Some more impressions as a new owner of the SE846:
Initially the bass seemed very overwhelming when I first hit play with these bad boys in. I think it was mostly that I wasn't expecting such impact even despite the marketing and "true subwoofer" performance. I'm happy to report that the bass response is excellent, tight and controlled, never muddies, has excellent extension and sub bass response is just awesome.
At first, I had changed through all the filters to see which I liked the best. I obviously started with blue and they had great bass, but will great clarity across the spectrum and awesome instrument separation which can suffer a lot when bass colors phones too much. White was very good, had awesome detail and introduced enough sparkle up high, but still had some bottom end impact. It did take away some of the oomph and made this earphone sound maybe a tad more analytical to me. The black filter was my least favorite at first. It sounded like the bass went from tight and controlled to overly exaggerated and colored everything too much. Now that my brain has begun adjusting to the sound signature of the 846 and I can identify its strengths and weaknesses better, I thought I'd try the filters again.
So I tried the black filter and I've got to say that I enjoy it much more than I initially thought. Actually I first thought "oh I'll never use this". It certainly adds additional impact and takes a tad off the clarity and detail of the bass frequencies, but it really doesn't seem to impact the rest of it's sound signature qualities. Soundstage still sounds good, the mids remain creamy and forward without being muddied and the highs still have detail albeit a bit rolled off.
Overall, its very impressive how these filters seem to tune the sound to your liking just enough without taking away the characteristics of the 846's sound signature. I'd be interested in seeing mods for these filters or shure even selling a multi-pack that allows further tuning options. Kinda like EQing your music, but at the driver level instead of source level. Verrrrrryyy cool.
Also did some quick A/Bing vs UE900S. UE900s has some good clarity, mids are indeed recessed and not nearly as good, bass is obviously lacking, but only by comparison. The bass is actually pretty clean and controlled sounds, just lack sub bass response and overall impact or oomph. Clarity and detail retrieval are very good tho and music definitely enjoyable. What has surprised me and excited me the most about the 846 vs the UE900s is how much more listenable the 846 is at lower volume levels. The UE900S needs to be driven to higher volume or else it loses most of its sound quality rather quickly whereas the 846 seems to maintain it at low volumes. Thats very nice to help prevent fatiguing.
