thanks. i would love to audition all the earphones i have in mind in person if i could but practically not likely to occur, otherwise there won't be so many people on forums for an easier way out either. haha.
the Gr07s dont really look like they can be worn straight down at the angle the wire exits the earphone, i'd love to wear them over the ears too but i'm already wearing spectacles, so i have decided to look for earphones that allow me to wear them straight down.
They'd sort of work straight down. I didn't like the over-the-ear because the cable felt funny, and sure enough, didn't seem to fall off hanging straight down.
this post won't have existed if i wasn't disappointed with the sunrise xcape ie's performance compared to the cheapo panasonic hje-270-k i had. to be frank, the xcape ie's bass is not even as punchy/natural as the panasonic, the panasonic sounds more dynamic with bass and even sounds a little less veiled, overall. (maybe because the panasonic has 3 vent holes on the back while the xcape ie has none any where)
Vents aren't a direct indication of a clearer tuning, but I get your point. The Xcapes signature is similar enough to the RE0s, so I'll just go from my time owning those. They are in no way a bassy phone, so seems like more of a qualm with the tuning than anything.
i even seem to notice that the treble/upper mids on xcape ie sounds like a touch and go, the highest note/sound seems to just appear then disappear but on the panasonic it sound a wee bit more natural as the treble drags on for a split second before disappearing, sort of like a fade out
Treble drags - I'll interpret that as shimmer. Couldn't imagine a more sparkly phone than the RE0/XScape combo.
the xcape ie also seems to separate the instruments by quite a bit, to the point you can feel a clear separation between the instrument/guitar and the vocals, feels like singer is infront of me but guitar is 4-5 metres away either on the left or right side but never on both sides.
Soundstaging qualm.
it might because of this same separation effect that i seem to hear some minute details never noticed in the panasonic which i thought was never projected by the panasonic but after going back and forth between the two i realise that it is only because the panasonic sounds so harmonious (all the sounds are mixed into the center) that's why the minute details go unnoticed if i wasn't specifically listening for them.
Soundstaging qualm.
i must also state that i used the xcape ie for 2 weeks continuously, daily for an average of 6-8 hrs a day and yet at the end of the 2 weeks, on a few occasions, i happen to go back to the panasonic very briefly and ALWAYS on these occasions, within few minutes of listening to music, i felt like i had "upgraded" to a "higher end" sounding pair of earphones because the total mixture of the all the sound felt so much more natural and pleasing to the ears. i never understand why the cheapo 20 dollar panasonic earphones always seem to be a wonderful retreat compared to the 80 dollar xcape ie which seems inferior and supposedly has a
sound quality score of 8+/10 from other pros with lots of reviewing experience in this forum
the separation sounded unnatural i do not know how to appreciate it, as to my knowledge even a concert hall doesn't sound like the different instruments are separated from each other to such an extent and such a different in volume(left and right ear) that the instruments give me a visual impression of a boy squatting in the extreme left or right corners of a room, isolated from the singer in the middle of the room.
other than the separation and it's effects, sound wise both are 90% similar. it feels the 60 dollars difference in pricing almost did nothing in terms of sound quality improvement.
that's the chain of thoughts and experience that told me i should probably save up and invest in something that might give the boost in overall sound quality i wanted.
the most disturbing thing is to find that at any 1 time, going back to the panasonic made my ears feel so much more relieved and lifted from fatigue of unnatural sound after listening to the xcape ie. frankly, i dont even know how to proceed from here, are expensive earphones all sounding like the xcape ie or even more separated?
Analytical phones do, seems like you're just describing proper separation. Which is certainly not a bad thing, you probably just don't like the presentation.
So from all that I gathered that you might prefer a more blended signature with more weight/warmth and timbre. Makes sense, the analytical presentation is not to everyone's cup of tea.
in the previous post i listed many criterias, but music genre wise i genuinely listen to all of these listed:
pop, edm, trance, classical, orchestra, instrumental, ambient, new age, rock, oldies, soul. that's why i been looking for an earphone that can play all of these well which i also think might be a tough criteria as most people probably are not as all-over-the-place when it comes to music genres and from looking at the dips in decibel vs frequency response curves of earphones, inferring the limits of an earphone at catering to all 3 sections, bass, mid, highs equally well.