Well thats the point. you get all the sound quality you want but you wont be an audiophile because even you won't think your an audiophile for buying a monster product.... geez preconceived notions suck its like were being brandistsss against monster and bose and skull candy and... oh wait they suck < ahh gasp.. sarcasm
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and yes that is how you can determine sarcasm in a forum... you go ahh gasp
but seriously, turbines are everything your looking for, and Id recommend them based on sq over the price point. Although I have to admit I've never tried the phonaks, but I do have a pair of senn ie8 ,se530, er4p/s and have listened to a good variety of other iems and I still recommend the monsters just because well they fit what ur looking for. But then again I doubt they can beat a pair of RE2's for 40 bucks. Still I'd rather get a pair like the turbines and run away from head-fi having people think I'm not an audiophile than buy a pair of 40 RE2's that I will eventually outgrow and come back, shelf out another 100, then another 250 then another 300... for customs then another 700 to get customs done right and then another 250 for an amp and then.. ooops forgot the dac!! then another 200 for an ihp20 because you know they'll cost 200 by the time you come back to upgrade for those, then another 50 for pure silver mini to mini's then another 1000 to move up to the first ever balanced portable set up...
Moral of the story is, if you really are afraid of being an audiophile, the previous paragraph should have made you laugh like a three headed hyena and make you realize that if you're going to invest some money over time, you should do your own research rather than allowing people to give recommendations -since most are pointless. Those that have listened to primarily lower end iems will recommend lower end iems, those that have bitten the bullet and gone after W3's IE8's wont recommend anything less and if they do they always attach **but its not just that good** at the end of the statement. And Most that recommend midrange IEM's do just that, and for the most part, those who have midrange IEMS have their first IEMS as midrange iems. I can only imagine how many headfier's have gotten the PFE's as their first IEM since its been so well recommended, and in turn these guys recommend the PFE's non-stop without ever having heard any other iem. So to say the least recommendations are a bit skewed. Now you should be asking yourself, why the hell is this idiot recommending a pair of Monster Turbines to me, and if I look up his previous posts, he's been recommending them to other people aswell... Well for one thing I'm a ****** and I like recommending bad products <ahh gasp. Truth of the matter is the turbines really fit what you're looking for and as I stated in other posts, the turbines may not beat the the top iems in what they do best like the shures in midrange, the etys in the high end response, or the sound stage from the IE8. But they are well balanced in all of these regards to the point that they sound good with whatever type of music you throw at them including low bitrate files (and yes you should get low bitrate files, if you never want to be an audiophile, rip out them 192k's and listen to them proudly <ahh gasp).
Now, if the last two paragraphs havent made you laugh, but rather want to kill me, go to the nearest apple store and demo some headphones that you like and and can live happily ever after with for the rest of your natural hearing life.
