Against all odds, Truthear has done it again! It's now four times in a row that its products have been not only impressive for the money, but also impressive in general by being actually good. When the brand teased a "budget IEM killer" late last year I was admittedly getting weary of seeing all these Chinese audio brands participate in a race to the bottom of the price pool. There's only so much you can do before people get tired of very similar sounding sets at similar price points too. Yet I have to point out how lucky we are to have multiple such options at $20 or under where tuning is no longer an issue. Such sets were costing closer to $80-100 a few months ago, and much more than that a couple of years ago!

There are certainly other options now and I've discussed quite a few of them on the previous page. I don't have every single one here of course but overall I do feel Truthear wins with the HOLA courtesy the use of a bigger, arguably better dynamic driver that makes for a reasonably impressive bass and also providing a decent set of accessories at the same time. Even having a detachable cable is still not guaranteed in this market, let alone one that looks and feels like a cable a few brands would sell separately for far more than what the HOLA costs. I am not going to tell you the HOLA is a must have, just that it does everything well enough to merit a strong recommendation. Given it's also my current favorite of the budget IEMs tested, I will go ahead and give it an Editor's Choice award.

Now we get to the SHIO that I think is the real winner for Truthear. It will draw several comparisons to the $190 MOONDROP MoonRiver 2 given a similar feature set inside and out and it does so while offering the same excellent sound output while having a more practical design. It does not have as well-engineered an audio circuitry as the MoonRiver 2, and potentially also the dongle form factor MOONDROP DAWN, but being able to give you the features of the former for the price of the latter makes it a win. I certainly don't see any need to go look at other takes on the MoonRiver 2, such as the JCally AP98—possible OEM for both, not sure—given the SHIO costs less than everything else comparable. I am not convinced the leather wrap will be durable, but for the time being it's another easy win for Truthear.