Parcel received. First and foremost, the M9 fit like a glove, I'm surprised! Also, they are surprisingly small. Ergonomics are perfect, never had an IEM that fitted my ears perfectly right away. Seal is unexpectedly phenomenal, and I'm saying that having owned several Etymotics.
Detail retrieval is also phenomenal, tonality is just a smidge on the dark side but definitely a monitor experience. Excellent depth cues, image is a bit on the narrow side and around the head but exceptionally defined on well-mastered recordings. Unfortunately this works vice-versa: compressed recordings that are intended/suited for mass-consumption will sound like it; for example Sara Bareilles' musically exceptional
Little Voice OST (Apple TV+) or Lianne La Havas'
Lianne La Havas (Warner) will sound somewhat poor sonically, whereas carefully recorded and mastered productions such as
Vivaldi's Agrippo (Europa Galante; Naïve) or Hadouk Trio's
Air Hadouk (again Naïve; apologies if I'm coming off as the label's fanboy!) come off as a night and day difference. Smack in the middle, with legacy recordings such as Charles Mingus'
Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (Impulse!) the M9 will reveal all the spatial information coming from the mic positioning and mixing from back in the day, while something similar applies to the documentary-grade 1950 live recording of
George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess in Berlin (audite Musikproduktion; William Warfield; Leontyne Price) where you get first seat in what seems to be an almost impromptu documentation of an exceptional performance, burdened with all the limitations of the means available within the circumstances of that time.
I decided to buy into the M9 in order to graduate from my mid-tier IEMs so I can't really tell how the Sony fares against other IEMs at its price point,
with the exception of the Meze Rai Penta which I had the opportunity to audition and review on a Head-Fi tour. Meze ultimately came off as quirky to my ears, to say the least, whereas the Sony M9 just performs confidently at every level.
On the quibbles side the Sony M9 doesn't slam or rumble like a DD, but bass and rumble are there when you need them albeit comparably subdued and maybe even somewhat congested. That being said, I think I can now imagine how the Sony Z1r might be more impressive against the M9. Attack and decay are on the natural side, albeit still somewhat BA tight. I'm willing to bet that the whole thing will sound even tighter on balanced connection; unfortunately all I have to go on right now is my Mojo. I'm also betting the M9 will scale when I put them on my Phonitor X (oddly enough, the studio-pedigree beast can handle IEMs quite aptly!). Tempted to spend a few extra € to get me a FiiO Q3 on the cheap so that I can take advantage of my iPhone when listening on the go. Also tempted to match the Phonitor X with my friend's Pontus II and see what the M9 can
really do. The Pontus II is an analytical gem of a DAC so it should match the technical ability of the Sonys to the extreme.
These are all first impressions so take them with a grain of salt, but I don't feel that much will change over the foreseeable future. The longer my brain tunes in with the sound signature of the M9, the more revealing the M9 gets in terms of its sheer capacity to render the musical scene with the dexterity of a seasoned professional monitor —as it actually argues to be. Definitely more of a studio grade rendering, but I can confidently say right from the start that it's a
very good one...
