Well, good news is that I'm much happier this time around.
All the visual flaws introduced in the first repair/refit are fixed. There are a few minor imperfections that were present in the first go. They don't really bother me. If I'd been concerned I probably wouldn't have gone with clear shells. Art is clean. I would have liked the FreqPhase logo on my right earpiece a little smaller but it's not a big enough deal to have it redone again. The "black eye blue" transparent I got for the face plate isn't as dark as I was hoping for, but it still looks good.
They also did a few extra things I requested free of charge.
Fit seems to be pretty good. Bass and ambient noise blocking seem fine. I can tell some slight differences between the two sides in terms of feel, and, and the seal changes a bit with jaw movement, but much less than it did. I may return them again down the line for one more slight adjustment, but I feel like I finally got the headphones a few months back.
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Straight canals are an issue. without a bend, there's nothing to secure them in place so your impressions are likely deeper than some. Also makes comfort harder to achieve
I think that was a large source of my issue. I was also being pretty picky about fit. I got a pretty good seal on the first go, but thought it could be better. It was more a matter of the amount of ambient noise than of bass response. Anyway, they're very close now.
Please post pictures of your monitors when you get them back if you can. I'm very interested in buying the JH13 but one of my concerns is the build quality of JH monitors. I have a 1964-V3 that was only $400 but the shells are beautiful, and I'd have a hard time buying a product that's more than twice as much yet with an inferior build quality.
I'll take some pictures for you. I'm just working with an iPhone so it may be hard to get detail but I'll see what I can do.
Build quality in terms of feeling solid and durable is great. In terms of appearance, when I first received them, they looked good (not great) but they didn't get the faceplate color and my initials right. That was corrected with the first repair/refit but some scratches were introduced and art was smudged. Now on round three that's fixed, and they look about as good as they did the first time around.
Ideally I'd like them to be gorgeous, yes, but I went with JH to get top-notch audio quality. They'll be in my ears much more than I'll be looking at them, and the appearance is good enough they won't annoy me when I am looking at them.