 So, Massdrop got their hands exclusively on a new product from New Force, or four products rather. It's an entire lineup of balanced armature driver in-ear monitors or IEMs, the HEM2, 4, 6, and 8. And they've got a rather unique drop running on them, where you pay less than the retail price of the least expensive unit, with a 50% chance of getting one of the higher tier ones. They reached out to me to ask for a review of the lineup. So this will be a couple of firsts for me. I've never actually formally reviewed a multi-balanced armature IEM, and, at least I don't remember, ever trying to make a video about four products in the same family, all at the same time. So wish me luck. 🎵Music🎵 Cooler Master's new Masterkeys Pro-L and Pro-S keyboards provide 16.7 million color RGB backlighting, genuine Cherry MX switches, and an industry-leading ARM Cortex processor. Learn more at the link in the video description. Let's begin with everything these four products have in common. The accessory package is nearly identical across the board and pretty darn impressive, I might add. Everything comes packed in an air and water-type polycarbonate case that, while I personally wished was smaller to hold only the accessories I'm actually likely to carry around with me, others will likely prefer the larger size so they can chuck some other valuables in while they're kayaking, or whatever it is that cool people do on the weekends. Inside that is more goodies. The smaller carrying case I asked for, though not waterproof this time, a full complement of ear tips, small, medium, and large silicone, and medium and large Comply T100 foam ear tips. I can't use them because my ear canals are too small, but they're a nice bonus if yours aren't. The last couple of accessories are a braided OFC copper, apparently there's silver in it too or something, like that, a cable without a microphone, and a second cable with a microphone. Both offer decent if unexceptional tangle resistance, and the braided one looks admittedly pretty cool. One thing to watch out for here, though, is make sure you plug your cable into the IEM really firmly to engage the lock. I made that mistake a couple of times. The last thing that's similar across the board is the outer design of the housing. They get heavier as you move up to the more premium products, but they all feel very similar in the ear, which is a really good thing because IMO, New Force, nailed the comfort of these. They seal really well and offer noticeably better noise isolation than my daily driver IE 80s, although it should be noted that they don't transport you into a completely other world like the Edemotic ER4 series. And they were comfortable, even while lying down on my side, a critical factor if you're like me and you sleep with your IEMs in. So with that out of the way, let's start at the bottom of the product stack. The HEM2s with their single balanced armature design deliver a pretty clear, analytical high-end with one-dimensional, though thankfully fairly punchy bass. I did find them a little fatiguing to listen to as I prefer a more veiled high-end. My closest point of comparison to these, sorry my earphone stable is a little limited, is my $100 Shure SE215s. By comparison, those sounded boomy with uncontrolled bass and made lyricists sound like they were singing through a blanket. But at least they allowed me to hear the hum background vocalists in Better When I'm Dancing by Meghan Trainor. I could hardly even tell they were singing different notes with the HEM2s. At double the price for improved comfort, a better accessory package, and pretty much a textbook comparison between the trade-offs that you make between dynamic drivers and balanced armature drivers, I guess the choice is yours, but I'd personally go for the better sounding dynamic drivers. Let's step up to the $300 dual balanced armature HEM4s. These are very, very dangerous waters. At the exact same price as my daily driver Sennheiser IE80s, these had better deliver in spades. And while they carry forward the lyrical strength, not to mention the sparkly and for me slightly fatiguing highs of their little brother, and add a much more expressive, if a touch loose low end, where they fall flat for me is in anything anthemic. Roar by Katy Perry and Marry You by Bruno Mars being solid examples. They bring the vocalist forward in a way that makes it feel like the background music is de-emphasized. It's as though the singer is being beamed directly into my ear canals and it's, I don't know, it's hard to put my finger on it. It's like the background music is out of focus. I mean, don't get me wrong, you want to listen to vocalists like Linda Ronstadt all day? The HEM4s will really impress you, and I'll likely end up popping them in from time to time. They just don't work as an all-rounder for me. Which is not my final word on the HEM lineup. With the HEM6 you move from a dual to a triple balanced armature design and a fuller, more natural sound. While I prefer the rumble of my IE80s in a song like Zayn's recent hit Pillow Talk, the HEM6 delivers controlled lows and carries forward much of the vocal clarity of the HEM4s and 2s without the fatiguing sparkly highs and that uncanny sensation that I got in some songs from the lower end models. They're actually very pleasing to listen to. So while I don't think the HEM6s are going to rock the skulls of the EDN and basshead folks out there, for pop, rock, alternative, and well, I mean, most of what the mainstream is going to be listening to, these are tuned really well. At the price, if all I was getting was the headphone and a cable, I would still have a hard time recommending them. But given that I caved a couple weeks ago and paid $70 with shipping for a first party microphone cable for my IE80s after wasting $20 on a crappy third party one that was obscenely uncomfortable, boom, there goes the pricing advantage and the two carrying cases are a much, much better solution than the cumbersome one that Sennheiser includes with the IE80. I guess you could interpret that as a recommendation. So then, the HEM8 should be a foregone conclusion, right? The 8 out of 8 rating joke is begging to be made here, and I'd have done it for sure. Only the HEM8s really didn't impress me. From the moment I put them in my ears, vocals sounded obscured by a bassier, more beats generation sound signature that just wasn't present in any of the other SKUs. To be clear, some people will really like them. I'm just not one of them. It was suggested to me by my Massdrop contact that I might like them better after giving the whopping four balanced armature drivers in the HEM8 some time to burn in, so I left them running in a corner of my office overnight and came back to them. Any difference the burn-in period might have made must have been too subtle for my ears to pick up on. The bass line in Do I Have to Say the Words by Bryan Adams still dominates the song in a way that it doesn't with anything else in the testing lineup today. Given the choice between the HEM6 and the 8, even at the same price, I would take the HEM6. Which I guess leads us then to the ultimate conclusion. Having never looked at anything from the New Force lineup before, the package, comfort, and construction quality really impressed me. And while I wish the sound signature was a little more unified across a product family that bears the same name, I understand that from a one to a four balanced armature design, that's a difficult thing to do, and I think that the HEM4 and the HEM6 are the strongest of the four offerings, especially given their price points. Thanks for watching guys! If this video sucked, you know what to do, but if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, and even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon. Instructions up there by buying a cool shirt like this one, or with a monthly contribution through our community forum, which by the way, you should just join and like, ask questions, get answers, answer questions, it's cool, it's fun. 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