I just got my ie80s from amazon germany and I have to say I'm satisfied although not too impressed. Coming from the shure se425 and Senn hd558, the first thing that overwhelmed me was the bass. At the lowest settings, the bass was significantly higher than those. I don't currently have the se425 but I could tell there was a difference in the soundstage and even though the shure sounded more balanced, this felt more pleasant. Compared to the hd558 however, it's quite ambiguous. While it seems like the ie80s are more detailed, there is is something about the 558s (maybe is the soundstage) that makes me want to keep listening to it . However, this is the first iem that I have actually had no problems switching back and forth with the HD558 and feeling happy with both. With the shures, I always preferred the hd558s. It could also be that the se425 sounded so close and in-your face while the ie80s (similar to the 558s) was kind of laid back. My reason for not being too impressed with the ie80 was due to my expectations. I kind of expected it to be significantly better that the hd558s considering the price difference. I still feel it's better but maybe it was probably too much expecting a heaven and earth difference. Also, since they are significantly different sets of headphones, it could also be down to preference.
The bass tunning felt slightly odd to me. I tuned it to the highest level expecting a very pronounced difference but it felt like there was only an increase in the sub-bass making it more boomy. The only other headphone I've used with tuneable bass was the Custom one Pros, and with that the bass increase was very significant at each level. Let me know what your thoughts are on this as I was expecting that sort of difference.
Also, I thought the bass impact on my right ear wasn't working at first. However, I'm not sure if this is me or the music but I tend to hear the bass of almost every song on the left side of my head(ears). I don't want say ears fully because the bass feels like it's playing in my head rather than in my ears, but on the left side. ( If you can relate, let me know if this is normal..lol). When I tested for the bass with both ears, even when the left was at the lowest setting and the right highest, I still felt more bass from the left. Taking the left ear off however, (even with my impaired bass hearing on the right) I could tell there was a difference.
In terms of comfort, these are more comfortable than my previous se425s. I have amazingly small ears (probably the first thing you would notice seeing me) and small ear-holes. I find it difficult even fitting small ear-tips in. With the shures, I always used extra-small tips (from klipsch s4s) as I got the most comfort out of them. The first thing I did after unboxing the ie80 was to replace the factory medium tips with my extra-small ones but then came the bummer. The tip couldn't fit and all I could do was hope for the worst. I had to settle for the small foam-like tip and it turned out to be perfectly comfortable. I would rate the comfort similar to the shures with the extra-small tips and I could almost guarantee that using those same small foam ear-tips on the se425 would have been a problems.
Finally, when I first got the se425s, there was this static background noise that i kept hearing after I plugged it in and played music on my macbook air 2012. The noise was always present even at low volumes and would disappear about 2mins after the song stopped playing. I don't hear this noise with my HD558s and on the iPhone, I never heard it even on the shures. Later on, I surprisingly stopped hearing the noise from my macbook and I wasn't sure of why that happened or what i did to change it. With the ie80s currently, it seems the background noise is back again..lol
Can anyone please explain the reason for this static noise? Why do I seemingly only hear it with iems? Why do I hear it on my macbook but not on an iPhone? Why did I hear it with shures at first and why did I stop hearing it later on? Is there a way to stop the noise? Thanks.
