[calipilot227]

Quote:

Do your research. Go try them at some headphone meet. I don't know what else to say. Its basically flavor of the month. Some people like W3 over W4. I think the SM3 are interesting because I read a ton of reviews about them and a lot of people have a hard time describing them. I never heard them.

UM3X has a forward presentation. I think its purposely designed that way for stage monitoring. Sensitivity is off the scale - lowest setting on my iphone 3GS drives them too loud. I bought an amp to deamplify the UM3X.

Have you tried turning on Sound Check? I find that it makes the overall volume a little lower (it does on my iPod Classic and iPhone 4).
 

 

[Spyro]

Yea, with so many choices I could never recommend UM3X for anything but stage monitor,  Very rolled off treble, thick sound and basically geared to the lower register.  Somewhat dull and lifeless.
 
In my long list of IEM's I would rank W4 as one of my biggest dissapointments.  Extremely poor transparency IMHO.  If you want something neutral, balanced but "alive" sounding yet very transparent GR10 would be at the top of my list in a universal (along with JH13 as a custom).
 
W3 bass is very tameable via EQ.

 

[BrianMB]

If you're still looking to make a purchase of any of those IEMs, I believe i2ehan still has them up for sale in his thread here. He recently finished trialing a number of different IEMs and posting his thoughts on each.
for sale thread:
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/554427/fs-sm3-w4-se535-ex1000-mdt-mtpc-prices-dropped-shipping-anywhere

 

[thesparkman]

I went with the UM3X. I couldn't be happier. It sounds incredible. I'm using it out of my iPhone/MacBook with a Fiio E7, and the L9 LOD. Spyro: Lifeless? Absolutely not. Liveliest I've heard. And I agree, the instrument separation is incredible. Thanks everyone!