Anyway... in regards to the 334's sound... I haven't actually had much ear time with them to be honest with you. I got them in during a period where I also acquired a nice set of speakers, had hernial pain, and then E3 rolled around... and then The Last of Us came out. All these things served to distract me from the 334. I did grow to really enjoy their sound though. Previously, I'd really been a huge fan of the Flat-4 SUI. It's a funky Japanese IEM made by an ex Sony engineer who now runs a tea shop. It packs some crazy weird dual dynamic tech, itself the drivers are pointing towards one another, one driver serving to mask unwanted frequencies or some such. The result is a phone with an unbelievable dynamic range, gobs of detail, a very wide and incredibly layered soundstage, and really thumping yet fast and clean bass. It was the most engaging phone I'd ever listened to at the time.
The 334 is a whole other beast. It didn't actually impress me at the beginning. It was odd, but it sort of snuck up on me. It was a really unoffensive sound that didn't seem to do anything remarkable when I first put them in. It sort of reminded me of the Mad Dogs to be honest. I was testing out the new Daft Punk album RAM with it when I decided to flip over to the SUI cause I could have sworn they were a more engaging listen. That was the moment where I decided I should probably pay more attention to the 334. The Flat-4 sounded substantially thinner in the mid range than the 334, almost feeble in comparison. It really shocked me. As I spent time listening to the 334, I found them to possess a really weighty, powerful sound in the midrange and bass, with detailed treble that was recessed by comparison. I guess I should call the treble response "natural," as it didn't seem boosted in the way that the Flat-4's was. It wasn't ever harsh or strident. Vocals were very transparent. That goes for the whole midrange as a matter of fact. The 334s have remarkably good timbre and as a whole, is very cohesive. I honestly wouldn't suspect that they were a multi BA setup from how they sounded.
The bass is powerful, evenly split between midbass and sub bass, north of neutral but well controlled. People like to say its slow or whatever, but I honestly think its carefully tuned to provide more realistic decay. Drums and bass on the 334 are very realistic for instance, the 334 does drums like no other IEM I've ever heard. The soundstage is more chameleonic than any I've ever heard. It's difficult to get a finger on cause at times it can sound like a large headstage and at others completely out of your head. It's very adept at conveying the dimensions and ambience of the original environment in any case, and it's very much so 3D. It's more dimensional than any phone I've ever heard and I've been surprised more than once by how it portrays tracks that I'm very familiar with. So the 334 is in fact, a top of the line phone worthy of its stature.
Is it worth the $1,350? Well... this is where things get MIGHTY interesting. You probably remember me being this coming across like this crazy fucking shill for Aurisonics this entire past year no? Wait for the Aurisonics ASG-2 I'd say! Well... thanks to my buddy Eke here on the forums I actually got together with a fellow 334 owner here in St. Louis who was passing off Eke's ASG-2. I picked them up and spent the last few days listening to them before sending them off. I can tell you, that I was wowed from the moment I put them in my ears that night, you know why? They totally reminded me of the 334s. I was gobsmacked. I wasn't exactly sure of it, but I felt I knew the sig well enough to make that call at the moment. After taking them home, I A/Bed them against my own 334 and was floored to find that they didn't miss a beat against the 334s. In fact... I actually preferred them in some ways. We're talking about a $500 phone against a $1,400 one here.
The two phones are remarkably similar, with some differences that I feel play out to the G-2's favor. First of all, they both have really detailed but natural sounding midranges. I find the G-2 midrange to be every bit as transparent as the 334's, in fact, I think it's actually even more detailed since it's easier to delineate between different tones/instruments on the G-2. It just results in this really effortless sound. I wouldn't say it's analytical, because the phones sound extremely natural. The soundstage appears to be a wash between the two. The G-2 doesn't lose out against the 334 in size, and they image very similarly but the 334 tends to be more dimensional, the G-2, more linear, and I mean that in a lateral sense. There is definite depth to the G-2 and it can easily portray sound coming from behind and at all angles but not as vividly as the 334 I feel.
Bass... holy shit bass. The G-2's bass is very similar to the 334's bass. It differs in one key aspect: air movement. That gigantic 15 mm driver moves air like nothing I've ever heard. It absolutely floored me how effortless it was. I'd describe it as muscular and authoritative. It sounds like a subwoofer unit. Some of the best phones I've heard can dig down low, but you only hear the tone and if you're lucky, sort of feel the impact, the G-2 absolutely lets you feel it. It's very impactful bass. You can feel the vibration of a bass string and hear tones and textures in the bass in a way that I've never heard from any other pair of phones before. I think Kunluns' review nailed it on the head when he said the sound was like all these instruments coming together in a room to rock you. Like the 334, it's capable of presenting the ambience of a recording, except that air movement imbues every other aspect of the sound with this sense of realism. Vocals sound even more natural than the 334, drums are very, very close (I'd give it to the 334), and acoustic guitars sound amazingly realistic on the G-2. It has very good timbre indeed.
The other thing in which it excels in is breadth of dynamic range and low level listening. For the former, I was listening to Weezer's Only in Dreams the other night and there's that very slow and steady build up at the end of the song into a climax. The G-2 was able to extract every bit of that low level interplay between the guitars like it was a walk in the park, the Flat-4 and the 334 also manage this, but it sounds effortless on the G-2. I find that with the Flat-4 I tend to listen at higher levels to fill in that midrange and to give more oomph to the sound. The G-2 sounds the same whether it's at low levels or high, that bass still hits hard, the midrange is still full, and the treble still sparkles. Speaking of treble, that too is very similar to the 334. It's really detailed, has good timbre but isn't boosted. I find it actually has better note weight than the 334 which can sound a bit thin and tizzy. In any case, it isn't lacking in treble at all.
Amping the G-2 expands the soundstage and improves dynamics. The stage can sound pretty damned massive actually, and instruments, vocals take upon impressive height. The height, coupled with the natural sound and clarity was really impressive to me. I close my eyes and it sounds realistic in a way that other phones haven't been able to manage. It all makes for a very engaging listen. I guess that's the thing about the G-2. I was talking to Eke about this and I'd describe them as... I dunno. Emotional? I feel like I'm listening to an actual performance rather than a facsimile of one. Again, I attribute this to the sensation of air movement and natural sound.
I know you have the Senn IE800 and Eke has spoken of them in glowing terms against the G-2 so perhaps the G-2 is entirely redundant for you to own, I don't know. I just know that, at $500 it was a no brainer. The 334 was the redundant phone and I don't regret letting it go for the G-2. Even with a Silver/Gold 1P2 on the way, I'm more excited about the G-2. I think it's very nearly, my ideal signature.
Btw 80 is just a range, realistically I can go as high as 100 I think
