@cellarbro Thank you for your thoughts. For sound signature, I'm a purist - so I want to hear a neutral sound; in my experience, when neutral is done correctly, it doesn't have to mean sterile or lifeless. I travel international a lot so isolation and comfort matter a lot.
I've had several lower-tier IEMs that, I bought years ago (CIEM Westone triple driver, Shure e5c, Etymotic 4s) but none of these really get close in my opinion. At home, I have PMC speakers and recently have picked up the Fostex 610s for personal listening when I'm home. The Fostex isn't my ideal cup of tea because it's scooped in the mids just enough for the vocals to get lost at times but it's close enough to where if I had IEMs that could equal the Fostex's sound signature with a little more mids if possible I would be interested.
One more important factor for me, and the area where I feel that my current IEM lineup struggle, is the soundstage and imaging. My IEMs do not have the width or imaging that makes music come to life. I will say that I recently was sent the Nuforce Primo 8s that I purchased on Massdrop (I got the New version) and have refrained from opening it up because of these same fears - that it wouldn't be worth it to open it.