Where to buy
Some of the IEM that I have been talking about might be difficult to get in your country. They even might be not for sale at all. That doesn’t have to be such a big problem, since nowadays it’s easy to buy products abroad. Moreover, you can save a lot of money by buying your gear in the United States or Japan for example.
Your IEM will often be cheaper when bought abroad, even when you include the shipping cost. My experiences with buying in foreign countries are very positive. Once you have made your choice you can use Froogle or Pricegrabber to find your favourable (web) shops. Make sure they also deliver abroad and ask them to send your package marked as ‘gift’, stating the worth of the contents to be approximately $50,=. Besides that it is wise to send the package by USPS. If done so, there is only a slight chance that customs will get their hands on your parcel to make you pay import duty.
An even better solution is to ask someone who travels to and from the United States regularly to take your IEM with him. Of course, you can also browse the web to find a shop somewhere in the world.
I can recommend the following hifi-stores:
Todd The Vinyl Junkie
Audiocubes
Ideal Sound
Headroom.
The price of good IEM varies a lot. And I can’t stress it enough: you are the one who decides what’s good! I will give you some information about IEMs ranging from $40,= up to $1000,=. When I bought my first pair of hi-end monitors I was shocked by the price. $20 was an enormous amount of money, I thought. Although I never regretted my purchase, after some time I thought it was time to up grade. Then I bought a pair of $100, followed by a pair of $250 and eventually even a pair of $450. So, once you’ve started on this hobby, be prepared: you’ll want to improve your gear and that can be quite expensive.
