In the audiophile world, yes. You’ll need a DAC or a headphone amp which most has built in DAC. usually will give you 2 maybe 3 connections options Single ended 3.5mm AKA headphones jack, Balanced 4.4mm and sometime the 1/4” or 6.35mm. For us Muso, the 3.5mm and 6.35mm are what we use.
Some will try to tell you that the Balanced 4.4mm or the 4-pin XLR sounds the best, it’s just not true, the more accurate term would be louder because it’s balanced it takes power from both as each channel gets both signal and inverted copy and Often ~2× voltage swing → up to ~4× power into the same load. If you match the volume level to the Single Ended 3.5mm they just sound the same.
You can plug it into your laptop, mixer and DAI or your amp with the 3.5-6.35 adapter.
Yes. Absolutely. If you want a better experience just get a Dongle DAC especially to use with your phone. Most will be neutral but some can be very pleasing to a musician. Like class A/B or R2r.
No it will sound good on both. If you want to use it for mastering then a different kind of tuning is recommended for timbre accuracy.
Yes but a little more gear toward musicians. It’s actually first developed for Live performing musicians. It’s ripped straight from the hearing aid people.
Even the “Universal” IEM will seal your ear pretty well and blocking the sounds from coming in and all you hear is what’s in your ear, and you can have the volume turn down to a healthy level. You can do that with the Headphones but it’s you know, headphone and it gets hot too, and Earbuds is not ideal for seal. There’s no wireless option. None in playing music except for the Spark Neo and Waza Air Bass.
Personal use you don’t need much, just some easy to drive IEM. Let me know if/ when you want to take a plunge, I’ll walk you through the first step. I’ll get you into some good dual duty set that won’t cost you an arm and a leg.
The next level up is On a gig you can get pretty fancy too if the setup is right. Some of the song we do on the gig is triggered and Sequenced, preprogram into the IEM, I’d hear click follow by “Intro” and count in 1-2-3-4, then Verse 1, etc, love it.
In fact, try this. It’s the best $40 you’d spent this month.
And maybe one of this if you want to listen on your phone. Get Tiny A if you want to charge and use your 3.5mm at the same time and Get Tiny B if you are going to get more IEMs for music listening later.