Late-night obsessive internet browsing along with the results in this thread have inclined me to the ATH-CK10's as my next purchase.
Sure, $290+shipping from Japan is expensive, however I'd rather satisfy my audio desire than climb an insatiable ladder of mediocrity, which could potentially lead to something worse like credit-cards
I just want satisfaction and then I can move on to obsessing about something else, like music!
I like everything I've heard about the CK10's, and nothing scares me, I actually quite like a 10Khz peak, my favorite eq settings usually involve lowering the 3khz region and highering the 10khz.
One user (in the "best IEM's for trance" thread) described the ck10's like he's in a car listening to really high quality speakers, that's pretty much the sound I'm after+the intimate feeling you receive from an earphone.
I was listening to trance in a friends car that had invested in some $800 pioneer speaker setup with kevlar tweeters or something and that is pretty much the best experience I've had of trance, I just loved the silky clear highs, I hope the ck10 can provide something like that sound minus the obnoxious sub-woofer impact you can feel a mile away (which I realise is one sound aspect you can't reach in earphones or headphones).
So just to recap, my sound preference is detail, clarity, speed, treble-quality. My genre preference is classical (baroque, violins, harpsichords), electronic(darkwave, EBM, industrial, synthpop, chiptunes, experimental, IDM etc.), female vocals(Celine Dion, Alison Krauss, a little j-pop) and then rock(alternative rock, garage rock, vintage rock, visual-kei, j-rock, speed-metal etc.), and then some pop and the continous exploration of new music!
I just have a few quick q's about the ck10's which I'm curious about, perhaps these are naive questions but remember I am new to IEM's =)
1. frequency response 20 - 15000Hz <- - - this is atypically low, I'm still young-ish and can hear up to 20Khz, will I miss out on anything?
2. input max 3mW <- - - this is also low, I'll be using a portable cd player which has stated in the manual "5mW+5mW at 32 Ohm, nominal load 58 Ohm [or something]" could this damage my ck's at max volume?
3. ck10 and k701 comparison <- - - do these
really sound alike? Apart from being bass-light and having a flat FR I can't imagine anything else sounding alike in these.