First things first. Thank you Andrew and Grace for the awesome customer service, as always.
I previously tried the KR5 and very much enjoyed it, and based on that experience I stepped up to the XE6 and have no regrets.
I have waited a few months to post my thoughts because I found the XE6 was improving with age. I have 150ish hours on it now and it seems settled in.
The Atom modules are a pain to remove and install, only because of their tiny size. My experience was I cycled through them once over the first few days after I first received the IEM, and settled on the gold module to start.
As the XE6 aged I eventually changed to silver, then to black, and I’m pretty confident I’ll stay with this configuration now. Point being, most of us will find our preferred module and not have to mess with them further.
For an in ear, the XE6 bass is the closest I have experienced to sounding like true subwoofer bass. EE EVO has more mid bass impact, but XE6 has better deep down rumble.
Mids, vocals and highs are clear and detailed and synergize well with the bass presentation.
The stock cable is decent, not great. I have cable rolled a few different cables and find I have a preference for either PW Stormbreaker, or First Times with XE6.