|
||||||
Reviewed By Stephen Sedmak( an Audio Enthusiast) Review Date 02/12/1999 Overall Rating  5 of 5 Rate this review? Summary The sound quality from these in-ear headphones puts me in awe. I can hear everything there is to hear with these headphones. For sheer quality and accuracy of reproduction the Etymotic ER4-S puts every other headphone I've heard to shame - even Grado. They are totally transparent. In fairness I haven't listened to the Sennheiser 580 or 600 yet, but the ER4-S would be a very tough act to follow.Right now (literally :) I'm listening to my ER4-S headphones on a Little HeadRoom amp, which improves the sound greatly. I want to try them on a better HeadRoom amp but am currently spending money upgrading my home system. The ER4-S is a pair of earplugs with tiny sonic transducers inside. Two types of earplugs come with it: foam and rubber. The foam earplugs work much better and yield better bass, though they're a little more of a hastle to deal with and must be replaced rather than cleaned. You can also pay $100 to get an ear mold, which I'm thinking of trying. Since they are basically earplugs, they completely isolate you from the outside world and you're in your own little Universe. This is great for work and home, but not recommended outside because the acoustic isolation could be dangerous. I personally use them at work. I never realized just how annoying the background noise at work was until I removed the ER4-S from my ears. Another nice thing is that the acoustic isolation lets you hear fine details in music at very quiet volumes so you don't have to crank it. A big bonus if you don't want hearing damage. These headphones also seem quite durable. As long as you don't slam them in a car door they'll probably survive for years. Well, not everything is perfect about these headphones. There are two flaws with the in-ear design itself that I think are appropriate to point out. 1) My biggest complaint is that since the headphone cord is physically coupled to your ear canal via the earplug, you can hear every time the cord brushes against anything. This is really annoying and you have to sit fairly still. There's got to be some way of physically isolating the cord near the ears. Perhaps some sort of little headset, which isn't too different from normal headphones. 2) Since they only interact with your eardrum you cannot feel the bass even though it goes ALL the way down. You only hear the bass, you don't feel it. The best description that I can give is that you can clearly hear the lowest frequencies while being left with the paradoxical impression that there isn't any bass. After a few hours you get used to just hearing bass and not feeling it. It's not even an issue after a few days of listening. It'd be interesting to use a subwoofer with these headphones. I'll have to try it. In light of these two concerns, why did I give 5 stars to these headphones? BECAUSE THEY SOUND SO DARN GOOD! :) Strength Weakness Would you like to Comment? Join audioReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
4.59 of 5
|
|
