The ZiiGaat Odyssey 2 and the Shure SE215 are both IEMs, and owners give both 4.4 stars. Reviewers don’t see them as equals: they rank the first near the top of the catalogue and the second near the bottom. Nothing on a store page would tell you that.
That turns out to be the rule rather than the exception. Every Overreview on Audiowords records the owner rating where one exists, almost always Amazon’s, next to a consensus score built from what reviewers actually wrote. This piece sticks to headphones, IEMs and speakers, where a verdict is mostly a matter of opinion. In all, 329 of them have a solid owner rating, from at least 20 owners. That’s enough to ask a simple question: do products with more stars get better reviews?
If they did, the chart below would show a cloud of dots climbing from left to right. It climbs, but only a little.
Figure 1Live data
Owner stars and reviewer scores
Here’s a plainer test. Take the 25 products owners rate highest. Reviewers put six of them in their own top 25. Picking at random would manage about two. Follow all 25 into the reviewers’ ranking, and one in eight end up in its bottom quarter.
Figure 2Live data
Where owners’ top 25 land with reviewers
Each line runs from one of owners’ 25 highest-rated products to its place in the reviewers’ ranking of all 329 headphones, IEMs and speakers.
Everything is four and a half stars
Part of the problem is the scale itself. Owners give nearly every product here four stars or more, and half the catalogue sits between 4.2 and 4.6. That leaves a few tenths of a star to separate a favourite from an also-ran.
The reviewer score is built to leave that room. It runs from 0 to 100 and puts a mixed verdict at 60, near the middle, so a middling product looks middling. Clear praise scores around 80, and anything under 60 leans critical. It also moves in whole points instead of tenths of a star, so smaller differences still show.
The two headphones at the start of this piece make the point. Both show 4.4 stars on a store page. The reviewer score gives the ZiiGaat Odyssey 2 81, “well liked”, and the Shure SE215 59, “leans critical”.
Where they part ways
The biggest disagreements run in both directions. Owners put the Yamaha HS5 near the top of their list. Reviewers put it near the bottom of theirs. Audio Science Review measured it and put the low end bluntly: “Alas, it has no bass or low end.”1
The Yamaha HS8, a studio monitor, is another owner favourite that reviewers rank near the bottom.
Going the other way, reviewers put the KEFINE Delci near the top of their list. Owners leave it near the bottom of theirs. One reviewer calls it “the Toyota Camry of the IEM world, not super exciting”2. It’s meant as praise, but it may explain why buyers are less keen.
Sound is only part of it
Much of the gap probably comes down to what each side is judging. Critical reviewers mostly judge the sound: its balance, its detail, how it stacks up against its rivals. Owners judge everything they live with. Is it comfortable after a few hours? Does it still work after a year? Does it look good? Was it worth the money? That goes double for wireless earbuds and designer headphones, where sound is only part of what you pay for.
None of this makes owner ratings useless. They answer a different question: were buyers happy with what they chose? So before you trust either number, ask what you want from the experience. If sound comes first, read the reviewers. If comfort, looks or value come first, owners may tell you more. Where an owner rating exists, each Overreview shows both side by side.
The charts redraw whenever a new Overreview is published. This version covers 329 headphones, IEMs and speakers with owner ratings, as of 10 November 2026.