One problem I think that happens with a lot of people is that they expect MASSIVE differences in sound from one product to another. Take a person on the street and play an 128 kb/s mp3 from a mediocre dap and run that signal through headphone A and do the same but this time run a signal from a vinyl rig through headphone A and a good amount of people won't hear a difference. The reason? They aren't listening to the music. They are hearing sounds no doubt, but they aren't really listening.
I had a friend come over once many years ago with his Sony V600s and he tried my RS-1's, AB'ing the two. His response? They sound the same. Beyond me thinking he's daft and deaf, I started to think about how he actually listens. He cranks the music to ear bleeding levels and wants thumping bass and well, that's about it.
No ideas about nuance, space, air, dynamics etc.
When using something as sensitive as the ES3X's, one expects that they should be easily driven by just about anything. 120 db efficient? Or more? Come on, rubbing your feet on the carpet should generate enough juice to make one deaf! However, there is more to the sound and that comes in the smaller bits. Blacker backgrounds for instance. My 2G Nano is awful with noise, my Macbook Pro is even worse (amp/dac on its way though!). Throwing in a better source and/or amp makes it so that more is revealed. The better the source (in terms of detail retrieval, natural presentation etc) the better the sound coming from the ES3X's. That said, there is no reason that something as simple as an FM tuner and the ES3X's can't be absolutely sublime. In fact, one should be cheering this on! It means it is a whole lot easier to enjoy the music without futzing around with ancillary components. R10's, GS-1000's, HE90's...they all need complicated setups to sound their best, in fact, some would say to sound good at all. The ES3X's? Nope! Their incredible efficiency enables even the meekest amp to get the job done leaving the real leveraging up to the source. Ultimately even with the source there will be diminishing returns, but think about how wonderful it is that one can practically forgo an amp and just concentrate on upgrading the source!
The trick I suppose would be in trying to stop believing the ES3X's or any top IEM are mainly portable doohickies and start thinking about them as high end transducers.
What are the Cons of an IEM?
Isolation. This is also a pro however.
Miniscule headstage and small soundstage
Lack of body crunching bass
Limited to one listener (again this could be a pro)
What are the pros?
Relatively cheap.
Likely the best detail in all of audio.
No room interference.
Easily driven.
Awesome sound anytime anywhere.
There are certainly more in both categories, but the cons I simply can't see growing too much longer in that list. Whereas there are plenty more pros.
High end speakers break the bank, no doubt. They also require excellent rooms, excellent amps, preamps, sources, cables and power regulating/cleaning products. The do permit multiple people to listen at once which is a major plus and they also recreate a very realistic live experience, but their short falls are many and when searching for the absolute sound, it becomes difficult to top out with speakers.
High-end full-sized headphones reduce some of the problems that speakers have but introduce others like limiting the folks who can listen, realistic sound levels, chest thumping bass etc. They also require far more gear to sound their best, sometimes on the same level as speakers! (but thankfully at a lesser price most often).
High-end IEMs reduce those limitations even further while introducing some top tier levels of their own, likely unapproachable by any other form of transducer. But, in each category, the better the source, the better the sound. Yet, it sure is incredible that even straight from a DAP, one can enjoy very high level sound in such a minimal package. DAP + Transducer? That's it? SWEET! If only we had access to a portable DAP, dead silent, natural sound, massive capacity able to decode any codec. Then! We could really talk about top tier sound on the go, but for now, we are at least in the upper mid-fi level with something like a good sounding DAP + ES3X or another IEM on the same level. How difficult would it be to achieve this for the same money using different tech? I'd wager nearly impossible.
