This is a fun earbud, but I agree with the other reviews that it's a little overpriced.

The signature is not dark, but what's nice is that there's very little treble peak that allows these to be enjoyed for a long listen.

However, it lacks a lot of detail, even without making the jump from iem's to earbuds. These are simply not detailed, nor is staging/position all that impressive.

The timbre is also somewhat dry.

For the price, if you are truly looking for something solidly balanced, and don't want to risk money on other earbuds which, for example, may be more detailed but lacks this balance (ie. being to bright), then these are not bad. Perhaps by them used if possible.

Cheers

TL;DR Highly recommend. Does not get enough attention.

This iem has a great level of transparency. Now, what is transparency. In my eyes, it's the amount of black space between the notes. And in that sense, the 3SH provides gobs of transparency without losing detail or note texture.

Separation between the mids and treble is great, because the pinna gain is lower than average, which suits my needs in a sea of high treble gain, thin sounding iems. 3SH manages to pull this off without a nasally midrange, and without sounding veiled.

Subbass digs deep, not the deepest but what stands out about the bass is that the midbass is not bloated.

For my tastes, which are sensitive to 6-8k, I find it slightly glare-y. This not because the treble as a whole is boosted, but rather the lower-treble is dipped (which works for the iems favor). To get rid of this slight treble peak, I find -2db at 6.5k is enough for a great listen.

In a way, it solves many common problems without tradeoffs.
-Non-fatiguing without being veiled or overly warm. Just a hint of warmth, suits my tastes
-Bassy without bloat - subbass is more prominent than midbass, always welcome in my books.
-Sweet sounding vocals without being too forward.

These iems are definitely unique. With the deep insertion, the BA driver indeed presents more details than any other iem that I have heard. However, there are dealbreakers that led me to return them.

The first dealbreaker, and perhaps the most noticeable one, is that the iems lack a crispness to the sound. With every hit of a note, the decay smears with the background/silence that comes after the sound. This is hard to explain, because I don't want to use the word smooth, as the iems present good amount of texture on the notes. It's just that the decay after the note is quite slow, which is quite unexpected given the natural decay during the note. What you get is that there's quite a compromise to the transparency of the iems, and everything sounds rounded. It's a shame, because the iems would otherwise be very transparent, which I notice when non-complex passages (vocal solos, drum solos) play.

The bass, while the quantity is excellent, is one notey. I can understand this: a balanced armature can only do so much, which is sort of the whole idea of this review. Yes, you can push it to retrieve details like no other at this price range, but there must be some compromises as well.

The vast amounts of detail that these iems famously bring up are pushed forward, leading to an imaging with almost no depth. The result is that it tricks your brain that it is not in fact detail, but part of the general forward mix. Whereas, if the small details had a "faintness" to them, then it would benefit the goal of this iem much more.

Separation, if we assume that we are working with a single BA, is good. However, don't expect sophisticated layering and space between instruments. My westone W20's, while lacking in the raw detail retrieval compared to the ER4XR, easily out-separates instruments during complex passages. The ER4XR, meanwhile, is congested, but the wide soundstage saves it from being completely blobbed up.

The overall result of these iems is that they retrieve as much detail as possible and put them on a wide but not deep soundstage, and the sound, while textured, is quite rounded as well, with a decrease in transparency/separation as a result.

For the sake of owning an IEM which can retrieve high amounts of detail - and only that - I would advise in getting these. I must warn you that the IEM lacks any depth, and so the details are forward and not articulated - it's just details. For an overall listening experience, which is far more than just raw detail, I would advise to go with multi-BA iems. Even lower priced ones (chi-fi) will have many more merits than the ER4XR.

Andy