I was very happy to get a spot on the H-100 Tour, and I thank eke for the chance, and all others before and after me for their participation.
 
Where do I start with the H-100? Beautiful presentation, first of all. The wooden box and fitted packaging give a good sense of quality and intent. The build quality and feel of the H-100 is certainly above average, but I wouldn't quite say top-notch. The cable is a little prone to kinks, and the housings – while very sturdy – unfortunately reminds me of a “stock IEM housing”. The tips included were a good assortment, but as you'll read, ultimately didn't serve their purpose.
 
But none of that really matters, right? What's really important is the sound. Ha... maybe I should say first that I completely understand how shotgunshane and Ishcabible find the IEM disappointing. My first impressions were, without a doubt, those of disappointment – especially considering the $180 or so price tag. What I did was try my best at looking past the flaws and see what the H-100 had over the competition.
 
As alluded earlier, I have to tell you that I found all of the silicone tips included to render the H-100 unlistenable. Even with a perfect, deep seal using normally great hybrid-style tips, the treble spike in the H-100 was far too outlandish to let me listen without literal pain. Indeed, the treble spike (at what sounded like around 3-6kHz, no scientific measurements done) is the main flaw of the H-100. It is accentuated by the long, semi-rigid bore of a silicone tip like that included in the package. It gives a very harsh, loudspeaker-in-a-tunnel sound.
 
So, one of the first things I did was use a pair of Comply T200 foam tips on the H-100. What a difference! The hot treble was still a dominant force, but it was pushed back enough to let me focus on the entire sound signature. It's too bad I don't think the H-100 sound could be tamed any more with tips, because the T200 are the shortest and softest (both aspects taming the treble) tips I know of.
 
There is a ton of detail in the treble. It's probably a factor of T-Peos trying to make the H-100 as resolving as possible that it has such a strong treble spike. To my ears, there is real detail beneath the exaggeration. However, even with the T200 tips, the treble was still prone to sibilance. Fortunately, it is song-dependent. Many flat- or warm-sounding recordings benefited from the extra detail and brighter signature. Anything hot-sounding, though, was a constant teeter between blissful detail and painful sibilance. A good example of something literally unlistenable still with the T200 is the very first second of the song “Love In An Elevator” by Aerosmith. Any cymbal crashes had the ability to be painful with the H-100. Depending on the music you listen to, this alone could rule them out entirely.
 
The upper mids were prominent to my ears, around 1-3kHz. The energy bled into the treble, leading to the issues with sibilance. The sub-1kHz mids were another story all together. They sounded completely sucked out. All the energy normally present in tenor voices was gone. Ripping guitar solos were rendered boring. In the strange dichotomy that is the H-100, though, I found that if I focused intensely on the now-distant lower-mids sections of music, I could hear more timbre and detail than in other similar-priced IEMs I've heard. An Etymotic-like level of detail. It seems as though the quality is there – somewhere – but the tuning is way off and the whole lower-mids section is recessed beyond enjoyability.
 
I've said a lot of negative things about the H-100 so far... let's lighten up with the positives. There's good instrument separation. A hair better than my TDK BA200 in some aspects. It may be an artifact of the treble energy, but I found it easy to pick out the notes of different instruments mixed together. The bass is also a strong performer; it's very tight and fast with a great life-like tone. The actual presence of the bass is what I'd call “normal”. It's not recessed like the mids, nor overbearing like the treble. I also found electronic synthesizers of all things to sound very lifelike (ironic, I know) in a fascinating way, different from how most organic instruments were presented.
 
Let's make some conclusions from the observations. The combination of tight, fast, high-quality bass, a life-like and fascinating quality to synthetic instruments, and high-energy, shimmering treble only useful when treble is not prominent in the song, all comes together to sound like a recommended usage for electronic music. This is without a doubt the genre I think the H-100 would perform best in. The sad truth is for most rock/metal/jazz music – anything with organic drums and guitar – these are a real disappointment. There are flashes of brilliance in the technical merit of the H-100, but it's all overshadowed by what is either poor tuning or poor development. Can one learn to love the H-100? Absolutely. Treble spikes fade slightly over time with purely mental burn-in, and maybe a filter or resistor can be sourced to tame the treble more, and maybe you only like electronic music. There's just too many faults for a lover of any variety of music to be fully satisfied with their mid-tier $180 purchase. I firmly believe if tuned differently, the H-100 would be a top contender. Until then, its boutique pricing belies its faults.
 
Oh yeah, I saw a really intuitive way of rating IEMs that's used in a Japanese magazine in another thread, so why not do that here too?