Ugh... I don't understand. Listened to the 598 for 2 hours, then put on my miserable, puny, FIVE BUCKS ( + 3 shipping) Chinese earbuds and they sounded way, way, way better (I'm obviously talking about the VE Monk). The bass is there, the vocals are forward, everything is tight and resonating to near perfection, it's just ridiculous. I can hear all the details on the Monk and I can hear it even better on the 598, but they sound hollow, compressed. The voices are distant and muffled somehow. Reviews praised the mids & highs, and I listened mostly to female vocal music such as Jpop, vocal trance, and stuff with violins & piano such as baroque music and various classical piano sonatas (all in flac & 320kbps) and man everything just sounds so awful on these. I also listened to modern orchestral, I have various albums from Two Steps From Hell in flac and they were flat out unlistenable as this kind of music needs some bass.
It's so weird because I can hear the tiniest background details very clearly and yet the main instruments and vocals are recessed. Such as the clock ticking sound from Starvation by Thomas Bergersen (flac), I could hear that background sound and the main tune was recessed, like what is even happening here? I can hear the clock as well using the Monk but it's merged with the rest of the music, on the 598 is totally separated and somehow more forward than the main melody.
Also, these are fatiguing, and very much so. At very low volume they fatigued my ears a lot, when I took them off I felt like I was just out of a club (even though these have no bass and I didn't listen to any bassy track) and back again to the not-so-crappy VE Monk, I could keep them on for entire days with no issues at a higher volume.
I'm seriously tempted to return these and buy the other earbuds from VE, namely the Asura, and an amp.
Does anyone here own the VE Monk? I feel silly comparing a 5 bucks earbud to a full size headphone like this, but my ears are telling me the Monk sounds not only more pleasing but also better in basically anything but soundstage.
Bottom line, I either have defective ears or defective 598s. I will keep listening and see what happens.
Here's a little picture.