Etymotic Research ER-4S Consumer Headphones

The Etymotic Research ER-4S is the top line offering from the company that is serious about in-ear headphones and ear technology devices with an arsenal of patents to prove it. This model has been around since around 1991, and is still one of the top mentions when people talk about earphones. Audiophiles, musicians, and reviewers have mentioned the ER4 as one of the top sealed (sound blocking) headphones available today.

Let's step back a bit. In Ear Monitors (IEM's) work like earplugs that insert right into your ear canal but have tiny balanced armature transducers that put out sound. These type of earphones are popular among musicians because they block out outside sound and let the musicians monitor their live music as they are performing. Because they rely on a seal in your ear canal to propagate sound accurately, they have to be carefully inserted and fitted properly. Once you do, there is nearly nothing between your eardrum and the music, as the tiny little speakers inside the earpiece pump out sound waves into your ear chamber with astounding accuracy. The earphones block out outside sound *extremely* effectively, 30 and even up to 40 decibels of noise reduction. This has the effect of making sounds 1/8 to 1/16th as loud. The roar of airplane engines is just a distant muted rumble, and once you turn the music on, the ONLY thing you hear is the music. Contrast this to the best electronic noise cancellation headsets such as the Bose Quietcomfort which is not even half as effective. Anyway, this is their top line offering, and thus represents Etymotic Research's most accurate earphone. Accurate in the sense it faithfully reproduces the music as closely to the original performance or recording intent.

What you get for your $330 USD MSRP (now available for around $220 street price from authorized dealers like HeadRoom where I bought mine) is a set of very tiny earphones with a five foot cord, a plastic snap storage case, a soft zipper carrying case, a clip to tie the wire to your shirt so it doesn't dangle, three pairs of two different types of eartips that form the seal in your ear. There are also an extra set of filters that insert inside the nozzle of the earphone to keep out dirt and earwax from entering the earphone itself, and a tool that lets you remove the old filters once they are clogged/used up. The two types of tips are a soft rubber three flange tip and disposable foam tips. The foam ones are used by compressing in your fingers before you insert them and they expand to fill the space in your ear after a few seconds. You can choose either depending on which you find have a better sound and comfort. I find the rubber ones least comfortable. You also have to take care to rinse the rubber tips periodically for health reasons. The price of the filters and tips is about $14 for 7 pairs of foam tips, $15 for 3 pairs of filters. Not exactly giving them away, but whatever.

Anyway, once you insert these headphones carefully (you may need to moisten the rubber tips a bit and pull your ear back to straighten the ear canal), the earpieces stay in place, you are in for a treat. The sound. Inserting the earphones takes some practice, and as you get better, you can do it faster with more consistent seal. But one thing, you don't want to have to take these on and off often as you will probably makes your ear canal raw if you keep pulling them out often. And you definitely do not want to be in traffic (either pedistrian or bicycles) as you will not hear **anything** crossing your path.

The sound is just pure clarity. The resolution of these earphones (its ability to present all the details of sound) is extremely high, you hear the subtle nuances of everything that is happening in the music, the graininess of the singer's voice, the subtle sizzle of the tambourine way in the background, the slight breath the singer took, it's all there. In orchestral music, you can clearly hear the instruments as individual sounds, and the ability to pick out both percussion, from the strings to the vocals is uncanny. The metallic sparkling sound from cymbals is reproduced in all its entirely without blurring the little transients in the sound as the plates vibrate. The midrange is nicely even, you get a nice sense of the space between the performers without sounding like the singer is standing in front of you nor way back in the stage. The weight of vocals is balanced, the singers sound, well, realistic, without undue emphasis through the vocal range. In fact, I would say the tonality of these earphones is as flat as anything I've heard. Most other headphones tend to exaggerate the bass, with some of kind of undue emphasis in mid bass, but these earphones present all the bass in a linear fashion. You hear everything from 20Hz upwards. The weird thing is, these headphones tend to sound a bit thinner than most other headphones, but if you have any material with low bass, you can clearly hear it, it's all there. Unlike speakers, you can never feel the bass at all. I suspect quite a few people will find these earphones a bit lean sounding, i.e tinny, lacking in bass. However, some of that may be due to the fact they haven't learned to insert them properly. These earphones are also very articulate, no extra coarsness is added, and there is never any sense of peakiness at certain frequencies that give the notes an added muddiness, sheen or glare. Vocal sibilance is well controlled but if the recording is poorly made, you *will* hear the flaws easily, especially if you listen to medium bitrate MP3's.

Some quick comparisons:

These earphones compare very favourably to the respected Grado SR225's I am using. Overall, they actually resolve more detail than those already detailed Grado's, but the Etys don't have the awesome bass impact of the Grado's but still have some reach just as the Grado's are starting to give up on the pipe organs.

Compared to the Shure E3C, a slightly cheaper competing model from Shure, the Shure sounds a lot harder, more forward in vocals, and more bassy. But the Shure's sound like I have cottonballs in my ears compared to the 4S, the detail recovery of the Ety's easily outclasses the Shures.

Compared to the cheaper ER-6i, these resolve far greater detail, but have a similar bass characteristic. The ER-6i's tend to cut off the highest highs, and cut off about 20% of the detail you hear with these ER4's. The ER4's don't give up on the lowest bass notes, whereas the ER-6i sounds a bit more strained with high impact music. The ER4 tends to sound a bit more put together when playing trance or rap music.

Now the bad parts.

1. Well, the wires will transmit rubbing noises as the wire dangles and send it right up to your eardrums. You will hear the wires as they brush against everything. This effect is called "microphonics". This probably seems more prevalent compared to the other brands of IEM's and even Etymotic's own entry level ER-6i.

2. These headphones are not usable with the vast majority of portable devices as they are too weak to power these, but fortunately, Etymotics makes the 4P model (P for power) which is designed to work better with your iPods as they are more sensitive by 8 decibels through the frequency range. If you have an external headphone amplifier, then you're all set, just go for these the 4S for the best possible sound (a portable headphone amp can give better sound than if you just plugged headphones into the device itself).

3. The price. It's pretty hard to believe that something so little and simple looking can cost so much. But that is the price to pay for this level of sound quality in a ultra small earphone. Etymotics is one of several companies making high end earplug type headphones, and are actually quite affordable compared to some from Ultimate Ears which can reach $1000 for ones with custom molded earpieces, or the $500 Shure E5.

To go against the trend of the previous reviewers, I'm only going to give these four stars, the SOUND itself is FIVE STARS, but the microphonics, the price keep it from a top rating. Compared to the competition in IEM's, this is a top contender in absolute terms. If you don't need noise isolation or utmost portability, a number of other full size non-sealed headphones will provide a comparably enjoyable (but inferior) experience for less money. I think Etymotics ER-6i is a better value for most people's purposes, but these are the ones to get for absolute best clarity and fidelity. Don't get me wrong, I *love* these earphones otherwise, If you are serious about bringing your music with you, don't look further. Like all IEM's some people don't find them comfortable, so buy from a place that allows returns. Otherwise... don't blame me if you interact less with your family from now on!