Wow I ordered these just under a week ago from Penon and they're already here! I can't believe they managed to get it from HK to the UK so quickly, especially when it was only dispatched 3 days ago on a Saturday!
First impressions of the packaging: Amazing. Feels very heavy for earphones. I think these are the heaviest IEMs I've received including the packaging.
I know it's been mentioned before but it's funny that there are instructions on how to unbox the product itself. What's even more funny is that the picture guide isn't very good at telling you how to unbox it heh.
The accessories are pretty amazing considering how much this cost. The instruction manual tells you about the filters, sound curve and some other blurb and is in simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese and almost perfect English.
The weight of the IEMs are pretty damn heavy. I've owned things like the Ortofon EQ-5 before but it was nowhere as heavy as these but thankfully once they're in your ear, they're comfortable. You do notice that they're there but it's still comfortable.
The filters are exactly the same size for me. I don't actually see any foam inside any of them but I've tested them out and they do indeed have different signatures. The black one appears to have more meshing or perhaps a thin layer of foam as it seems darker when I look through them into the sky. I can't really tell much difference visually between the silver and gold filters other than the colour as they both don't seem to have any foam but yet again they sound different.
Onto sound impressions; when I first got them out with the default silver filters and black ear tips, they sounded rather average as I could not get a good seal. I then switched to the provided transparent white tips and the sound quality improved much more.
Gold filters - I thought I would actually prefer these the most as I wanted a bright sound signature to replace my CK10s however, to my ears, these actually sounded more V-shaped than bright. Yes, the treble was enhanced, but the bass was too. This made vocal tracks sound too intimate and the bass would overpower the midrange. This was not the sound that I was after out of these.
Black filters - I tried these out for fun, expecting some head shaking bass but it was actually rather tame. With these there was definitely more bass and sub bass but the decay was short and the soundstage was large to me so it didn't actually seem as bassy as the gold filters. It did sound slightly veiled though. I then went back to the silver filters again.
Silver filters - After trying all filters twice and going back to the silver ones, I'm in love with them. The detail retrieval is amazing and it is perfectly balanced and tuned for me. Bass is never overpowering with the silver filters and never lacking either. The mids are perfect and sound natural with the highs providing the sparkle and detail without sounding artificial or tiring. This is what I was looking for when I purchased the IM02 but I never really enjoyed them.
I wish I had my CK10s as I would love to compare them to see which is technically better but for the price I got these GT100s (£45) I am very happy. I think even if they were triple the price, I would still be very happy with these. I'm surprised noone else is trying these! They are amazing value for £45 ($69).
I need to compare them to the Ostry KC06A, my ATH-IM02 and even my SM3 and 3.Ai.S one day.
