X2. I've tried Complys and de-cored Shure olives in the meantime, but kept coming back to silicones.
I have a pair of those old HiFiMAN biflanges, however they're not a reliable fit for me. The clear stock tips sound very good, but imo they benefit from added damping.
Anyway, since everyone hears differently, here's a test track to judge for yourselves. This is a pretty well-recorded track by Indigo Girls to illustrate what I mean:
Subjective impression: up until 2:05, everything sounds fine. But then there's a slight increase in upper mids / lower treble energy, which makes the 2000J cross the line into sibilant and slightly strident territory: "Outside the
sssummer's gone for good. Dying impatiens
ssstacked up wood...". An A/B comparison with the K3003 reveals that this is not in the recording, as that latter don't cross that line and show neither sibilance nor stridency.
After adding a damping layer of alcohol swab between the nozzle and clear stock tips of the 2000J, sibilance and stridency with this track are almost completely gone and the upper frequency range sounds noticeably closer to the K3003, while the rest of the spectrum remains virtually unchanged.
(Here's an mp3 snippet in better quality for
download, in case anyone wants to perform the test on a DAP. The essential passage starts at 0:15.)
With all that said (and my JVCs being confined to a drawer in order to support TWFK brain burn-in
, I've had the 2000J for a week now and really come to like them. Been listening almost exclusively to these and the K3003, and while individual differences in bass, treble, decay, soundstage are rather subtle, I'm increasingly finding them quite different in character on the whole. I plan to post more on these differences between the 2000J and K3003 as soon as time allows...