Introduction

IKKO was the very first IEM brand I reviewed, so it holds a special place in my heart. The OH10 also turned out to be something else—heavy on bass and mass. The company then took a much smaller, shinier route with the newer OH1s in-ear monitors, and that too was good in what it offered. It was certainly a different tuning compared to the OH10, but still a set of IEMs nonetheless. IKKO has seemingly decided to expand its portfolio this year with a lot more non-IEM options coming out, and we take a look at a combination today.


Portable DAC/amp combo units are not necessarily new to me, already being familiar with offerings from FiiO, EarMen, and Qudelix. The new IKKO Zerda ITM01, which I shall henceforth only refer to as "ITM01" for convenience, is the least expensive of the set to date by a big margin. It is a wired-only set that uses magnetic connectors to reduce wear and tear on the source side and has a couple of different DSP modes integrated. Almost simultaneously, IKKO released a set of upgraded cables, the ITM-IKKOFFL with an equally bad name but a feature set that indicates more compatible products will be coming up. My original plan was to do a quick-look article of the ITM01 before the cables showed up, so I decided to combine the two into a multi-page article instead. Thanks again to IKKO for arranging these review samples for TechPowerUp!

Specifications