HifiMan RE3 Canalphones Review - Page 4

Much better than the Altec iM716 at not tangling. (sorry, it's my only mean of comparison right now)

I am on holiday but I'll have the RE3 brought to me in a few days. I will do more burn in to them, as Tom suggested above, to see if the canaphone will start evolving again and even down the upper midrange.

Hahaha! Thank you, I laughed.

Ok, I have a fair bit of material to "patch" the initial review (which underwent many updates already), and I'll do so when I get my hands onto a proper computer rather than a smarthphone and its limitations.

In short:
-if you want to figure the frequency range that's bumped, just think of the sound that crickets do. The range is much wider, but you get the picture.
-the bump has become milder and I consider every song to be "listenable", in that it doesn't spoil anything to death. Still, there is a tilt on certain vocals (or even electronic samples) that would make for an excited listening and make certain passages "snarly", giving them more rage and strength than otherwise.
-the bump is also responsible of a high sense of speed and details, many in the "crickets" region. The feeling is quite pleasing since it makes for a non-steely presence of details. Some sounds' attacking edges, if belonging to the 1-3 kHz range, come out with high definition contributing to this feeling.
-the sense of space is extremely high and pleasant, and superior to Etymotic, Altec and others.
-I call the upper midrange bump a coloration, and a noticeable one, which by definition doesn't make me happy. This doesn't prevent me to enjoy the earphone for what it is, a portable headphone that doesn't have to be my main playback tool, and that manages to impress me with its qualities when I am around.
-I am reaching for the RE3 more than the Altec during the last days. This might not say much by looking at the price of the iM716, but the latter is an earphone I consider a sort of FOTM-killer, if not a giant killer, and its value is not represented by its low price.

Quick news: looks like the RE3 is extremely picky on fit and tips, not only as far as comfort goes, but especially on sound. First, I noticed an increase with bass extensionwhen switching from the normal biflanges to the big ones. Today, almost randomly, I jammed the big biflanges deeply inside my ear canals and the bass improved massively. The sound is much warmer and impactful, the tone much righter. All the speed, imaging and separation characteristics stand still, with a much fuller tonality. Fit is very fiddly and I still have problems with my right ear (weird ear canal shape that gives me problem with almost any silicon tips around), but once it is got right, things improve massively.