LOL, I'm not a hard-liner to specific standards...my preference and major setting of listening is probably (read:absolutely) drastically different from Anaxilus's. And Sparrow's. And my standards are probably on the very soft side of the spectrum here. BTW UE emailed me today that my set was out. So I'm expecting them to arrive pretty soon.I'm guessing that Angie is more of a complementary unit to UERM, at least for me - Angie to my ears is far more forgiving, even my Alclair Reference is more merciless against bad recordings. But hey, I do need the forgiveness, when I listen to a lot of fantastic marvellous golden crap on Nicovideo.jp - they are just armatures and I can't expect Capitol Studio recording level. I also need Angie for a lot of other situations. But when I'm in the classical mood, with good recordings like Sheffield Labs or some Decca, some Karajan Gold, then I guess it would be the chance for UERMs to shine. There shouldn't be a real "preference" for me.I need a fucking IEM harem to serve my inconsistent music desire.
Haven't heard the Alclair Reference, so can't comment on those.My own pair of Angies is not excatly what I would call a forgiving IEM…at all — certainly not compared to my UERMs, ER-4S, F111s, EX800 or HD800s. Merciless? Hmmm, my Angies do tell me when something's not recorded well, but—and let's get ready to shoot the sparrow yet again—a good reference phone will make most recordings 'palatable', ie even poor recordings should sound fairly decent (or not as bad), otherwise perhaps one part of the spectrum is (overly) boosted, usually the upper midrange and/or lower treble. Phones like the EX1000, FIBASS, FIBASB, HD800, K3003, and at times the ER-4S, can make certain recordings not very palatable. I don't get this with my UERMs. But, hey, my 'palatable' can be your 'utter crap'.
a good reference phone will make most recordings 'palatable', ie even poor recordings should sound fairly decent (or not as bad), otherwise perhaps one part of the spectrum is (overly) boosted, usually the upper midrange and/or lower treble. Phones like the EX1000, FIBASS, FIBASB, HD800, K3003, and at times the ER-4S, can make certain recordings not very palatable. I don't get this with my UERMs.
You and I are totally on the opposite side of this argument my friend. Reference=accurate and there are simply a lot of bad recordings out there that in no way should sound 'palatable'. Reference audio should offer greater tonal contrasts using the same material, more resolution, more dissection but ultimately more musicality. The Yggdrassil is a perfect example of this and so is a proper HD800 and UERM rig. If good and bad mastered recordings sound closer to each other, like the track we went through before in this thread, that is forgiving euphony, not accuracy. If your phones make every single recording ever mastered palatable, that's simply an inaccurate device and not something I'd call 'reference'. Clearly our definition of 'reference' is coming from alternative perspectives. My .02 cents. YMMV.
This—and sorry to say this—has very little, if at all, to do with a particular HD800/UERM rig.
By your definition, if I can discern differences in tracks using iBuds then they are reference.
What I meant by 'palatable' is that at least a (close to) reference phone will show you what's there. Period. This, to me, often translates as bad recordings sounding simply bad (just as they are)......On the whole, to put it another way, a reference/neutral phone is a better all-rounder.
