I played with my Betas all day at my office, swapping tips to try to get a decent seal. The traffic cones and their opaque brethren are useless and painful. The bi-flange tips are just big... real big, and they remind me of having my ears full of cotton a la childhood ear infections, without the intense pain. Pain seems to be the province of only the traffic cones. The big orange foams wouldn't fit in my ears comfortably, even if I were dumb enough to try to put them in there.
That leaves the firm foams that are like decored soundmagic/olives. First off, the hollow cores are large enough that the bass/screen cap is almost required to make the tips secure on the nozzles. I actually preferred the sound presentation without the screen caps, but tips spinning on the nozzle while deep in in my ear canal bothers me greatly; especially since I haven't carried hemostats around since the 70s.
"Deep" is the operative word for these phones. The long nozzles are designed for increased depth into the ear canal and the listener must find the tip that facilitates this without discomfort. If you can't put the phones into the canal at a sufficient depth with an effective seal, these phones are supremely terrible... bass light, tinny and prone to becoming shrill at higher volumes. If you are able to get a seal without sufficient depth, the phones are akin to anemic PL30s.
BUT if you can get them sufficiently into the canal (which may require you to angle the phone a little, one way or another) and if you are then able to get a seal without discomfort (give it a little turn while pressing it forward), this budget IEM becomes a very, very good set of earphones. I had to use the large firm foam, when I normally use medium tips, even in bi-flanges. The only other IEM that requires me to use a large size stock tip is the S4. The nozzle spinning inside the tip at the depth it was inserted really got my attention and made me install the cap screen for security.
Without the screen the soundstage is sufficiently wide with decent separation and imaging. The top end goes extremely high and one can sense that there is a lot of room up there... even if you can't hear that high. I heard no 'roll-off' at all. I've posted all over this forum that I like bright phones. These phones have very good high-freq response, but it has to be deep in the ear or it sounds tinny/shrill at best. Vocals are good; mids are distinct and lively. Bass is sufficient, not deep, somewhat flat, but blends into the mids well. Not for rockers or hip hop as it's too balanced, but very nice overall. When you install the screen cap/cap screen/bass filter, all that top end that you can't hear, and a little that you can, goes away and the sound gets pretty warm. Not Sony EX85 warm, but it does remind me of the M9. Yeah, it sounds that good.
The longest I had them in my ears today at a single stretch was 40 mins. And I never "cranked" them. At that depth, you can't... it makes your teeth hurt, even teeth that have root canals. They do like my cMoyBB2.02 and they sound very rich and full flavored with it.
But don't crank them up too much.
