Also my first balanced armatures, but I can easily compare them to electrostatics which they are similar to to an incredible degree. I was shocked at that aspect.
Wearing them here normally straight down, with the included foam backed silicone yellow tips ( 3rd largest ).
Some brief toned-down impressions
SO FAR with overnight running so maybe ~8 hours tops so far.
I am not a huge fan of describing sonic impressions but i will give them a shot.
Running them on a full sized JVC A-X55 Dynamic Super-A integrated , tone bypass on. ( yet to try amped and unamped Cowon D2. with the BBE setting listed earlier )
Most files are Flac or 320, some VBR not much, will try out some cd's ( Luxman CD player ).
Oh forgot one important aspect too, I use an inline natural sound ( not the bass enhanced version ) cross-feed cable to give a more cohesive speaker-like presentation to all my tunes. I should try without it but then that will throw me off my game again. ( sounds too artificially separated without it , it's not for everyone though )
The "lack" of bulk to these,
in my opinion at this point is partly(wholly?mainly? )an effect of the sound stage depth/dimensionality,
together with the way the song itself was mastered ( it varies as to the depth degrees )
Has everyone read why the bass has been raised a bit on the Golden Ears ideal signature? This is the way it is and different compared to speaker neutral , but apparently they say headphones have a slightly different ability to move the inner earbone, and this raised bass assists in that PERCEIVED ( as opposed to measured ) neutrality when using headphones ( more or less i think that's it anyhow ). Of course if the highs are also raised a bit then you may perceive the middles to be lower. These highs though are as described, shimmering.
To me there is no "lack" it's a bigger presentation is all ( so far ). Certainly
not a closed in, in-your head wall of sound ( like the AKG K240M for example ) where everything is "within close proximity".
Say for a fun weird example, that the in-your-head-closer-proximity sound to me is having your bowed hands cupped around your ears with the sides of your hands open, then these are your hands uncupped near your ears with your fingers spread wide.
Told ya it would be an odd thought.
If you are used to any electrostats you may know what i am trying to get at here, except these have body in bass(
heck do they ever! ). ( see comment on orthodynamic similarity below )
This is a very interesting combination of the dynamic body and airy incredibly fast precise attack of the armature. Sparkling highs for sure. So far i find the H-100 simply to not be in your head so much , that may take a bit of getting used to, I am used to it already from a varied bunch of full sized cans. I can follow things well off into the distance if it's recorded that way. And the bass if it's in the tunes is fantastic.
Of course it should go without saying that these reveal how good or crappy that song mastering is.
I do get goosebumps from particular songs had it repeatedly last night.
Would like to see how they compare to the Stax SR-001MK2 IEM portable stats ( pro bias ) I may try an A/B later on. Would prefer to let the newness of these T-PEOS percolate a bit first. I do honestly think they are worthy of that comparison.
Closest other thing in my collection i could compare them to would be the Russian orthodynamics the Echo TDS-16 ( made in Smela versions ) which combine a neutral response with excellent highs ( not as controlled or clean as the T-PEOS here ), great space, and the tight bass that hits something excellent in your emotions..
Maybe I can also do an A/B check against the Ultrasone Pro2500 and see how the spaciousness compares to their s-logic effect ( not working with everybody due to ear shapes )
Just sort of flow of consciousness bunch of INITIAL impressions so don't hold me to it exactly they do need some more time on my head. Trouble is I have so much music to check out, guess i will stick to the modding test tracks.
so impressions ongoing and subject to change at any point, goosebumps are nice though.
Yeah i have way too many cans but these are at the top few in the heap so far for me. That's a calm unhyped comment by the way.
