Second impression when I got home sat down increased my bass on my MP3 player (IRiver H-140 to 12)… pretty amazing but….
Setup:
Currently at home I am using an Audigy 2ZS soundcard, a Denon amp with headphone out and my amazingly good AKG K271 Studio headphones.
There headphones won several awards (http://www.akg.com/products/powerslave,mynodeid,15,id,250,pid,250,_language,EN.html) and they only cost $199.
The Etymotic ER6i (http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er6i.asp) cost $149 I use with my IRiver iHP-140 (or now called H-140). I also increased the bass on my player to 12 (Bass boost).
Music I listened to is all in OGG format quality 6 or better or better on my PC (mpc (6), ape, flac).
Songs I tested using both setups:
Jamie Cullum: What a difference a day makes
Bjork: Hunter
Phil Collins: Sussudio
Notorious B.I.G.: Gimme the Loot
Metallica: Holier Than Thou
Queens of the Stone Age: No One Knows
Sepultura: Beneath the Remains
Blank and Jone: Some trance mix
Ok there is no comparison when comparing the full size canned AKG headphones vs the ER6i in-ear earphones. The AKG have a much better bass and sound much clearer depending on the music, if you need some good headphones go ahead… the only thing with them is that they need to be driven by something other then a soundcard only or portable player.. they need some kind of amp and a headphone out on a HiFi amplifier should be enough.
What I found is that the ER6i sound absolutely brilliant when they play music which is mostly vocal and has a few instruments in them, aka. Jamie Cullum sounded amazing and Bjork’s Hunter blew me away… the bass came across nicely and her vocals penetrated me literally. However when listening to Mr B.I.G. the lack of full canned bass was noticeable but it still sounds good even though I felt the highs and mids where to much.
The rock and metal…not to happy.. maybe I am not used to it. I had a paid of sony earphones before. With the ER6i I can hear the mids and highs much clearer (to clear?) which I am not used to. It seems the guitars and vocals are louder then they should be compared to the drums and and bass guitar. Moreover it all sounds slightly choppy.. and the music (ok the instruments when playing) dont connect (is that what they mean by dynamics?).
The trance music sounded oddly good again, bass was tight and the female trance “singing” came across nicely with plenty of dings and dongs going on
.Conclusion: I am happy but I am not.. I am sure it will take me a few days to get used to the ER6i and I will keep you updated with my experience… I also only used them for 3 hours now and I am sure they need a break in period like my AKG’s.
If you listen to music which is not metal or rock I can recommend these headphones already happily, however they do lack a bit of bass and YES I am inserting them probably and it made a huge difference cause the first 2 times I did it wrong, but still not much bass with them. When it comes to metal and rock, I am not to happy… I keep you updated and see what happens.
I really wish I had the Shure E2C (http://www.shure.com/earphones/eseries_e2c.asp) and could test them as well and see how they compare. I read a lot of test on both Etmotic headphones and Shure and sound quality wise the Etymotic win when it comes to sound but the Shure win when it comes to playing music.. mhhh maybe I should have gotten the Shure.
UPDATE: I am using the foam eartips now. They seal my ear much better!! Bass is much better and my metal collection sounds really good now too. I still find these earphones don’t give you enough bass without some bass boost on which is weird considering the Er6i where designed to give you 6db more bass compared to the ER6.
I also read that if you use an amp for these the sound becomes much better... even though these have been designed to be used for mp3 players, I tried this by plugging them into my HiFi amp but they sounded the same (great but lack of bass).
Anyway foam eartips = Sound quality is amazing I am really happy now.. only problem is that the foam eartips need replacing every month apperantly = $$$. And I use my mp3 player every day. This could get expensive but the sound quality is worth it.. and my volume has gone from a 22 to a 13 now.. my ears will thank me.
