Ok, I'm blown away by these headphones! This is exactly what I had been searching for in a headphone, basically a similar signature to my floor system with the same kind of detail (floor system is Linn Akkurate 242s with 3 x 2250 amps driving them and a Linn Movie DI for source) . As a matter of fact, the miracles out of my phone may be more revealing in a lot of ways, although I didn't get to actually a/b them. (The whole reason I'm now diving into headphones is that I have 3 year old twins and now basically no longer get to use my floor system, and need to do my listening while the family is asleep, or when I'm working))
Listening equipment used so far:
Nexus S with Voodoo Sound, mix of 320kbps and FLAC
laptop to usb optical converter to parasound d/ac 2000 -> parasound pld 2000 mix of flac / 320 / cd
UM Miracles with Beat Audio iphone cable (haven't tried the stock cable yet) that have approximately 3 hrs of listening time at this point.
So far, it's giving me presentation and details that are easily equaling (and I'm leaning towards saying surpassing) my T1 or AD2k. Also, it sounded amazing out of my Nexus S with VoodooSound. I haven't A/B with my desktop setup yet, but basically it is outstanding directly out of the phone. I'm currently listening on the desktop setup where I'm equally impressed.
Some of the things that I've discovered in my first bit of listening:
1) with Andrew White's Guitarra Celtica album I hear echos in the music that I had never realized were there before. I went back and listened on the T1 and sure enough I could pick them up there as well, however, I just hadn't noticed them before. In particular, this was on the outtake on one of the tracks, where you hear the subtle echo of the flute as the track fades out on the end. This includes on my floor system where I hadn't picked this up, and that is out of my phone as a source without and amp!
2) this is the first set of phones where I'm picking up a noticeable difference between on one of my Rodriga + Gabriella 1:11 tracks between a 320 kb/s download and the flac download from their site.
3) instrument separation is equally outstanding.
4) female vocals give the same kind of outstanding presentation I get out of the AD2ks with a very intimate feel.
5) percussion is outstanding and highly detailed. (also bass and guitar)
6) I haven't hit any song yet in my collection that I've played that I haven't found be an outstanding listening experience.
The comfort and fit is also outstanding, although the right seems to be slightly less perfect than the left (takes more fiddling to get in right). (although this is my first custom iem so I can't compare to others) The HF3s I have aren't even close in sound quality. The bass in particular is nowhere near as well controlled, and I'm getting a lot of extra detail. While I still liked listening to the HF3, even in a quick a/b to the miracles, and consider them a great headphone for the money ($100 vs $900 for the Miracles) there really is no comparison.
I still need to get to try a go on a better headphone amp with my T1s and AD2ks to see how they shake out in a comparison, but right now, I think I may have found my ultimate headphone.
