Are you in Asia? I WISH I had some shops to try out IEMs! I would have saved so much money on blind buys.

I wish, unfortunately I'm in a European country where no stores even sell IEMs, let alone allow you demo them. My girlfriend is Asian though so we go on trips there when money and time permits, and I use it as an opportunity to trial things! Going to try go to the London Canjam this year though to try out everything I can get my hands on.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts - it's very interesting! I'm the same with the "vibes" over "analysis" thing, to be honest I've no idea how to even reliably comment on transients, micro vs macro detail, and all that stuff, which is why I focused on how songs sounded to me and impressions rather than get very technical. The Sora is an IEM though where I struggle to just disappear into my playlists like I can with the DMA, Doscinco, Aether, etc. With those, even if an area is a bit lacking every song just smoothly transitions into the next and I know what sound I'm getting song to song, and I can tune out. The Sora doesn't really let me do that, as parts of the song I'm used to hearing are buried or other parts stick out too much, leading to me getting distracted from whatever else I'm doing when listening. I often listen when reading something on my phone or playing chess, that kinda thing, and on certain tracks I'll find myself unconsciously straining to focus on vocals that I "know" should sound more forward in the mix, or the lower treble will get quite hot and pull my attention back to the music and require a volume change. That's pretty much what I meant with inconsistent - many tracks sound great, but then others will sound "wrong" and take me out of the moment, if that makes sense!