Got mine in, I think this may be the fastest I've received anything from massdrop.. Or drop now.
I am going to say initial impressions are these are in fact different from the esw9a which I enjoyed quite a bit. However there are some little things that I'm hoping some usage will take care of.. Overall these are a warm sounding headphone with great instrument separation. The treble is overly subdued imo but that could change, as the mids and mid-lows feel somewhat overextending (read slightly bloated). It doesn't have that rich mids that the esw9a had but it makes up for it in instrument separation and sound stage.. I remember the esw9a having better bass/sub bass than these..
Again all initial stuff and I do expect these to bloom to a nice laid back headphone with great instrument placements/separation (something the esw9a didn't have). Testing were done from a cell phone, will also try with the Mojo and Hugo 2 later on.
andrewebay1I also got my ESW990H in right after the 4th of July. I was surprised at how warm they sound, but the more time I spend with them, I appreciate the amount of detail they have. What really surprised me was using them to play games on my Xbox One: I was simultaneously hearing tiny details I hadn't ever noticed, and was generally amazed at how visceral the sub bass was, especially on explosions and thunder. It will be interesting to see how burn-in affects the sound, but overall I'm very happy.
Oh, and they are actually very comfortable for an on-ear set. I was worried about this, but I can wear 'em for hours, no problem.