Ok so I received the e-Q5 yesterday. Overall, I am disappointed. To begin with, the box was really hard to open. I almost ripped it apart after struggling for 5 minutes. The IEMs look really cute - they are smaller than I thought. I expected the housing to be almost the same size as that of the e-Q7, but it is a good deal smaller. It would be a great thing if not for the incredibly thin and fragile looking cable, or more specifically, the part that goes from the earphones to where it joins into a single cable (I think that part's called strain relief if I am not mistaken). because there is no extra protection/support where the cable enters the earphone housing, a very serious issue arises IMO. When wearing the cable over the ear as I always do, it bends like crazy and seems like it could break any minute. Of course the cable may be strong, but IMO it's just way too thin. It's also terribly microphonic - wearing the IEMs with the cable down is practically impossible because every little rubbing of it against your cloth/skin will be transmitted to your ears clearly and loudly.
Now, I could forgive all the flaws in the ergonomics department if the sound quality is great. So is the e-Q5 worth the money and is it really at least as good sounding as the e-Q7? Well, the 3-4 hour listening session and ~10 hour burning in of the e-Q5 so far leads me to a disappointing conclusion that while it is indeed more neutral than the e-Q7 technically, it is also less musical and less involving. I already considered the e-Q7 to have a somewhat laid back sound character - the sound image was quite upfront, but the character of the sound was delicate/careful and not at all what I would consider aggressive. Now, the e-Q5 still has that delicate/careful character, but it is now lacks those bumps in the frequency response that made the e-Q7 sound interesting. The e-Q5 sounds very close to flat, but it is also laid back sounding and the combination of this laid back character and a very neutral response makes it sound quite analytical. Now, I don't consider analytical sound to be a bad thing if the headphone with that sound is strong technically. Specifically, it must have good speed, detail, soundstage, imaging, clarity and other aspects of sound quality for me to be able to enjoy an analytical presentation because in analytical sound I am looking to listen carefully to my music and to analyze it and in order to do that the headphone must have sufficient technicalities to allow me to hear deep into the recording. The only other worthy headphone to compare the e-Q5 to in my current collection is the Fischer Audio FA-003 closed can and it happens to be superb in technical aspects of sound reproduction, especially for the price (it costs over $100 less that the e-Q5), although it is a bit less neutral in frequency response than the e-Q5 overall. So I compared the FA-003 with the e-Q5 carefully for a couple of hours with different music genres on different sources. My conclusion is that e-Q5 has similar clarity as the FA-003, but lacks a bit of focus by comparison in the bass and treble. Whereas FA-003 allows to place cymbal crashes and bass line in the headstage very precisely, e-Q5 blurs the edges of these sounds a bit and makes it difficult to imagine their exact location. In soundstage size, the FA-003 places you in a medium to large hall with the singer/band quite some distance away from you and also has excellent soundstage width. The e-Q5 on the other hand is much more upfront in its imaging - it places you very close to or right on stage with the musicians by comparison. It also sounds noticeably more compressed in width compared to FA-003. However, this is not a problem since the e-Q5 has a laid back sound character and never sounds annoying. The low end is excellent on both 'phones - tight and deep - but whereas FA-003 sounds a little boosted in the mid/upper bass (just a tad) and also delivers quite a punch in its low end that I can definitely feel as well as hear, the e-Q5 is more neutral and less punchy. I would say that FA-003 has a more realistic low end, while e-Q5 sounds a bit anemic by comparison. On to the mids, e-Q5 edges out the FA-003 in texture/micro detail, but looses out in timbre - FA-003 has a very accurate and realistic sounding midrange, whereas the e-Q5 is still reasonably accurate, but on the warm side of neutral and makes music sound a bit warmer than it was originally recorded IMO. Now, I am not sure what to make of this, but I feel that FA-003 produces sounds that are simply not there on the e-Q5. And this is not something that is subtle and hard to hear. I can clearly hear reverb and decay in instruments and vocals with FA-003 that I think I can hear with the e-Q5, but I am really not sure. That is I try to convince myself that they are there with the e-Q5 because I can't believe that a $300 IEM can't reproduce details that a $160 headphone can, but what my ears are telling me is that FA-003 is more detailed than the e-Q5 and by a good margin. Amazingly separation is also better on FA-003. e-Q5 has nice separation like all good armatures, but with FA-003, each little sound has its own space and never interferes with other sounds, whereas on the e-Q5 some sounds can sometimes be covered up by others and become difficult to hear. The treble is also superior on the FA-003 - more extended and refined, whereas the e-Q5 treble sounds noticeably less delicate and less sparkly, rolling off faster. Finally, with regards to speed the e-Q5 is a tiny bit faster than the FA-003, but just a bit.
Ok, that's all I wanted to say for now. The ergonomics on the e-Q5 suck IMO, and I really, really hope that at least its sound quality better over time with more burn in. So far, the $160 FA-003 clearly has the upper hand over the $300 Ortofons in sound quality. I know full sized cans are supposed to give more bang for the buck than IEMs in sound quality, but I do expect a $300 IEM to sound at least as good as $160 headphone. If the e-Q5 won't change with more burn in, I will sell it with no regrets and I will get.... man, I have no idea.
Might as well go back to the e-Q7 since that was probably the only IEM that I actually didn't feel like selling after a few months of use.
BTW, the FA-003 also outperformed the SM3 to my ears in many aspects, so it may just be that I got spoiled by these cans. I've been listening to them almost exclusively the past 2-3 months.
