I've been listening to these 3's a little more this weekend and i think i'm starting to be able to put my finger on whats so good about these iems.
Firstly, the comfort is exceptional, you could easily forget your wearing them, I've tried the Triflanges, but without cutting them up they're too long and scratch the inside of my ear, so i'll leave those fr later. The Comnplys are comfortable, buti don't feel theres much to be gained in the bass area from them, but the trble does seem a *tiny* bit more muted than the Olives.
The Olives are very comfortable, almost as comfortable as the comply's, with a little less isolation. There is however a tiny bit more treble like maybe 5% more. The Soft Flex (bullet tips) have the best treble of all of the tips so far for me, but with a little less Bass and a lot less isolation than the complys.
Tips aside, I've been listening to a fair variety of music and it seems to me that the biggest thing I've noticed is the lack of frequency bands. There may be 3 seperate driver elements in this IEM but they don't sound as though theres 3. It all sounds like one, theres no gaps or drop-offs between the frequency band each driver is tuned for. The result? A Very smooth transition from Very low frequencys right up to the upper ranges, with no unusual humps or troughs in the response.
I'm really beginning to be more impressed the more I listen to them, as the upper ranges that I thought a little recessed at first, is there, but it's more "in the mix" rather than being pushed out to the front as a lot of cans/iems seem to do. I think the closest description i can give these is that it's like listening to a really nice 3 way speaker from across a room.. That is not to say they have a huge soundstage (they are IEMS after all), but it seems that the sound is given time to mix together as it would from a speaker across the room. A very natural sound. I'd say of all the IEMS i've tried, this is easily the most "natural" sounding.
The detail in these IEMs is quite excellent also. It's always a surprise to hear new sounds/textures/nuances in a piece of music you think you know inside out.
Last night I listened to Chris Rea's The Road to Hell, and for the first time, i could clearly make out not just the rain noise on the first track, but the sound of the wiper motors and the shwish of the wipers on the windscreen. Now, I've had that album since it came out in 1989 and I've listened to it MANY times, but with headphones I've never heard it with such clarity and micro detail.
Another thing I noticed with the 3's is the very natural sounding decay. Let me try to explain further.. with IEMs (and most headphones I have) when a songs ends with a flourish from a band, the big final chord etc, I've noticed most headphones don't seem to have that slow decay of the sound, the reverb just seems to get suppressed. With the 3's the songs seem to have that little last echo, the resonance that seems to disappear with other phones. I'm sure theres a proper and correct term for all this but I'm not the most experienced reviewer, so forgive me if i'm a little umm inarticulate.