I just spent an hour sitting in my dedicated listening room comparing my main speaker system to the Red. I have the system EQ'ed to -0.8 dB/ octave linear descending slope, but without the bass boost that
@crinacle added on top of it. My floorstanding speakers don't go as low as the Red but it was ok on bass (I use 3rd party tips to reduce the bass of the Red somewhat compared to the original tips).
My idea was to compare both since in theory both are tuned the same, and compare to the Dusk, which sounded much brighter than the Red. Who is right, who is wrong??
(1 hour of switching songs between them, heavy metal, EDM and jazz piano trio)
The speaker system sounds way different than the Red. For starters there is the room acoustics. Even with several 10 cm (4") thick rock wool panels installed, the extra decay is still clearly heard when compared to the dryness of the Red. And we know that IEMs excell in micro details and textures, but I never had them compared this way: same song, about the same volume, swapping back and forth. It was as if the system sounds blurred and dirty compared to the Red. And I am a proud owner of some great electronics and speakers, treated room and FIR room EQ. It does not matter: when the mix is loud and busy, the Red is just clean as spring water. On acoustic music the room reverb does not distract as much though as with studio music like heavy metal and EDM.
And tonality? Surprisingly to me, the Red is a lot closer to my system than the Dusk is. It's very hard to compare tonality with all these differences on top (decays, details, soundstage position). But if the Red has a tiny less air than my system, the Dusk has a lot more treble and sounds splashy in everything.
Super interesting, never thought of using my system as reference to evaluate IEMs. That was a first for me.
And when we factor in how much I spent on speakers, electronics, acoustics, measurements, even the room itself was custom built... Compared to 55 usd of the Red + 90 usd of the Tanchjim Space DAC... It is just mind-blowing.
Hundreds of times cheaper!
This had a deep impact on me, made me rethink priorities, reevaluate what was done until now and what I should do going forward, etc.