I got my XBA-1 yesterday. If you can imagine a pill, then imagine that very pill attached to your ears with a bud. Thats how it looks haha. About sound quality. It lacks bass. But one thing is for sure, the detail in each song i play now is so damn rich, i feel like im on a treasure hunt everytime i shuffle a new song on my player. Im not joking, i can literally hear sounds i wasnt able to hear before using my bass heavy ex50 before. I didnt change any settings on my poweramp app, just changed earphones. But the difference is like heaven and earth. Maybe its placebo, maybe its just me being a noob, but from this point onwards i wont go back to my older iem. Trading bass for rich detail is fine for me now HAHA.

P/S: The noise-cancelling earbuds they provide, it really does its job well. I tried using it in the middle of my flight without playing music, kenot hear the engine, vibrations etc. Can only hear the pilot announcing stuff, that also quite muddy. Wasnt the case before with my older iems. Pretty dangerous if you use it while walking on the street IMO.

Mostly 128-320kbps, mp3 format. Mostly downloaded or ripped straight from soundcloud, thats where i get my music now. Dubious source for quality check, that i can agree 

Have you try it before you put comments here.. 

Don't say it before you do. I can see a lots of improvements in Sony products. COS I'M SONY FANS BEFORE.

There is one Sony headphone that really good, I bought at Japan, after almost 2 years I use that, then they sell it in Malaysia. I bought that one in 2002 and still good until now. Even my friend keep asking me to sell it to him.

Tried xba-1 to 4 already using iphone, apple lossless quality.

xba-1 :
Bright mids and highs but not veiled nor sibilant. Detailed. Very airy, quite good soundstage for a 1 BA phone.
Bass is very weak, almost considered missing in action.
I think for the price of RM199 this is actually an OK buy.

xba-2 :
What the.... sounds like a cheap dynamic phone. bassy but totally flat and small/wrong soundstage.
5 seconds into auditioning this I nearly rage throw it.

xba-3 :
Couldn't get a good fit dunno why, so no impressions.

xba-4 :
Big soundstage, mids and highs similar to xba-1. Bass is very good but can over power the mids sometimes(not by too much though).

The only problem for xba series is I think they need to be amped for true potential. My iphone needs 90% volume for normal listening on these.
xba-4 hisses a bit, even the highs have some sort of distortion without amp.

If you're on a mac, use X Lossless Decoder.

If you're on windows, can use dbpoweramp music converter.

Get wav/flac quality and use the above software to convert to apple lossless.