does sound signature vary mostly by brand?

If these are boomy in bass and harsh in treble rigion for you then i will recommend you to try RE0, ADDIEMs, Shure SE215, Yamaha EPH100 and Sony XBA3. BTW many IEMs sound different from each other like X10 are warm and rich sounding where Etymotic ER4P/S are cold, bright and highly detailed.

Edited by ZARIM - 2/21/13 at 8:24am

It depends on drivers and the guy who tunes them. But yes, mostly brand is one of the factor.

Some brands have the tendency to follow their own "house" signature. For example, Etymotic IEMs are analytical with a flat response and an emphasized treble region, and Shure IEMs are mid-focused in their signatures. Klipsch IEMs are more mainstream tuned, with an emphasized low end and warmish midrange, and a less prominent upper range (I found their IEMs to be sibilant and harsh at times though). However, there are some other cases where the brand varies their signatures among all their products. For example, UltimateEars has a diverse range of signatures, with the UE700 having a neutral, balanced signature, the TF10 having a v-shaped signature, and the UE900 having more mid-prominence. But I wouldn't let the brand name push you away from an earphone.

Some brands are like that. Etymotics & Hifiman are known for accurate, bright sounding IEMs. Beats are known for their unhealthy bass fetish. Shure are known for their awesome mids. But there are some other brands that cater to a lot of types of sound. Like Fischer Audio, their Eterna is a fun sounding IEM while the DBA-02 is a bright and analytical sounding IEM.

"Beats" is not a brand. Monster Cable makes them, and while their house sound is usually focused on an impactful low end, they have a diverse palette of earphones. For example, the Miles Davis Trumpet Whatever has a V-shaped signature, while the Gold is balanced with particular focus on the low end extension and impact. They both boast a strong low end, but you can't say that they have the same signature at all. Monster is really not nearly as bad as word may portray them. The Beats lineup really tarnishes the company name.

Beats by Dre is its own brand. They split from Monster

So it is. Thanks for the correction. It still doesn't change the fact that Monster Cable still technically was the engineer of many of the Beats products, but I see that it's possible that Monster was just something like a sponsor and the Beats division did what they wanted.