Alright, I’m officially hostage to the 64 house sound.
Today I went to audition a ton of different customs; spent like 3 hours trying many different ones. The goal was to find one I liked enough I could sell my Noirs for. And...I failed. No matter what I listened to, the Noirs just beat them all.
I liked the VE8 best, but even that wasn’t quite good enough. Finally I gave up, and realized I wasn’t going to sacrifice that much sound quality just for a custom. So now I’m happy with my A18s and my Noirs.
I think in the end, it comes down to treble and soundstage. Estat treble sounds fake/disjointed/sharp to my ears, and the treble on the VE8s, while incredible (one reviewer said it had the best treble of any iem he’d tried), was ultimately too closed or congested compared to the Noir for my taste. I don’t know if it’s the Tia and the fact that it’s “open,” or even really what that means in a concrete sense, but the open, airy, natural treble of the 64 sound utterly prevented me from switching.
(I did end up buying some JVC sound dots, which have improved the fit, so all is good.)