In-Ears are not going for soundstage and aren’t even competing in that category, so it’s somewhat unfair to count that against them in the “Neutral Sound” category.

Not to mention that Soundstage isn’t necessarily an objective measure of sound quality.

This may sound blasphemous to some, but soundstage is just a pleasant form of distortion caused by the interaction with the outer ear and the listening space around the user. Who knows, perhaps some freaks like me are plenty happy to have the pure sound injected directly into our skulls, regardless of how in-our-head it may sound. (side note: HRTF’s actually work better with In-Ears because it’s not being hit a second time with a second outer ear distortion)

And yeah, the reason most people get over-ear open backs is for the soundstage (I love it on my HD600’s), and with those headphones, it makes sense to weight it. But I don’t think that standard applies to all headphones; just the ones that can provide it.

There are plenty of In-Ears that would otherwise have 8+ scores in Neutral Sound if it weren’t for their Soundstage scores. And it’s unfair that they get knocked down for a category unrelated to sound quality that they aren’t even attempting to compete in.

Therefore I think that Soundstage should have no effect on the Neutral Sound score for In-Ears.

Along the same vein, I would also put some thought into considering whether or not the soundstage weight should be considerably reduced for closed backs, or even a little for semi-open backs, as well.