I think Selenium was referring to someone else, not you.
I know, but I'll admit I got a bit caught in that too.
Yes, I agree that forum should be used more but, by the same token, I can't help but feel that you place too much importance in these seemingly objective aspects of audio, specially in the last few months -- this is not a criticism but an observation. I get the impression that graphs have practically been dictating how good/bad an IEM sounds to you. I have to wonder why hardly any phone out there has a (near) flat freq response -- no, not everyone is a basshead or wants a 'fun' (read: V-shaped) sounding phone.
They really haven't been dictating how an IEM sounds to me, but they make a whole of sense to me. There are several IEMs out there that I highly rate that haven't been graphed at all like the rev.1 GR07 and Monoprice 8320. Hardly every IEM out there is flat because it's much easier to make a colored IEM, with dynamics you always have to find a way to make the driver as rigid as possible without compromising transient speed and that takes money and time.
In that link we get the following: "MDR-EX1000's frequency response is not flat. Rather, it is V-shaped; a slight emphasis on bass & treble"
What I find interesting is that some people will complain about the Sony's upper mids/lower treble peak -- fine. Several people have also complained about the bass being too lean -- fine. And here (in the link you provided) we have someone saying the EX1000s are V-shaped, even when he says there's "a slight emphasis". While I've seen several people complain about the upper mids/lower treble peak, I've not yet seen anyone complain about a bass emphasis.
Most people that come to head-fi are bought up with stuff that's well boosted in the bass and have bass lenient preferences. Even manufacturers are getting carried away with bass emphasis, only very few are flat or close to it. I had been wondering if the EX1000s subbass was comprising midrange clarity/detail as I was getting more of that with the rev1 GR07 but I'll say the bass overall is more present than the Vsonic as joker had told me a while back. It's still fairly close to flat, a LOT more than most v-shaped IEMs that are way more boosted on both ends. I think that's also the reason why the v-shaped moniker is frowned upon,, because most IEMs with such a response are very very colored, the Sony's case on the other hand is slight. Joker and I also concluded that the EX1000 was v-shaped as well in a face to face chat, but the keyword was slight.
Perhaps my ears are not as sophisticated as I'd like to think and, specifically in the case of the EX1000's bass, to say that the Sonys are V-shaped seems just wrong, or wrong when compared to how instruments, specially acoustic and electric bass, sound in real life. The graph may say there's "a slight bass emphasis" --though I really have to wonder whether such measurements were obtained under perfect conditions-- but my ears don't. Perhaps a flat freq curve just doesn't represent accurately what we hear in the real world. I'm not talking about flat being necesarily boring, dull or clinical, but just wrong, unnatural & unrealistic -- close, perhaps, but not close enough to the real thing.
Again this isn't v-shaped in the most common sense it's truly slight. EX1000 still sounds very realistic no doubt, because it's coloration isn't huge. The graphs do assume a good fit and the conditions should be for the most part close to what one would hear with a good seal. With a shallower seal that some users may experience, they'll be more midbass-subbass roll-off and the 9-10k region will be more emphasized. A flat frequency response is one that compromises the least, the CK10 has a flatter bass and thus has more bass detail and a bit more midrange realism. Where flat gets very tricky is in the treble, I think a dip is truly needed around 6-9k because of our ear's sensitivity and the IEM's nature. For bass I do think a slight boost is needed at times, ideally I wish the EX1000's had slightly less when I compare it to the CK10, but it does compensate for the IEM's lack of isolation. If anything I wouldn't decrease the EX1000's bass if I couldn't get more isolation if I were the designer.
The EX1000 is a great phone, but not perfect, and I personally described the differences between the Sonys and the W4s here, and came to the conclusion I'd like to keep both as they compliment each other very well, in my view.
