Ears Monitors and how are they different from Earphones?

You're probably listening to the term in-ear monitor for the first time while browsing our incredible collection of headphones on our website, and you're asking yourself what is an in-ear monitor? And how is it different from any other regular earphones that you may have out there? So we are going to try and explain to you what the term in-ear monitor or IEM means.

Intro 

Hi guys this is Raghav here from headphone Zone. You're probably listening tothe term in ear monitor for the first time while you're browsing this incrediblecollection of headphones on our website and you're asking yourself what's inear monitor? and how is it different from any other regular earphone that youmay have out there. So I'm gonna try and explain to you what the term in earmonitor or IEM really means. 


What are In Ear Monitors 


Now most of us are familiar with an in ear earphone. It's a canal type earphonewith the silicon earbud that goes inside the ear canal and gives you a really nicesnug fit and blocks out the outside sound and a lot of the earphones that youand I have been using over the last 10 15 years are all in-ear earphones that goin. It's a little bit different from the open style earbuds that sometimes peoplewho have an old earphone lying around are familiar with, which sits on theoutside and in ear earphone goes in but in ear earphones on their own are verydifferent from in your monitors. In ear monitors were designed by professionalmusicians and mix engineers for artists, singers and musicians to use on stage.When you're performing on stage as a musician you need to be able to listen toyourself, your singing, your guitar playing, your drumming for you to know howyou sound with the entire band and traditionally how you would do this on stageis to use a pair of monitor speakers. Monitor speakers are placed on the flooron stage pointed upwards for you to listen to yourself while you're performingon stage and monitor speakers have been there since time immemorial but atsome point of time people started asking themselves that hey is there a betterway of listening to yourself on stage than having really really loud speakerstrying to cut through the sound of the crowd. For you to be able to hearyourself an in ear monitor was born. In ear monitor allow you to listen to yourown singing, your own playing on stage by blocking out the sound of the crowdat relatively controlled of volumes. Now with in ear monitors the emphasis is onquality you want to be able to listen to each and every instrument with perfectaccuracy and detail, so in-ear monitors can pack a lot of different drivers andspeakers into these tiny tiny shells that sit on your ears and can sometimes get a little heavy and therefore they're typically worn over your years, so that theweight of the earphones is taken up by your earlobe, very similar to wearing apair of glasses. The weight of the glasses sits on your earlobe with traditionallyyour phones that you and I are familiar with, we typically just put them into ourear and leave them there but over long hours it pulls down on your ear creatinga lot of fatigue and pain and especially if you've got heavy earphones it cannotbe suitable for long hours of listening and in your monitor is built specifically tobe very very comfortable to fit in your ears like a glove and to be used for longhours at an end. Now in monitors used to be very very expensive until a fewyears ago you would typically find that they would have 8, 12, 15 drivers perside and that costs a lot of money and they can sound fabulous but with timetechnology has trickled down to a place where today in-ear monitors don't costyou more than a few thousand rupees and they can sound absolutely fabulousas compared to traditional in ear earphones which are out there. You'll find inear monitors are built for only and only one purpose which is for it to soundincredible. You'll find that the music can sound lifelike, can sound realistic andyou find that if they fit in your ear they do a great job blocking out the outsidesound, while remaining comfortable enough for you to wear for many manyhours at a stretch. Today you'll find that we use the word in ear monitor todescribe a lot of different high-end, high quality earphones which are availableout there today and the principle is still the same.OutroAll right there you have it folks. That's really the very simple difference betweenan in-ear monitor and regular earphones. It makes all the difference in the worldwhen you upgrade yourself to an IEM and I highly suggest that you try one outto know for yourself.