Having had 24 hours to listen to both the Odin and Hero now, I have to say that, pre burn-in, they are both exceptional in their own spaces. I think
@CL14715 was pretty dead on with his thoughts for both. I have no idea where talk of a piercing upper midrange or piercing treble respectively have come from. in my experience that's patently nonsense
although I do concede that we all hear differently so maybe either I'm incredibly lucky or select others are incredibly unlucky. I can only speak from my experience and, to my ears, the Hero is a very lively, exciting listen with incredible bass and astonishing clarity across the whole range. I think it's important to distinguish between clarity in the mids/treble and sharpness in the mids/treble, which, to my ears, the Hero absolutely does not suffer from. It's a distinctly W-shaped signature for sure, but has a pretty unique overall sound - at least in my experience (for context, I own a LOT of what are considered to be TOTL iems, cables and DAPs) - and, although I genuinely thought I might be selling these on, I can already confidently say that they will be a permanent fixture in my collection. As for the Odin, well... they're just on a different level entirely. To my ears, they are pretty much perfect across the entire frequency range with a level of coherence that I have never experienced before. The whole sound signature is as close to perfect as I've ever encountered in an iem. It simply is THAT good. I'm actually praying that the burn-in doesn't affect it too much as I love it how it is already. Again all this talk of a peaky/shouty upper midrange is absolute nonsense to my ears and, again, there is something truly unique about the overall sound signature. This is the closest I've ever come to the mythical 'endgame'. Both sets of iems are also unique in my experience, as they are the only iems that I've ever owned that I haven't found the need to cable roll with (and I am an obsessive cable roller). For anyone on the fence, I urge you to ignore the criticism of 'people overhyping them' and just pull the trigger for whichever fits your needs, if you can afford them. I was really prepared to be disappointed but both have significantly exceeded my expectations. Congrats to
@Jack Vang and Dean Vang for creating two truly exceptional products that really do stand out in a very crowded marketplace and, I think, will become the benchmarks for each of their respective price brackets.