Do I need to upgrade?

Help/advice

Hi everyone, I'm thinking about upgrading my current iem's I use for gaming, which are the KZ castor bass. I have 2 iem pairs, the KZ castor bass and the KZ as16 pro x and I enjoy both very much, the KZ as16 pro x are for daily use (music) with my phone and a cheap dongle dac I bought on AliExpress. I was considering these options: Truthear crinacle zero blue, moondrop lan 2 pop, Kz Phantom, kefine klean and Kz castor pro. I'd use them for gaming (FPS mostly), movies, and music (metal and all that heavy bass stuff) I'm kind of a newbie on this world so I don't really know what exact curve of audio curve I enjoy (bc I don't understand them) I was hoping to get something with a good detail level, good instrument separation but not neutral, I enjoy a V shape firm. I'm open to try equalization with Poweramp or APO so I'm not planning to use the stock iem's (I'm not good but I'm planning to learn, I equalize my iem's just using my ears and how I like it more when I move different frequencies but I don't know if it's technically correct :)) an option would be to just stop using the Kz castor, use the Kz as 16 pro x for gaming and buy another model for daily use with my phone so if you think that's a good option, please don't hesitate to point it :) my budget would be maybe 100 dollars (usa dollars or Mexican pesos but I don't think that's a common currency here) I could stretch to 120 dollars but I would rather keep it under 100. if you have any recommendations, I'll be grateful to hear and consider them (please don't insult me for using and considering Kz as an option) I'm planning to buy on AliExpress so I'll be helpful if you recommended a model that I could find there, thank you for reading and for your advice

Posted Jun 15, 2026, 1:02 PM UTC

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