i tink if you guys are looking into 3 way cross over, i suggest a custom ES3X will be good... just i believe if you hear before, the moment u turn into customs, you wont want to go back to universal... and i had experienced myself...

i had just receive my ES3X a few days ago and i got perfect fit the first time i tried on (maybe i am lucky). however, the fit and isolation is one plus point that you will never get from an universal IEMs even if you put westone ultra long foam tips. furthermore, as audiophile, u should know different foam tips will result in the quality of the sounds coming out. I.E to say, i tried using flex sleeves the sound i get are brighter than using foam tips. the isolation wise are also different. Thus, sometimes a bad day, you cant get your IEMs optimal sound quality. However in customs, what you hear will be the best of everytime you put it in your ears.

For sound wise i will just talk briefly as i wont get into detail that much, what i can compare, I had only tried, Shure E2c, E3c, E4c, E5c, E500s, Westone UM1, UM2, UE superfi 5pro, UE triplefi 10 pro, UE 11 universal.

so for sound i tink is best to get into comparisons with other IEMs rather than saying the low is punchy, the mid is forward and all those crap that you wont learn from it.
before using ES3X, i am always using E5c as i am more into details and flatness... i had come across E500 for about a months and i find that the sounds isnt that great even though its a 3 driver as compared to E5c a 2 drivers. E500 as compared to E5c is definitely bigger in sound... but not bigger in sound stage.... thats the issues.. so thus what i can hear in E500, i can also hear in E5c, only that the sound are bigger in E500 and the bass is extended... 1 minus point i find about the E500 is that the sound is too loose... the bass is not tight enough and due to the big sounds, the resolutions of all the instruments seems to disrupt the actual sound of the instruments, which means the decay of the sounds was not well molded, which make it sounds rather like UEs IEMs, however, as being shure, shure should be more of a flat sound rather than colored, thus it makes the E500s going no where... another minus point.
Talking about UE in comparisons of E500, UE are more colored monitors. But at least they color their sounds in a unique and good ways. So ppl looking for colors in their IEMs should try testing out UE superfi 5. But as i says, is always personal preferences. okay i will cut and go to the point now.
UM2, as compared to superfi 5 pro, E5c (all the 2 driver monitors):
As i said E5c's sound is more defined in their presentations of sounds as compare to UM2 and superfi 5 and i can garantee saying this. However, on the other side, UM2 may sound more forward in their mids as compare to E5cs, thus if comparing to listening to popular music e.g. reggae, R&B, Rock, E5c lose out to UM2, coz UM2 brings the sound more forward than E5cs. using E5c to listent to pop songs may sometimes be very itrritating as E5c concentrates more on high and lows, thus whenever i want the sounds to be bigger or more front, i raise the volume, but the high will turn too shrilling when the voume is up. But using E5c to listen classical music... is the best earphones out of all 2 drivers (excluding ER4 and E4c, ER4 might be better, i don't know.)
Okay now finally ES3x, the moment i get ES3x, i didn't expect much from it mainly because i believe the higher you climbs up among the IEMs, the lesser significant improvement u will get from the upgraded earphones. I.E. to says, a $200 dollar earphones will sound 50 times better than a stock earphones, a $500 earphones will sound 5 times better than the $200 dollars earphones. A $850 earphones will sound 0.5 times better than a $500 earphones ( this is a fact though), thus i don't expect my custom ES3x to sound a lot better as compared to my previous earphones.
However, i realise we can't compare it this way when coming to compare customs with universals.

What i must say before i start is that i am not really a fan of westone though, but i will explain why i get ES3x in the end. When come listening to ES3x, first thing, best sound stage i had heard so far. (when talking about best soundstage, is as compared to the above IEMs i had used before. But i heard that ACS T1 customs IEMs have even better sound stage.) what i can hear in E500s, E5cs, Triple Fi 10, i cannot hear in UM2. What i can hear in ES3x, i am amaze i never heard before in all the earphones i used before. Just for the instant when i test out various music files. when Testing on vocal i uses one of the track "I'm yours". I could even hear the sound of him opening his mouth before he breathe in and start singing. (not exaggerating.) and there are various instruments that has been heard in ES3x and not in my old IEMs. Thats for sound stage.
For Low, definitely extended bass and TIGHT!... as is definitely much better than E500, Triple fi 10 and even skull candy headphones (i know i am being random to put in skull candy, by the way skull candy is a headphone that the sound sucks and cannot make it as it is not a headphones for audiophiles, however i find headphones bass are outstandingly big as compared to IEMs especially skullcandy headphones though.)
For mids, i have no comments,
for highs, no comments also as it perform per as normal, in its best,
the low mid and high are really well balanced as i can say. or what westone can say (3 precised balanced amateur). If you find ER4, E5c, E4c presntations and isolations of individual instruments well... i can say ES3x surpass all of them. As i always thought, Shures presents its sound very well... and ER4 is famous in his clarity of sound as compare to quality (for clarity sometimes u need to give in quality to make up for it.) but for ES3x, i nv hear sounds that are so full, rounded up, and big while still able to maintain the presentations of sound. Just like what most review on ES3x says, there is lots of space in between instruments. this is one big extreme plus point. (space within instrument = clarity = big sound stage = longer hour listening as it wont tired your ears so fast.) eh... i tink i shall stop here for describing the sounds.

and for why i bought ES3x even though i ain't a fan of westone. Is that i actually wanted to purchase UE10 pro. however Stereo no longer a distributer of UEs and i am damm piss off... so i head down to Jaben and i could not get a fix price for UE10pro, But when wilson quote me the price, 1.7 to 1.8k (inclusive of shipping and everything.) i thought that he is over charging me as i received the priced from stereo is 1.4k... this is like 400 dollars different! so i head back to stereo and ask if they can help me and they ask me try purchasing online... i tried, and finally came out a price 1.7+k coz if i paid by visa, i will have interest and exchange rate. this piss me off badly. i wanted to upgrade to a custom so badly so i head back to Jaben, and in the end, the price they quote becomes 1.8k to 1.9k and i am like thinking, WTF? a triple driver custom cost 1.8 to 1.9 and UE 11 cost 2k... like that i must well but UE11... thus i concluded that Jaben is not very frank and honest in their price tag. In the end, i had no choice but to buy Westone customs instead, so i head down to Stereo and got my ES3x at 1.4k in total. (actual is 1.3k, but i included workarts for my earphones and it cost a 100 dollars more.)

By the way Jaben sells their ES3x at $1699, which u can simply put it as 1.7k and it exclude work art. which i believe if i add work art to it, it will turn out to be 1.8+k... so think about it.... haha.... tsk tsk... but anyway i have no regrets in purchasing ES3x though eventhough my main motive is to buy UE10 and UE11... which could possibly be my future investment if i can find a proper ditributor...