It's funny how I had not one but two different IEM collaborations recently which crossed the $1000 price range. Keep in mind that the only other such collab set involving a reviewer/influencer and an IEM brand was the very first such venture that I am aware of—the Fearless Audio x Crinacle Dawn—which was also a kilobuck set. The vast majority of such joint efforts direct themselves on the more budget-friendly market segment where the risk-to-reward ratio is in favor of making the product a reality. Some have seen it be an easy way to generate sales to the point where there is definitely "collab fatigue" in the audiophile IEM audience. This is even before we talk about any potential biases involved for both the person involved with the collaboration and others reviewing the sets, although this is just another bias entry to be added to an already long and existing one in this space. I am personally no longer inclined to check out a collab which is just a re-tuning of an existing set and would rather encourage brands to put out something new. Some of the very best IEMs released in the past few years have come out of collaborations and have been new IEMs altogether—the Tripowin x HBB Olina SE was my favorite to recommend to many people until it got discontinued, much to my disappointment.

While HBB has several other collabs come out since, nothing remotely came near the price point of the ZiiGaat x HBB Jupiter. This is a tough market to be in for any IEM brand, let alone a new one without the brand awareness to help justify sales. In this case, it is just HBB and the retailer who have to come out with the marketing guns and I have to call out Linsoul here for doing a pretty terrible job. Not only does the product job lack any information or photos of the accessories and cable, it barely does anything to try and justify why someone would want to opt for the $1600 Jupiter over, say, a $300 ThieAudio Hype 2. The conspiracy theorist in me wants to think this is on purpose since ZiiGaat isn't a Linsoul house brand and the retailer doesn't get as big a revenue share this time round. There's also the part where Linsoul tries to claim this is a Linsoul x HBB collaboration despite it not being involved further beyond the exclusive sales of the set. If it was, the Jupiter would be openly promoted on the home page and social media, instead there is a woeful lack of reviews. I understand this is an expensive set of course, but surely an IEM review tour or two could have been arranged? Given how IEMs live or die by reviews even for many established brands, this collab feels like it tried to attack the status quo and someone did not like it.

Perhaps I am ranting here but that is because there is a good chance the Jupiter will not be experienced by many people and be dismissed because it costs too much. Yes, it is an expensive set and I am not sure about the pricing strategy here. I would have loved to see it being priced closer to the $1200 price point where it competitively takes on the likes of the ThieAudio Prestige and bests it outright in many ways. The Jupiter is a very good set of IEMs with a deliberate tonality that checks off a lot of boxes on my wishlist of IEMs in 2024. It's a smartly tuned set that plays to its strengths and showcases what the OEM/ODM for many other brands, ZiiGaat, is capable of. It does this while not sounding the same as other expensive IEMs either, so there is certainly a customer base who should be interested in it. Time will tell whether the Jupiter ends up a victim of its pricing or not given how ruthless the IEM market is but I am happy to acknowledge that the Jupiter has significantly more pros than cons, offers an enjoyable listening experience while still being comfortable, and can retrieve details similar to far more expensive sets too. It merits a recommendation, albeit a conditional one given the price point that most people simply can't afford.