I recently lost my beloved Fischer DBA-02s, though I have a hunch they’ll eventually turn up. But who can resist the excuse to buy new gear? 
Anyway, I was determined to avoid giving money to Shenzhen, which left me with few good options. And I didn’t want to spend more than $200. The answer seemed to be the Etymotic ER4 series, and I opted for the XR. They arrived yesterday. $160.
And oh wow. A little while I go a tried some Moondrop Starfields and these are radically better. How so? Astonishing clarity. Much better treble. I know that’s what everyone says about Etys, but it’s true. How’s the bass? Fine. High quality. Fantastic for classical. That said, I just threw on some The Police, and yeah, the drums are just gorgeous. Rush? Sound great. Tom Sawyer lacks for nothing in the bass department. Mean, mean stride. Now listening to Sylvan Esso…bass is great.
Anyway, I realize these have been out for a few years, and that everyone’s smitten by the latest Chifi du jour. But they need to be on folks’ radar at least for anyone hunting at the $200 price point.
ps. There’s a Björk track called “Headphones” on the album “Post.” It’s as if she wrote it for Etymotic to give them an opportunity to show off.
pps. Listening now to Sibleius 5. Holy crap. Gorgeous. Esp. that powerful 3rd movement. These things have an effect wherein the sound isn’t coming from my ears but rather straight to the brain. It’s hard to describe but basically the IEMs become transparent.
they work great off of my BTR5, which is critical given that that’s my on-the-go rig. At the moment I’ve got it plugged into my Asgard 3, on low gain. Sounds great. I don’t really perceive a difference between the BTR5 and the A3 other than that with the A3 I can easily play the music much louder than I care to or should.