I didn't know they were discontinued, I still see them for sale by bigbargainonline on eBay. I did a lot of shopping after I lost my Sennheiser CX-300, a very mediocre IEM that was pretty uncomfortable. I really didn't think it was worth spending more than 50 bucks on IEM till I bought these. I came across the Klipsch X11i, which were the most comfortable IEM I have ever tried, but the price was astonishing at $350 retail. Even local brick and mortar shops offered 20% off. They were better by a short shot than the 7i and below, and much more comfortable. Anyway, I figured out they are only single armature, so I decide I needed to look at dual. The TDK BA-2000 came up, but they were out of production. So I did a lot more internet research and decided that I should try the Etymotics HF-5, Final Audio Designs Heaven Series, and finally, came across the VC-02, then the VC-1000. The Hi-Fi Man RE-400 came up a lot too, as well as the others mentioned in this thread. I bought them from bigbargainonline and they showed up two and half weeks later. The Final Audio Designs, I really wished I saw those, they are effing sexy, but the measurements are awful. The Etymotics get horrible reviews for falling apart basically, so no way. They are jerks for not having a dealer network anyway, they really need it. I kept coming back to the Klipsch, but the price, ridiculous. I took a chance on Vsonic, $125.00 shipping included. If they were as good as the Klipsch, what a deal. If they never showed up, oh well. bigbargainonline came through, responded to eBay emails, I'm happy. Turns out they are better than the Klipsch X11i by a good margin.
They sounded rough out of the box, but after 5 hours they started sounding great. The instrument separation was amazing, they sounded very fast, and the bass was picking up the more they broke in. The highs were very pleasant, male vocals were better than female, but even that evened out over time. (I've owned these for two months.) I *thought* the soundstage was pretty great, but after listening to my real hi-fi setup and loudspeakers, I realized there is a serious phase coherency issue, not that I would of ever noticed before. (Again, I am not an serious audiophile.) I can't believe these cans don't get much respect, but my preference is for balanced armature for IEM. They are friggin tiny, like IEM should be, they are way faster than dynamic, and like closed acoustic suspension speakers, the rub is that they lack bass, but a dual-driver version might do the trick I thought. I was right, these things have deep tight heavy bass. So dynamic, they make dynamic IEM seen not dynamic. Pretty massive sound, totally unexpected for something so tiny. I was pretty amazed at the articulation and detail at first, the bass slam second, male vocals third, piano sounded as great as I've ever heard, female vocals were very decent. What about the high-end? Well, it wasn't really tiring, I'm just an on-again and off-again audio guy, when I need to buy, I check out as much as I can, but I'm not on it everyday. In fact this is my first post on head-fi.org. I'll say I've been listening to more music than I have in years with these babies. I tried the NAD VISO 50 at my local shop The Audio Lab in Cambridge MA, and thought those were way too sharp in the highs, and those are the best rated closed back full size headphone on the market. (I thought the KEF M500 was nicer, and I tried the KEF M200 IEM, but they didn't fit.)
I'm sad to say that Klipsch's patented oval-ear tips are perfection when it comes to IEM tips, and even the Comply TX-100's in small that I managed to shove on are not as comfortable or as isolating. They are scary isolating enough, I certainly can't have a conversation with people with them in. I got the wax ear protection version of Comply, it is slightly smoother, but it could be my imagination, because I started using them on my Apple MacBook Pro Retina 13 and I realized that it was a better source than my iPhone 5s. Anyway, I recommend the smallest bore Comply you can buy, these things are tiny. I do notice that when I pull them out, they are oval, and Klipsch has a really obvious patent. The Comply isn't as comfortable as the Klipsch tips, but I haven't tried the Klipsch for extended periods though. The Comply was huge comfort improvement over the stock tips though. The Vsonic package was extremely nice, but I am not using any of the accessories. I made my own chin harness or cinch or whatever out of electrical tape like another reviewer, and it's too bad Vsonic doesn't do that for you. I could not care less about pause play microphone buttons, and clips are a waste of time. I know Vsonic is trying, the VC-02 looked tempting, but the detachable cable fiasco, oh well.
Things to improve: The VC-1000 wears well up or down, but the angle of the wire coming out the barrel is a bit conservative. Instead of 45 degrees, I would try 35. I'm convinced polarity doesn't make a damn difference and the nice thing is once you get over shoving these things down your ear hole, placement doesn't matter. Good seal is good seal at 2mm in or 5mm. The reason I would like 35 degrees is that it would be more comfortable sleeping, ha ha. Yes, that good. If Vsonic works on the phase coherency or time alignment, these would replace anything! I'd put a chin chinch thing on it, paint one can a different color because the color doesn't matter, they disappear in your ear anyway. The little nub on the right can is clever, keep that, but color coding would help as well. The sound signature is perfect, don't change a thing. I would make my own version of foam tips with wax guard and dump metal grille, and provide only those tips.
I'm really happy with them, and while I've been looking around from everything from Audeze LCD-X to Sennheiser HD 600 since then, the Vsonic VC-1000 are total keepers, always in my pocket or work bag. Amazing sound for the price and size. They are better in every way than the Klipsch X11i's except fit, for almost one-third the price. They are so good I'm curious about the GR-01, but I learned the VC-1000 is a later model, and I'm sure newest is greatest when it comes to this particular segment of IEM.
The only other issue aside from time phase alignment coherency is that they break up or clip badly at max volume on portable devices, but 2 steps down from max is clear and deafening anyway. It's probably something to do with the very low resistance, it's not an issue actually. These are close to as good as it gets with phones or laptops.