[jant71]

Nice impressions Edwood! Good to hear though not as pricey, they seem to have performance near or better than the other 5's.

Beat me by a day as I have missed the Fed-ex guy the past two days. And the guy didn't even leave notice the first day.

They were very intriguing. Was not able to resist. When the soundstage leader talks about a phone having a wide soundstage it is tempting.

The phone has the second best freq. range behind the Triple.fi at 15-15. Also tempting.

I also know those specs(13Ohm, 115 sens.) respond well to an S-adapter to fill in some oomph and texture without adding too much bass. Could they approach the Triples unamped with the S-adapter? Not out of the realm of possibility.

The new case is for sure more usable than either the leather pouch or metal tin designs were.

The look and ergonomics leave the old designs in the dust. I'm surprised to hear they are more microphonic but they won't unseat themselves and they couldn't possibly be as bad as far as bone conduction since the cables are not as stiff. i have had version 1 and 2 cables and footsteps are much quieter with the thinner cables.

Let's see if my impressions match.

I think UE may be lowering price and not performance. They see the competition and their pricing. I think they are gonna undercut the Westone 3 and others and launch a Triple.fi 10 replacement for $299. Since the market has opened up they should be able to go for more sales at lower prices then a couple years back when serious earphones weren't as popular and they had to go for more profit with less sales volume. Everyone is making serious stuff now (AT, Senn, Klipsch, Sony, etc.) so now is a good time to come out with some hot looking stuff that performs well and is a good price and grab hold of that market share. Though the lack of detachable cables is probably a strategy to make people buy them again instead of just cables and will make them a few more bucks.