^ Thanks for your ongoing impressions. I think I've found my perfect tips for the GR10 now, afraid to say they're the FX700 stock silicons that aren't available seperately (AFAIK). THe GR10's stock tips didn't work well for me, as even the largest ones were slightly too small. UE silicons were great soundwise, but only allowed for a shallow seal and subpar isolation. With the JVC tips I can get a deeper and better seal, isolation is almost on par with the e-Q5 now and sound is excellent.
Sound signature wise the GR10 are among the best conceivable IEMs to my ears as of now, very very similar to (and as excellent as) the e-Q5 and also pretty close to the FI-BA-A1. I've been alternating between these three phones during the last two weeks and all I can say is wow, all of these are undoubtedly among the very best phones I've heard. Listening to my preferred musical genres classical, acoustic and jazz there isn't anything I'd want to change about their sound signature, every single one of them is a real treat to listen to. Of course there are gentle nuances in sound signature with each phone, like e.g. the Ortofons and Final Audios being a bit more airy than the Grados, or the A1 sounding a little more relaxed compared to the others - I'm planning to dig deeper into this topic once I find time for an in-depth comparison. But overall (and taking into account that I'm not shy of using EQ to tune an IEM's signature to my liking) I haven't even once felt the need to experiment with EQing any of these phones.
Regarding the GR10 in particular, IMO their design is slightly better thought-out than the e-Q5's for mobile use, but at the same time more cheaply executed. They're a bit easier to put in and their chin slider helps with a secure fit, but their lower quality cable is less flexible and more microphonic. If I were to build my favourite cable out of these three IEM's parts I'd pick the Final Audio's L-plug, the Ortofon's cable and the Grado's Y-splitter and chin slider.
One last thing, even though I've two pretty good amps (Xin supermicro IV and Voyager) I'm usually too lazy to use them, because I've never seen a pair of inferior IEMs beat a pair of better ones due to amping. Or in other words, amping may well have its merits, but IME it generally doesn't work miracles. Nevertheless I've tried to amp all three of these and interestingly the Final Audios changed more than the Grados and Ortofons, they became quite noticably more snappy. Still not so much as to set them significantly apart from the others, but if I'd used an amp during my earlier comparison to the Ortofons, I think I wouldn't have mistaken them for moving armatures.
So much for the moment, more to come (hopefully) within the next few weeks.
