From the packaging I expected a cheap feeling IEM that looked the part, thankfully Audio Technica cares more about the design of the IEM than the packaging. The CKM500 are a well-built IEM that feels solid throughout and looks very nice to boot.

Let’s start with the housing, the first thing I would like to mention is that this is quite possibly my favorite shape of IEM. The reason why I love the shape of the IEM is that it limits how far the IEM can go in your ear while also sitting comfortably in the outside of my ear. The shape of the CKM500 makes these very easy to simply put in your ear and not worry about setting them correctly unlike my JAYS q-JAYS or my Meelectronics A161p, which I’m constantly fiddling around with. The shape of the housing lends to a semi-deep insertion that feels very secure with my Meelectronics double flanged tips, which I highly recommend for these.

I’ll touch on that more later though, how are they built? Well the CKM500 are all plastic and have a few sections in the housing starting with a rather wide nozzle that has some sort of cloth filter as opposed to a metal or plastic meshed one. Going towards the body on the part of the IEM that will touch your ear there is a right and left indicator as well as the model number in light grey that makes it very easy to read on the black plastic. Going outwards we get to the colored part, mine is a midnight blue which only makes up for a small portion of the housing, but provides a beautiful contrast sandwiched between the black ends. The outside of the IEM narrows out to a small cylinder with the Audio Technica logo on the back. Everything feels well put together and I have no worries of causing the housing to fall apart due to stress like the RE0 I owned.

Coming down from the back cylinder a solid rubber stress relief offers a little leeway, but looks like it’s going to keep the cable stress free for a long time and I have no worries about the cable breaking at the housing. The cable itself is rather flexible, but feels very sturdy as well. I have complete confidence that this cable will hold up for many years. The cable has a y-split, though no cinch to help reduce microphonics and the cable terminates very early which makes it almost necessary to use the cable extension.

I talked a bit about the fit earlier and I absolutely love the shape of these because of how easy they are to put in, I don’t have to think about it at all unlike every deep insertion IEMs that have a rather straight shape. I could potentially see this shape causing irritation for those with small ears though, but I’ve not heard any complaints so far. The CKM500 sit semi-deep, but don’t provide much isolation by themselves even with my Meelectronics double flanged tips. Microphonics are also an issue that can be a hassle when exercising and could have simply been reduced with a cinch, but I guess that was overlooked. Many people resolve this issue by wearing their IEMs over-ear, but the shape of these makes it very awkward unless you wear them on the opposite ear, that causes audio quality/fidelity problems though since you’ll get reverse imaging problems. Comfort was also a problem for me with the included tips, they weren’t long enough to get a good seal and it caused irritation to my ear, the Meelectronics double flanged tips help this though by providing just enough distance to allow the housing to sit comfortably in my ear. To put things into perspective, I’ve been wearing these for 2-3 hour sessions before the comfort bothers me, and I’m sure I could solve this with softer tips or something.