Excellent review! Do you think it's an upgrade to FH3? I mostly listen to rock and metal.

@jmwant They are pretty different. FH3 is brighter, have a cleaner bass that is tighter and faster. Timbre/coherency are leagues ahead with the N3. I think they both do rock/metal genres well, but in their own ways and depending on the specific sub-genres, it can go either way.

@jmwant as @RikudouGoku basicly summed it up. Fiio FH3 was my first IEM ever and what got me into this world, but I despited it since the day one. I couldn't tell what it was back then but something was off. After researching about it I could finally describe it as timbre and coherency being of a couple of days later. That IEM is the solo reason I look for timbre and coherency (other my accoustic library) since day one.
I find them actually very opposite in some fields other than those two characteristics, for example stereoimaging, where FH3 shines over N3. The bass on FH3 is tighter, faster and has more sense of tactitality also helped by the its shelf shape (clean sub-bass focused glide).

As for metal, I delve just around the tip of the iceberg as it isn't the most appealing genre to me. If we talking about progressive stuff, like Polyphia or Dream Theatre, I'd pick either none of the FH3. If we talking more old school metal with worse recording quality such as Metallica, Iron Maiden, etc. I'd pick the N3. Same goes for rock, actually.

Hope this helped enlighten you. Let me know if you have more questions. Oh and I had to split this into two messages due to the length of it.

Nice review! What is the exact model name of the ear tips you used? I searched for "azla xelastec" but the images that came up didn't look like yours.