It's a learned skill to be critical ,especially when you want to like something like an IEM you have just spent money on. Or when you don't want to "believe" in something because it may scare you ( or you are biased in some other way), like human caused climate change for example ( The scientifically gathered evidence (same methodology that developed the understanding of electronics) that suggests Carbon Dioxide (amongst other green house gases is altering the planets climate, comparably very very quickly indeed).
So I have attempted to listen to the Westone 30's, from a sound quality perspective. The definition of sound quality I have available to me was how do these Balanced armature IEM's compare musically ( dynamism) to the cheaper in price dynamic headphones I have.
First impression (hypothesis) was,(whilst listening with them on a audio track I produced ( thus I know how it sounds on specific equipment ) if I'd produced the audio track whilst listening with the W30's I would of increased the volume of the kick drum slightly. I produced the track originally listening with Ultrasone HFI-15G headphones ( As they are my favourite ultra-portable headphones I've heard to date, when paired with a FiiO amp for extra bass).
Second hypothesis (ok, more a guess without equipment to measure the actual sound). The kick drum sound is being slightly masked due to the comparably higher volume of the mid-high freq in the Westone 30's (can't be sure of this without doing a spectrum analysis on the outputs).
However the movement sensed by the interactions of the kick and sub-bass on my track is definitely not as dynamic on the westones 30's.
Summary – The Westone 30's are very responsive BA IEM's and I'm intrigued if I could produce music ( structured sound) with them that will make use of that characteristic. Since I produced the track on Dynamic equipment, it would only be fair to compare these BA's IEM's on music that was designed specifically in order to make the best of their attributes.
Just out of curiosity, can someone provide the information of which combination BA & Dynamic IEM is considered to be of a high quality when it comes to musicality?. (within a similar price range as the westone 30's )