As the prize for the S500 contest, Ds sent me the RHA MA-350 and I have a pretty good grasp of how they sound by now. "Clean" and "balanced" are the 2 words that adequately describe their sound signature.
These RHA MA-350s have an aluminum housing, so combined with an extremely light fabric cable makes them really good for everyday use. I was afraid that the fabric cable might be extremely microphonic (lots of cord noise) but it wasn't the case. In fact I went on a long run with them and there was little to no microphonics, that is with a clip on of course. When music is on, isolation is average to above average, so even when the cable rubbed against my clothing/ fingers, cord noise hardly affected the music quality. For a fabric cabled iem these RHA MA-350s are pretty awesome in it's lack of microphonics. Here is a pic of how they look:
Now onto the sound of these RHAs. I was surprised how good they sounded tbh. Their soundstage and instrument separation is on par, if not better than the FX40s, the soundstage is bigger than the 40s for sure. Like I said earlier, these RHAs have a "clean"/ "balanced" sound signature and by this I mean that the entire sonic spectrum is well represented; with extended highs that do not have harsh treble or sibilance, as well as forward mids along with snappy punchy bass/ lows. These are not analytical or "flat" iems but they do have a rather cold/ clean but not lean sound to them. Hence when paired with my ELE DAC (also has a clean/ colder sound siggy), they don't really gel as well as say with my Sony MH1Cs (a warmer/ more bassy sound siggy).
These RHAs are not basshead iems either, but the lows are no slouch and is present when called for, therefore this allows the mids/ highs to shine along with the bass. They are pretty "accurate" in their sonic presentation, so I would venture to say that these RHAs fall right in between the more mainstream "fun"/ warm sound signature and the more "cold"/ analytical one. I think both audiophiles and your average mainstream music listener will really like these RHAs because they offer the best of both worlds without compromising on anything.
On the side note I also received the monoprice 8320s from Ds as well, and I'll say that to me they sound better than the Thermaltake Tts. I expected harsh highs/ sibilance and lack of bass from them but surprisingly it was not the case. Listened with medium stock rubber tips and detected only slight sibilance with a pretty clean bass end, albeit lighter than the RHAs. Soundstage is nice and the mids are lush, hence acoustic music sound fantastic with them. When all said, these 8320s are out classed by the RHAs in very aspect but surprisingly not by that much. That was why I was more shocked by what I heard from these 8320s than the RHAs initially, but I soon realized that the RHAs does everything better and with more refinement than the monoprices.
