I bought these back in December and when I demo'd them, one of the channels was intermittent and it took a great deal of time before I got a replacement pair - in the meantime I bought a number of different IEM's so I really didn't add the VC02's to my round-robin carousel of headphones. I burned them in for 20 hours or so, but never listened to them - I bought some Monoprice 8320's in black and some others - It wasn't until a couple of days ago- after I read Joker's review, that I remembered I owned them and so I gave them some time....
WOW - they are really, really good. I was expecting bass on the level (perhaps less) than the monoprice - but no - I am able to get a great deep-insertion seal with these and when I play some of my nicer recorded lossless files, I was blown away - the level of detail and the solid punch of the bass notes caught me off guard. These are just wonderful IEM's. I have always liked the fun, V shaped sound that I get with phones like my IE8's or TF10's - but most of the "neutral" phones I have listened to have left me wanting something more - not so with these.
I really, really am happy with these and will definitely make sure they get the recommended 100 hours burn now. The bass response is great. I used to do mobile audio - and when I did high end systems for customers, they would always drift to the larger woofers - with ported enclosures. Myself, I would set up my systems with sealed boxes and multiple smaller, 8 or 10" drivers. They were always faster and punchier. They also required more power. These remind me of that sound - tight, not sloppy.
Very nice - I'm glad I have these. Now I'm going to have to find the same sort of sound in a higher end IEM - now that I know that this sound exists - it has to be available at another level.
Cheers.
