I have also had these phones for about a month or so myself. I wanted a pair of reasonably high quality, extremely portable and comfortable headphones that could be powered by an Ipod without an amp. I also did not want a lot of isolation since I already own a pair of Etymotics. Given that criteria, I believe that the ATH-EW9 do a fairly good job.
I found the sound to be quite acceptable and as a matter of fact better than I expected. I did find what I perceive to be some dips in the frequency response in the mid section. I would love to see a frequency response graph of these phones. Some music like Bach's Passion of St. Matthew sounds very nice, but the Clash's Clash doesn't. Unfortunately, it is not a simple classical is good and rock is bad since I have also found some classical that suffers and some rock that does very well.
Overall, I don't think that these phones are as good as the ER-4, but then again to my ears the ER-4 aren't as good as the Stax Omega II. Given the criteria that I had, I think that ATH-EW9 do a fairly good job.
As always, your mileage may vary.
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