And there it is, YES, planars take all that texture and the living, breathing essence of the drums into your world. The IMR EDPs are pinnacle of that. The Timeless does it so well, and now it's being so well described by you here. Part of me wants to pull the trigger on S12 but I am so happy with my Timeless and have the latest iteration of the EDP in the Queue so I think I'll give them pass but I don't know, I may succumb by the time the sun goes down, I am a sucker for a good planar!
You know my position on the Timeless, so let me give a bit more detail on the S12/Timeless comparison....
I've been listening now for about 2 hours or so with the S12 and Timeless. I'm trying to let the S12 break in a bit more, but honestly I don't hear any difference now compared to right out of the box. I know it's still very early, and I still intend to burn in the S12 tonight/tomorrow for quite a bit before I make any more real judgments.
I have tweaked my Timeless a bit, rolling through several cables and finally landing on what I consider a PERFECT match (8-core graphene + Symbio W tips), so it might be a bit unfair to compare the two directly. I'll set up one of my Timeless tomorrow with a stock cable and plain silicone tips to compare them both side-by-side right out of the box. But for now, let me just say that the Timeless are better tuned and more refined to my ears. Musicality, to me, is all about balance. With the "perfect" match of cable and tips with my Timeless, I hear incredible soundstage and perfectly balanced tonality, which creates a coherent stage and absolute pinpoint imaging. Nothing stands out or detracts from the overall presentation. The cymbals and hi-hats are only accompaniments, they aren't the main players. Same goes for the bass and sub-bass. They ONLY add color and texture, but are not the main melody or harmony. This is important, and is a major differentiator between my Timeless setup and essentially every other IEM I've heard so far. The note attack and decay are so tight as to separate all of the instruments/sounds so that I can hear each sound individually, even if they overlap. It doesn't sound as though I'm listening to headphones/IEMs or even speakers. The entire coherent musical presentation is just being beamed directly into my brain, if that makes sense. So, this is the Timeless for me.
Out of the box, the S12 appears more detailed, but lacks real bass impact and the mids also lack "oomph". The overall presentation just sounds a bit disjointed and thin, not nearly as coherent as my Timeless setup. At the $129 price that I paid for the S12, however, I think it's a really, really good deal and is a great introduction to the "planar sound". Very well done for LETSHUOER. But I will end my praise there, as I don't feel the S12 (out of the box) can compare with the refinement and coherence of the Timeless. And unfortunately, at this time I'm not really motivated to do much cable rolling on the S12 like I did for the Timeless. Tips, sure. I've already done a bit of tip rolling and honestly I find the stock clear silicones with the black cores to be very good indeed. But as I said, the tonality, presentation, and coherence aren't at the same level as Timeless. The treble is too forward, the mids aren't balanced enough, and the bass is too subdued. With the stock setup, I find there is almost no sub-bass to speak of. All together, the S12 sounds very detailed, but in reality isn't balanced enough to be really musical. As I mentioned before, the cymbals and hi-hats are too forward and pierce through the rest of the music, thereby taking center stage, which destroys the overall balance and breaks the coherence of the soundstage and imaging. These treble sounds can be a bit "tizzy" at times with the S12 and once they become "obvious" in the music, it tends to become a distraction, thereby ruining the overall experience.
Sigh, I see that I've babbled on too long again. But I hope some of what I've written will resonate with some folks and help people out. In summary, I think the S12 is a really, really nice piece of hardware and a good low-cost introduction for folks to planar IEMs. But in the end, the Timeless is more refined, balanced, and presents a more coherent sound that is just at a higher level than the S12. I will continue to evaluate and tweak the S12, because I think it may have more to offer. But for now, my opinion stands as stated. Thanks for reading and happy listening!
EDIT: For context, my setup is: Laptop/FLAC/Foobar2000 -> Unison USB -> Gungnir MB -> Burson Soloist 3X -> XLR->4.4mm balanced adapter -> (IEM)
I've tried several amps of varying power output and I've found that there is improvement to be heard even up to the Soloist at ~4-8 Watts into these planar IEMs. More power and better cables definitely affect their performance in a very positive way.