I like the same music you do, in addition to a lot of heavier, then lighter stuff. See, Steven Wilson's albums are very well mastered, take his last album, hand cannot erase. You take a song on flac, say my favorite off that album, which is home invasion/regret #9. A song I've heard I don't know how many times, and on my he4, it's amazing. So, we go fiio x3 transport to ifi idsd black label to the k3p, the black label is insanely amazing btw, and all starts well, cymbals sound crisp, guitar is very well rendered, toms are kind of distant, bass lines are well detailed, the decay is all good. We get a nice soundstage, not big, not deep, but wide enough, we get instrument seperation going from g reat to average, losing a lot of air between the instruments in the faster more complex passages. Vocals come in, and this song they're pushed back a tad and distorted anyhow, all is good. When it slows down at around 4:10, everything sounds superb, vocals, keyboard, everything. I really can't get over the guitar when it is clear, it is damn near perfection as far as tonality goes, I may go as far as saying grado-esque, but it's been a while since I've heard a grado/turbulent labs driver. Anyhow, we get into 6:40 ish, back to amazingly rendered keyboard, but drums get shoved back, it's like whenever we get something going on in that male vocal range for mids, if anything else is going on at the same time, we end up cluttered and missing our sweet spot. I really just want these to open up and I honestly would be in my end game area. These things have the qualities to be an end game for me, if they just could do better in complex passages, and the mids not getting lost or pushed back. I can't say it enough about how these render strings, they do an incredible job, very realistic. I think I'm somewhat disappointed only because these are so damn close to being perfect. If we had a deeper soundstage, and better speed and tactility here, I think I could be done, with iems at least. Male vocals sound incredibly accurate when they are the only thing really going on. Oh man I wish I knew what iem could do all what I want, these things are so close, they need a slight edge taken off the treble sometimes too, I can only hope, that burn in exists and these hit my sweet spot. They really are well worth 100 bucks, they definitely have an edge over the 1more triple.
