The best IEMs for gaming 2025

When people think of the best IEMs for gaming, they think about FPS games or competitive shooters. Nobody seems to account for the rest of the gaming space. How about the story-driven games, such as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 with tons of dialogue, and an amazing backing soundtrack. Action-heavy games like Monster Hunter Wilds, where you can hear the ambiance of large environments, the explosion of barrel bombs, and roaring of monsters 10 times your size, there’s the annoying kid too, I suppose. There are cozy games where you chill on an island with some cute and soothing background music as you attempt to recover from the tons of debt you keep accruing from a raccoon that’s hell bent on keeping you there.

Regardless of which type of game you’re most likely to play, IEMs are a good alternative to gaming headsets. IEMs take up less space and are easy to wear for long periods, and you don’t get the dreaded headphone dent. For the most part, we will be sticking to easily available IEMs. While most gamers will have a preference for having a built-in mic, not every gamer requires or even has communication. That is why you might find the best “gaming” IEM list does not have a gaming-specific IEM like the Razer Moray.  Many gamers play single-player games or even local co-op, like Mario Party.

Just to note, we will only be recommending IEMs we have tried or tested ourselves. So if you don’t see your favourite on the list, it’s possible we haven’t tried it yet. Make sure to let us know what your favourites are down below. Check out the quick answer if you just want the list, with the details of each product farther down.

The Quick Answer

For a quick guide to the best IEMs that suit your needs and budget, check out our top picks below. Each has a link to our full review.

The best overall/for most people: Truthear Hexa

The best for story-driven games: Truthear Gate

The best for action and adventure games: Meze Audio Alba

The best for cozy games: Moondrop Chu II

The best for competitive shooters: Oriveti Dynabird

Best overall/for most people: Truthear Hexa

The Truthear Hexa is an inexpensive, higher-quality IEM that’s a great all-arounder that doesn’t do particularly horribly in any game, with the downside that they don’t do particularly excellent in any genre either. This is a downside if you’re not a variety gamer, and focus on specific games, whether it’s dialogue-heavy story games, highest performance for competitive games like Counter Strike Global Offensive 2 or League of Legends, or want to completely immerse yourself in an action game. You can also use them for editing vocals, or for audio monitoring and mixing if you’re a great if you’re a variety streamer or YouTuber.

In gaming, they do very well overall; they aren’t fatiguing to listen to over time, making them good to be used over long periods. There’s a good amount of separation, which is good for competitive games, where you can identify ability queues without too much difficulty. Decent ability to place the location of a source of sound, which is great in most competitive shooters. They are a little on the larger size, which means you might have some issues with fit, although with my ears, they fit a little on the snug side, and felt a little heavy, but weren’t uncomfortable. I could wear them for 4 plus hours without issue.

Read our full Truthear Hexa review

Best For dialogue heavy/story games: Truthear Gate

For dialogue-heavy games, the separation of sounds will be the top priority, while keeping vocals in the front of the mix. Closely followed by making sure the IEMs don’t sound fatiguing when listening to them, which means we don’t want too much treble energy. With comfort being the last of the priority list as generally with story focused games you’ll be playing roughly 2 to 4 hours at a time.

Which is why the top pick for dialogue-heavy story games is going to be the Truthear Gate. In games like Cyberpunk 2077, the dialogue doesn’t get lost in the mix, even with background music and other environmental noise. high-pitched sounds like the crystaline chimes aren’t painful, and the Truthear Gate are easy to listen to for hours on end without much issues, although some might find it annoyingly unnatural due to the lack of brilliance from the treble. They fit in my ears just fine, and they’re light without any notable points of pressure. Wearing these for a long time at over 6 hours, didn’t pose any issues either. They don’t have a lot of rumble for action games, and aren’t very accurate in sound positioning you’re better off going with something else.

Read our full Truthear Gate review

Best for action or adventure games: Meze Audio Alba

In action and adventure games, you’re likely wanting to be in the action. Immerse themselves in the action without any compromise, explosions should rumble, the crack of ice breaking beneath your very feet painfully obvious, vehicles whooshing by with breakneck speed. You’ll want it loud and in your face for the most part. For some people, an included mic would be good here, but it is almost always better to get a proper microphone, out current pick doesn’t have an included microphone, but you can easily get a replacement cable that has one built in.

