jim mauro

A question around a portable music player may seem inappropriate
for this forum, but the real question is around the "science"
of portable listening (poorly phrased - please indulge me for a
minute)...

Santa brought me an iPod. I'm unhappy with the stock earplugs that
ship with the iPod - they sound OK, but I can't get them to stay
in my ear. Did some research, and the Etymotic Research ER-6i looked
like a winner (the ER-4i was a little out-of-range, price-wise).

My initial experience with the ER-6i left me very disappointed.
The use a flange so they can be inserted into the ear canal, and
this stay put, but I was not happy at all with the sound - sounded
like the first generation of CD players, back in 1980 or something.
Thin, tinny, etc...

After some experimentation, I found that the seating in the ear canal
has a huge impact on the sound quality (I know, DUH!), and I could get
the ER-6i's sound actually very good. But doing that consistently is
something I stil have not mastered. So....

I'm curious of the folks in this forum have had similar experiences, and
would share what they concluded. I'm getting ready to trash the "earbud"
devices altogether and just use headphones, but that means compromising
space and weight (I commute a lot - the iPod is used for commuting and
traveling).

I'm also curious about the science of earbud devices as compared to
over-the-ear headphones. Obviously, there's more of an engineering
challenge to building an earbud device that provides good sound, by
virtue of the size constraint, so it seems intuitive that a moderate
prices headphone is going to sound better than an expensive earbud
system.

thoughts, comments, experiences welcome.

(FWIW, I love music, and care about sound. Have a fine rig at
home, very good vinyl front-end,, still listen to vinyl, etc...
just by way of background).

franco del principe

<snip>

Jim,

I own an Etymotic ER-6 for some years now and I still like
it. Viewing a movie on a transatlantic flight with my ER-6
is just unbeatable. Good sound, effective noise damping and
much less fatigue during the flight. The same is also true
for train travel.

The sound from my good old portable Sony C-303 CD player is
fantastic through the ER-6. More so, because I feel more
comfortable when I know that my neighbours in the train are
not disturbed by the sound from my earbuds... The sound from
my laptop is as well pretty good.

However, when listening to my new iAudio G3 MP3 player I
experienced the same thin, tinny sound you described. Since
I know that the ER-6 is an excellent earbud on other sources
I blame it on the MP3 player. Moreover, the iAudio simply
has not the power to drive the ER-6, i.e. I have to set the
volume to about 80% max. to have decent sound. The only way
out now is to adjust the built-in equalizer to get the best
match for the program material. Another possibility is to
use less compressed MP3 files if you have enough disk space.
I feel that the detail resolution of the ER-6 reveals
compression flaws in MP3s and this makes the listening
experience very dissapointing.

Cheers,
Franco

harry lavo

Read a review somewhere in last two months of a new earbud product that is
custom-molded to your ear and is supposed to provide phenomenal bass. Can't
remember where saw, or who mfg was. Shure sticks in my mind, but my memory
is far from reliable these days.

chung

You might want to read the following:

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/reference_earphones.htm

Siegfried Linkwitz likes the Sony Fontopia and the Shure E2C's, and the
equalized ER-4S. I found the E2C's to sound very good, but perhaps like
you, I am not a big fan of ear canal phones because they are harder to
use, and they could block out too much sound to be safe for walks, etc.
I also found the ER-6's not very comfortable. The Sony Fontopias are a
step up from the iPod buds, so you may want to give that a try. A
light-weight comfortable over-the-head set that I use a lot is the Koss
Porta-Pro, but they leak quite a bit of sound.

agrier

different transducers for different environments. an insert earphone
(like the etymotic) only has to move the small volume of air in your
canal, while a headphone must move quite a bit more air to yield the
same SPL levels at the eardruum.

I love the isolation my ER-6 provide, but in some cases that much
isolation isn't desirable, so I use my sennheiser HD-600s, which sound
great, but don't offer any isolation.

if I never had to talk to anybody, I'd wear the ER-6 all the time. (:

earbuds have never worked well for me; they don't sit well in my ear.
likewise, my wife has cone-shaped canals and inserts (and earplugs)
always pop out of her ears.

everybody's body is anatomically different, (especially ears,) so
there's no one-size-fits-all headphone/earbud/insert .

--
Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | agrier@poofygoof.com
The United States is the one true country. The US is just. The US
is fair. The US respects its citizens. The US loves you. We have
always been at war against terrorism.

b&d

Don't recall the manufacturer - but they do their own, or will mold custom
earphones for your ear - will set you back nearly a kilobuck, though.

Best bang for the buck - learn how to insert the Ety-6's - they are great
earbuds - and once you insert them consistantly correctly, and only then, if
the bass is really weak - you should consider an outboard headphone amp.

You also may want to contact Etymotics, they tend to have more things to
help fit the ear.

And earbuds can and do sound great - you have to be VERY careful, though,
for it is really easy to wreak havoc on your hearing with in-the-ear-canal
earplugs.

b&d

I use Grado 225's to good effect on the iPod for walks, but in areas with a
lot of loudness, they aren't the best.

I have some old Sony noise cancellers I use on airplane flights.