Starting from ground zero and looking at first real IEM purchase couple of months back, I was sold on the GR07. My friend has it and lent it to me for a few weeks. I absolutely loved everything about it. A non intrusive neutral sound which did drums really well. This was important for me as I am big on classic rock, progressive rock, alongside metal, blues, jazz and classical. I am not huge on techno, dubstep, trance, hip hop. I started reading reviews here and first pulled the trigger on JVC FXT90 to compared it with the GR07 with an intent of going for Gr07 when my following month's pay check comes in. I just loved FXT90's presentation more. It's agressive, easy to drive, in your face presentation with great sparkle in the treble and an absolutely amazing timbre(benchmark for me in IEMs). Overall a very rich all round presentation and nicely layered which worked well across all my genre. For me the drums and guitars on fxts...sounds a lot better than Gr07(though on drums only GR07s and Fxts are evenly matched). It's got less sibilance and easy to drive...Even at reasonably low volumes, it packs a punch. The sound stage has some good depth as well though not as wide as Gr07 which is more 2D in comparison.
Courtesy this thread....I ended up going for EPH-100 the following month (Frogbeats here in UK being out of stock didn't help either)....I've set aside my fxt-90 for most of the time. The instrument separation, 3d presentation, the quality and quantity of bass and the laid back presentation along with the best in class isolation has made these my fav IEMs outdoors. The treble on Gr07 and Fxt90 is definitely better than eph-100 but there is huge improvement on this once you cross 80 - 120 hrs.Its a lot more easy to plug in/out the jvc and yamaha as over the ear is not required which gives them a slight edge over gr07(though these are very comfortable too). JVC and Gr07 provide the same isolation with EPH-100 that go a tad deeper into your ears do a better job. I do feel eph-100 as correctly mentioned in this thread are very source dependent. They sound very different on all of my different sources...two laptops, 3 phones, sansa fuze(both default player and rockbox), ipod shuffle and an Onkyo Receiver/amp. The best portable source for me has been sansa fuze 2.0 with rockbox 3.10
The best part is...I still like the GR07 a lot, but now I would not want to go for it as I prefer the yamaha and jvc better overall. Both these I found a lot more fun and engaging without distorting sound across the spectrum. Both of them compliment each other far better than when each paired individually with Gr07s. But I have to say that when the Eph-100 was under 10 hrs, i almost wanted to return it back and get Gr07. This is no longer the case. I feel I have made choices better suited to my taste and genre of music.
I am jealous of those getting such good deals on EPH-100. They are definitely worth much more than that. I just never end up getting these kind of deals. I am not looking for a third IEM anytime soon till something comes along that is a significant jump from these two. Why fix something that aint brken..eh?
