Wonderful review. Love your description of the soundstage. The smooth, floaty highs have my attention. Think these would sound amazing on my Pono Player in balanced mode. Thanks for the review.

You say "they compete easy with $1K or more IEMs".  What IEMs have you heard in that price range?  Thanks.

I can definitely testify to the fact that they indeed do sound as good if not better than 1k+ IEMs/CIEMs. These include the JH16fp, IE800, K3003i among the few I've heard. Just because it costs $700 it remains the flagship of Sony. The flagship of JH Audio costs $3000. I wouldn't be surprised that Sony can release an IEM at a considerably lower cost than its competitors simply due to its sheer size and resource of their R&D and Marketing departments.

I have heard IE80, 800 and i found the z5 to sound better than these two, in germany will try to auction more