I haven't been to CanJam since Long Island in 2006 ... this is tempting.

Thanks. I need a tough headphone for the summer, and sound wise I am not as demanding as I thought (although I own fancy stuff like the jh13 the pfe is fine), I cannot take headphones that are far from flat.

The 'high-fi' pricing used to categorize the product as 'premium' segment is not justified in my book. However as far as I know the DSD reading capability is unique and the output impedance is finally acceptable for almost all products save some of the Sony BAs. This would be a product suitable...

Last time I heard the MS2 they had a flat or maybe slightly trebly frequency response. In that case the UE900 is not recommended, too smooth for your tastes. PFE or ER4S maybe, very high performance and flat FR despite their lower price, read good things about the UE600 too. 

There's is no harm in getting the mdr-r1 if you know what you are doing. Very comfortable and good looking too. I think soundstage has become less important for me over time - it used to a big deal for the first 2-3 years I was on headfi, but now I focus on neutral response and dynamics more.

Hmmm... ER4 cannot be worse and in some ways I actually prefer PFE and EX1000 over my K701 due to their better space extension. IEM soundstage generally is however going to be narrower than open headphones due to their canal nature. If you do not need the isolation the sennheiser mx980 and...

Hmm... Whilst their good FR with does not suffer from a less powerful source such as the iPhone I found their dynamics to have diminished to a point where I'd rather listen to one of my IEMs.

There are more nuances to the FR, sometimes it depends on exactly what frequencies where the bumps are. Also relevant in assessing clarity are other factors, sine wave response in the mid bass and also low distortion will make a headphone sound less muddy despite a mid bass bump.

Unfortunately these do seem to need an amp for the power (not the 'sound signature tweaks' a lot of ampers like to play with, but power). I haven't done the calculations though so I don't know if the E6 is enough.

Phonak PFEs (the cheaper ones) with rubber tips don't go too deep, are neutral like the ER4. Also in the box is a treble filter. Sony EX1000 would also fit your requirements, those definitely don't go deep and has bass extension the er4 cannot hope for. I share your pain, apparently after...

When you say "analytical" do you mean flat or detail orientated (i.e. treble bias)? Also "balanced (or bass and treble)" would be V-shaped or close to neutrality but not quite?

Well there are a gazillion new products but if you mean an actual improvement rather than a 1000 different flavors there are limits. There are many new good new IEMs but both single BA and multi BAs are kind of stuck - on the neutrality front the ER4 is still the one to beat despite a good fight...

Let me know if you want to say hi shigzeo heh.

Well there's two sides to it - one side is you can already get top end audio performance from us1K CIEMs, so why make such a big deal of the 335? On the flip side the 335dw is a special iem, in my experiance not even the jh16 and its 4 bass drivers do such palpable bass, so it's not like the 335...

In my honest view despite their relatively low cost the Phonak PFE 112 or Ey ER4 are just as good as the $500 IEMs, maybe a bit muddier in the soundstage but they're balanced in FR, have tight bass, no boosted mids but also nothing wierd going on there. The other $500 types I've heard or owed...