Okay, I didn't want to reply too early cause my impressions change often with these, so I might as well now
You mean like 99.9% of all IEMs out there?
Obviously, but of course that's not what I meant when I said extremely dependent. The IEMs I've had before would change character with different tips or would be obvious to tell if they didn't fit correctly. These straight up sound broken if I don't mess around with them to position them just right in my ears every single time I put them on. These are the first IEMs I've owned that have aboslutely 0 driver flex, which is great but it's hard to judge a fit when I don't hear that driver flex back just right or the vaccuum pop (don't know how exactly to describe this) that tells me that there's a proper seal. With these, I just kind of get them in where the isolation is on the level of a good fit and then shoot in the dark, twisting them around to get a good sound out of them.
I don't think my ears are particularly picky, they've changed over the years but I've never had to finesse IEMs to sound good before like this. I appreciate the look of these, they are some weird mf'ers and I find them seriously cool to look at, especially with the silver cable I have on them, but I'd have preferred something more conventional if it meant that the fit was effortless.
I had to experiment a bit with sources, for some reason it seems to me that turning my X3 III to low gain instead of high gain which is kind of what I've always defaulted to makes it sound less shrill to me. On high gain and decent volume, these sounded distorted in the high end, overwhelming, but now at the same volume they seemingly sound fine. This could be just a by-product of me messing with the tips and fit all the time and in the meanwhile I just got a better fit regardless of the gain level on the source. But hey, just something I've observed, although it doens't really make sense to me that it'd make a difference when volume matched.
Aside from being finnicky with the fit, I find these to be finnicky with the material you're listening to. I personally really dislike when a set of cans or IEMs is particularly good for a specific type of recording, I prefer all-rounders. These for me personally at this stage, anything with very distorted, dry guitars sounds almost like the drivers were blown out. So that means a lot of metal (but strangely not all), but even Hammer to Fall by Queen sounds almost unlistenable on these due to the vocals and guitars sounding way too shrill. That 3.5-4k hill probably has a lot to do with it, but to me it doesn't sound like a hill but a nasty peak somewhere, could still be me having issues with the fit, who knows at this point
When they work though, they work great. They feel treble-heavy of course, but unless the track is extremely saturated in that hill area, it balances out nicely.
Some things I've noticed compared to the IT01 I used before, if anyone has them and is considering a switch to the Tape:
- the vocals have way less body, both male and female. The IT01 doesn't present the vocals way forward since it's still got that dip in the midrange but they sound very full due to the smoother mid-bass. The Tape presents vocals cleanly, more often further in the background unless like in Hammer to Fall they hit that peak too harshly and start splitting your ears. The female vocals are a bit less affected but the IT01 I feel still renders them better and warmer. The very good thing is that the Tape hasn't been sibilant at all in my experience, which is something I was expecting considering how the vocals are overall presented.
- the soundstage on the Tape is much wider, but at times they can sound hollow. There are certain tracks that make them sound empty and shrill, but we'll see how it sounds once I get more used to them, I suppose.
- the Tape is very detailed. The details that are extremely panned to either left or right come through much cleaner and are very easy to hear and follow along than on the IT01, which goes for a smoother sound.
- due to more focus on the sub bass and less on mid-bass, I find that drum hits/toms suffer a lot compared to the IT01. They sound very thin and because of the overall speed of the Tape, they don't really fill out the sound with reverb, perhaps the decay is a bit too short.
Well, sorry for the length, just thought this might help someone who's considering coming to these from the same set that I have. I always find that the direct comparisons help the most. I'm gonna keep experimenting and trying to get an easier fit with them or whatever. Overall, extreme potential but still a bit of a struggle. Cheers!
