The biggest showdown on in that dept will be with my Elysian Annihilator that should arrive early next week. The Gaea is something of a baby Annihilator and as such that is where you'd find the most natural comparison at the TOTL level. Regarding TOTL in general the reality is that once you get to the summit what you find are areas of high specialization. IEMs at the $3K and above level often have as their selling feature some area of speciality that distinguishes them from the rest of the market. What this means is that the further you climb up the summit of IEMs the more specialized their appeal becomes-- IEMs that are "worth the cost" for some are not for others who happen to not be as interested in their particular area of specialty. Regarding the Gaea on the one hand I can't imagine it luring people away from their favorite summit fi IEMs. It's not what I'd call a "giant killer" generally as you can find many IEMs at the TOTL level that best it in various ways on their own terms. Gaea can't compete with the timbre of the Traillii, the masterful reference sound of the Jewel, the imaging of the Mentor, the bombastic yet highly technical insanity of the Xe6, for example. That said Gaea is a very uniquely appealing IEM and one that I have not stopped listening to in the weeks I've had it despite having many TOTL sets cross my path in that time. In my opinion Lee of Elysian might be the one true IEM tuning savant out there right now. The Gaea, based on its FR on paper should not appeal to me as much as it does...but the tuning is so masterful that I find it utterly compelling to listen to day after day.
In other news I'm sending a tour unit down to the US either today or Monday-- interested parties who haven't already should see the tour thread and sign up:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/wat...ails-see-second-post-for-active-tours.960012/
Thanks for your thoughts
They are kind of what I expected. I've had a few flagship TOTL earphones over the years although not tried the summit sets such as the Jewel or similar. I've always considered it in terms of % differences between the earphones that sit in the mid price to high price categories.
Keen to try the Gaea based on your impressions, will probably order in the next few days, I like the idea of the tuning that both you and others have described