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It almost sounds like you guys are describing the coherency issue someone was pointing out about the AKG K3003. It's as if the dynamic and balanced armature speakers are not quite on the same page. Oddly enough, that makes me want to hear them even more. Perhaps they'll have a livelier sound. In other words, a “studio live” sound where everything isn't mastered perfectly. Back in the day, the stage-band (i.e. live concert) was not perfectly blended either.
I'm puzzled by the idea that the SE535 could be “too bright”. I find them warm and only ever so slightly bright (if that). I think warm and bright is the best combination (as oppose to cold and dark).
I seal for isolation. I seal by adjustment according to engine/wind noise in the truck as oppose to how it feels in my ear. The foam tips are okay, but I find the triple-flange to be better and the triple-flange/foam combo even better still. I can't get the first flange properly in my ear without a few drops of water as lubrication.
Struggling to hear detail is another bad sign as I have the IQ in the “add to cart” position. Do I pull the trigger? Let's see, we have sibilant highs, scooped out lower mids, and a struggle to hear detail. We also have “tight bass”, which is like hearing FIRST that a blind date has a nice personality.
I'm just kidding about the tight bass.
I had tight bass in my car (back in the day) with the two 12 inch Kicker woofers. Only the rear view mirror rattled (nothing else). If you were outside the car you heard something completely different with the car's tag rattling wildly and the bass appearing to drag with a deep moan. It's a different world inside the car.
Brilliant assessment of my waffle I would say. However I am nit picking and slightly guilty of a couple of things, one of them is that I am a bit pissed off with Shure as I have had three pairs of 535's or them and their predecessor without the replaceable cables. Yeah I got a bit disillusioned when I bought my third pair due to the cables being totally rubbish, at least I can replace them now, however we did have a few fall outs, and even with brand new cables bought, I can still get some crackle in one of them if I move my head in the wrong direction. So I am a bit cross with them.
Maybe "bright" was the wrong word to use. I think with that statement I was trying to express "fatigue" or lack of it. At times I found that with the Shure's I simply had to take them out as they were tiring my ears, this could be down to loads of things I suppose, but I did find them to be quite "punchy"...maybe "focused" is a better word.
These things are so very different to that, they sound so open and wide.
I was thinking a lot about sound wave propagation through air and IEM's and Closed Backs etc etc....it was simply thinking, I didn't go on line and do any research. However to my mind, knowing what I know about frequencies and wavelengths (much more than is healthy), I got to thinking about how difficult it must have been for Ultrasone to achieve what they have, which is an IEM with a ridiculously detailed sound stage. One would presume that due to the shorter wavelength of the higher frequencies then they would naturally punch through and hit your ear drum totally differently when the music is being pumped straight onto your ear drum, so really I suppose there is always going to be a battle against sibilance to some degree, but to my mind and as long as the seal is there, Ultrasone have nailed it with these, and maybe they have done so exactly as you describe. Sometimes lack of coherence can be an equalizer of sorts as long as the phase of the imbalance is in line with the frequency. It essentially stacks out and allows for the detail without the fatigue.
That is some "sonic jargon" that really does apply in this case but might need more explaining.
I have to say that I am jealous of tinymans description and wish I had included it, DETAIL ORIENTATED, is really a very good description.
Interesting that you mention "studio live" and I know exactly what you mean, I have a producer friend who sometimes sends me unmastered tracks, and of course you can really hear that.
I can hear it on audio from video too, I can hear when the mixing messes up, where the siren from one scene actually trails into the next, where there is no police car, a mistake, but really quite clear on the IQ9's. I tried it with my SHURE's, can't hear the siren when the scene changes on them, but can on the Ultrasones, which says a lot about the difference in quality to my mind anyway.
However these are just my thoughts and in reality I am not qualified or experienced enough in Head Fi to really make the best judgments, I will get there one day, this is really only a few months in to really trying to learn how to express what my ears are hearing and how I feel about it, I am going to get some things plain wrong.
All I can say, is that I really like these, I find them very exciting and really to steal tinyman's description "Detail Orientated"...but in their own unique way. Personally I have never heard anything like them, but you can see by my list, that I haven't heard too many thing.
I was disappointed at first and though that I had paid for a name, but I was wrong, incredible detail and depth for an IEM, in my experience.
