V Moda’s Prototype IEMs – RMAF 2014

Val from V Moda has recently made a residency move from Los Angeles to Milan Italy, but his headphones are still trucking along with great reception within the US and the Head-Fi community. While the brand may have a hard time renewing their Apple retail store distribution with the recent acquisition of Beats by the company, things are still looking good for V-Moda with a solid reputation for both durable and fun-to-listen-to headphones.

Tyll Hertzens one of my favorite personal audio media personalities.  His in-depth coverage and technical-oriented approach to headphone reviews on Stereophile’s Inner Fidelity is some of the finest work out there. He got some great video coverage with Val at CanJam this year regarding the new V-Moda Master Editions for the M-100 and the XS that you can see below. In addition to the new SEs Val also gave me a quick glance at some new IEMs that are in the works from his company.

Now it should be known that I have not always had the best experience with V-Moda IEMs. Some early models from the company were less than perfect, but Val is out to change all that. Although I wasn’t able to take pictures of the new prototypes, I can tell you that they are experimenting with new materials and designs for the casing. The two new models he demoed for me were his take on both Zinc and Aluminum called Alto and Forza. While Aluminum is by far a more common build element for IEMs than Zinc, I was actually extremely impressed by the performance of the material. This led to even more excitement when Val let me know the approximate launch price of $100-ish (still TBD obviously). This is one to keep and eye out for. If it indeed lands around the $100 price range and keeps the performance I heard at the show, it could be a real competitor with much higher priced universal IEMs currently on the market. There are more than a few in-ear headphones already making waves in the $400’s and now even $1000+ price points, so a new contender at a more reasonable starting point would be a much welcome addition to the market.