Putting you in the action is the Meze Audio Alba. It has a deep and punchy bass, but not so much that it muddies the overall sound, and there are times when the treble feels painful to the ears, something we actually want when being immersed, to feel that building fall and crumble each glass panel at a time. Bass from explosions has enough pressure that you can feel the rumble. The vocals stand out, feeling forward in the mix even when in busy scenes. The separation between sounds is excellent, but it doesn’t sound very wide. The sound feels like it comes from in between my ears, leading to the feeling of sounds panning from left to right incredibly fast, and constantly feeling close. This is horrible in competitive shooters, making them difficult to use.

Read our full Meze Audio Alba review

Best for cozy games: Moondrop Chu II

Read our full Moondrop Chu II review

Best for competitive shooters: Oriveti Bleqk Dynabird

For competitive games, people tend to look for the most accurate placement of sound, but what is more important is sound separation and isolation. Sound separation is important, as you don’t want to miss audio cues such as an enemy trying to flank you, or third party coming from behind, despite having the loud and terribly obvious sounds of a firefight going on. Isolation comes in with a close second, as it won’t matter if you aren’t blocking out as much of the outside world as possible. Leaving spatial width and depth last, despite still being important. The more accurate the spatial width, the better you’re able to tell the direction of the flanking enemy the easier it is to pre-aim at the location of where they’re likely to break cover especially in games like Valorant and CSGO2. With a good spatial depth you’ll find it easier to tell how far a firefight is, the easier it is for you to make decisions of where to go on a map if you’re playing a battle arena type game such as Apex Legends or Fornite

The Oriveti Bleqk Dynabird has great separation. I was easily able to separate gunfire, enemy movement, ability cues, and team communication. The bass doesn’t lose rumble, it’s never overbearing, and doesn’t cover up team communication. The treble doesn’t have any sharp sibilance that can be distracting. The fit on the stock eartips are great, and I find that despite only having passive isolation, it tends to block out a good chunk of noise, and what does go through isn’t distracting compared to the sound from the game audio. For spatial depth and width, it’s odd that I can even tell if a sound is coming from behind me with scary accuracy, unlike most IEMs where you can only tell that it is from behind. It’s even more accurate to the sides and front, to the point I can differentiate sounds above and below me. The downside is that the accuracy can be distracting when you’re just playing a cozy game. Let’s be real, how accurate do you want to hear a dog move from the left side of the screen to the other?

Owned and used by one of the Sound Guys team

The best IEMs for Gaming: Notable mentions

Alternatives if the size or fit is unlikely to fit your ears, or a close second that might have done well, but did not do quite as good as the best in their category.

• For overall gaming: Sennheiser IE200 ($119 at Amazon) is normally used in the music industry for monitoring, but their small size and great overall sound make them do well in most game genres.
• For story-driven games: Tangzu Waner ($24.99 at Amazon) is a good choice as they tend to underemphasise the temporal effects of most voices, such as echo.
• For action games: Truthear x Crinacle Zero: Blue 2 ($69.99 at Amazon) is great, especially if you like a lot of bass and rumble. But doesn’t quite drop you into the action.
• For Cozy games: Kiwi Ears Cadenza ($35 at Amazon) for those looking for a warm leaning earbud that is easy to listen to for a long period, however, it does get warm in the ear physically as well.
• For Competitive Gaming: Salnotes Crinacle x 7hz ($22.99 at Amazon)  is great if you want to hear every footstep but can be fatiguing over time and isn’t as precise in positioning sound sources as the current best.

How we test IEMs

Using a dummy head, product designers can test out how audio products will perform for most people — and so do we. We run a number of tests, including frequency response, isolation, and microphone demos. You can read more about it here and learn more about the specifics.

• For each product, we played several sine sweeps through the earphones. Once we arrived at a representative result, we logged the frequency response, demonstrating the hallmarks of a good acoustic seal.
• To test isolation, we play a sample of shaped noise at 90dB(SPL) (measured at the eardrum), once with the headphones off and another with the headphones on. We then subtract one measurement from the other.

These basic tests cover the biggest areas of concern with IEMs. Additionally, you could squeak out better isolation performance if you use third-party tips on your earbuds.

Why you should trust SoundGuys

We pride ourselves on our ability to show our work and justify why we selected our picks. SoundGuys takes integrity very seriously.

Everything we recommend results from our objective measurements and great subjective experiences. Ultimately, we want you to enjoy your purchase or, at the very least, leave our site with a little more knowledge about the inner workings of audio.

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