EarSonics EM6 Custom IEM

I think it is time someone wrote a review of the EarSonics EM6 custom IEM, and since no one yet has, I thought I’d give it a go, or at least a beginning.

 

Like my previous review of the EarSonics SM3 (which you can read here), this is going to be a personal (call it non‑scientific or subjective) review. Nevertheless, I hope that in some way it may contribute to your decision of whether you think the EM6 is worth €940 (roughly $1200).

 

So how and why did I decide to buy the EM6? Well, I didn’t! I bought its sibling, the EM4, and then later decided to upgrade to the EM6 for various reasons that I’ll come to later.

 

A year or so ago when I wrote my SM3 review, I marked that the most important thing to me was how well the head phones were able to convey the spirit or energy of the music, to touch me emotionally, perhaps even create physical reactions. That still holds true, but since then I’ve also established a personal routine to quickly determine sound quality. The human voice is the most recognizable sound and therefore the hardest to reproduce in a credible way. So my method is to listen to the same voice using the same track with various head phones. 17 seconds into the song “I Am Your Singer” on the album “Wild Life” by “Wings”, Linda McCartney sings: “You are my one. You are my own melody…” It may not be the most educated voice you’ve ever heard, but it is my reference voice and it has a genuine touch. As most fans of Paul McCartney and Wings probably already know, Linda McCartney died of breast cancer in 1998. When I put on my EM6 (with a decent source, and more about that later) and listen to the above mentioned track, Linda McCartney is in a word resurrected. She is standing right in front of me. I can see the fine details of the expression on her face. I can sense her breath. I can feel what she feels. She is alive. No picture, no video, no matter its resolution, would even come near in creating the feeling of her presence as the EM6 does. It is one of the most magical things I’ve experienced in my life, and I’ve been around for quite a while. 50 years to be precise. So I guess in “geek audiophile” speak I would somehow refer to this as the EM6’s mids being more than phenomenal.

 

For the time being my only other audiophile IEM is the SM3. So does everything sound immensely much better with the EM6? From an audiophile’s perspective I guess the answer would be a simple yes. However, let me rephrase the question; does everything sound more pleasant and more musical with the EM6? My personal answer would basically be yes but with a few exceptions. I find some electronic music to be more enjoyable with the SM3, like for example the album “Les Chants Magnétiques” by “Jean Michel Jarre”. With the SM3 I can listen to this kind of music for hours on end, whereas with the EM6, listening fatigue eventually starts to develop. Real live sounds can be quite penetrating, and since the EM6 excels in recreating this, it should come as no surprise that it doesn’t go extremely well together with all artificial electronic sounds. However, we’re still talking state of the art sound that, I’m sure, would sweep most of the competition away.

 

Seven months ago or so I got the “IEM guru” “average_joe” (which I really respect and appreciate) to laugh when I wrote: “I predict that the EM6 will be crowned king of CIEMs, and will make the competition tremble.” I don’t know why he laughed (I never asked). Maybe he thought I was trying to be funny, or maybe he thought I’d gone crazy. The truth of the matter is that I was being dead serious (although perhaps slightly over elated at the time I wrote it). One of the reasons for being so elated was that I had struggled for a long time to get along with the sound signature of the EM6’s sibling, the EM4. After having had a conversation with EarSonics I decided to upgrade (“upgrade” is my choice of word, not EarSonics’) my EM4 to the EM6, and to me the difference between them was mind blowing, in favor of the EM6. If you are considering buying the EM4 or the EM6 you should definitely read average_joe’s review of the EM4 here, and then you might find it interesting to read about my struggle with the EM4’s sound signature in this thread.

 

Most of the time I hook up my EM6 to a 1 ohm modified CEntrance DACport. Media Center 17, flac files, and the DACport make the mid-range sound even more pleasurable, but the EM6 sounds great with the COWON J3 and high quality MP3s as well. Sometimes I actually enjoy the bass and treble a little more from the J3 when it comes to music like Pan Sonic and the like, for example the track “Current 1” from the album “Cathodephase – Katodivaihe”. I guess the EQ of the J3 in BDE mode (which I usually use) is slightly V-shaped. So how about iDevices? Like everyone else I have them, but not really for listening to music. Nevertheless, the iDevices go well with the EM6 too if that is your choice of source, but do make sure you have high quality MP3s (or the Apple Proprietary lossless format). The EM6 is high end audio equipment, iDevices are not.

 

Now that I’ve been praising the mids it’s time say something about the bass and treble. Initially EarSonics marketed the EM6 as: “tuned for stage musicians that want more headroom, but not the bright sound”. I think that is an accurate description, especially when compared to its sibling the EM4. What does a singer need to perceive as realistically as possible while performing? The answer is obvious; His or her own voice! In a way, that sums up what I have to say about the bass and treble. The bass and treble are excellent, but they are somehow there to support the mids. So, if you are a singer, I think you might find the EM6 to be a very valuable tool. By the way, EarSonics now changed their marketing strategy saying that the EM6 is aimed at audiophiles. Well, certainly can't disagree!

 

Two very important audiophile aspects of sound to me are resolution and transparency. Transparency is top notch without any harsh brightness in the treble whatsoever (which I believe sometimes happens with headphones that are over ambitious when it comes to transparency). However, bass and treble resolution isn’t quite on par with my full size Sennheiser HD 650. It isn’t that I can’t hear all the details, but they aren’t quite as deeply chiseled out, or as easy to pick up as I would like. Mind you, this is a bit of nit picking.

 

As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, I used to be an EM4 owner but had it rebuilt to EM6. The sound signature of the EM4, especially between 2 and 4 kHz was just too (razor) sharp for my personal taste. To make a long story short I would say first that the basic quality of the EM4 and EM6 is equal. However, the sound signatures are very different. With the EM4 the sound (all gamuts) appears to be born out of thin air, to appear from nothing (extremely clean). The EM6 has all the virtues of the EM4 but with a major plus, it allows you to easily envision/feel the source of the sound. The sound is endowed with body. You not only hear the song, but you can sense the presence of the singer too. This, for me, makes a world of difference. Perhaps the really low frequencies (30 to 20 Hz or so) of the EM4 were slightly easier perceived somehow, but the EM6 presents the bass with a whole lot more body and presence. The difference is so big that if someone would have told me the price of the EM6 were twice that of the EM4 I had not doubted it even for a single second. I suppose a true audiophile may prefer the EM4 (I'm in no way sure about that), but if listening to music is your priority, then there is no doubt in my mind that the EM6 is the king of the two. (If you want to read more about my experience of the EM4 click here. And don’t miss out on average_joe’s excellent and clinical review of the EM4 named "Earsonics EM4 Custom IEM Review: Front & Center" here.)

 

Initially I had fit issues, which is an all too common problem with custom IEMs. However, I had it sent back to EarSonics and without much wording, when returned the fit was perfect. I must praise the service of EarSonics. They are very professional, accessible, customer oriented and dedicated to sound, plus they do speak English (Mind you, it is a French company!) On this note I must add that in general the overall fuss and long time waiting for a re-fit is very annoying and one of two reasons I’m not completely dedicated to custom IEMs. And while I’m at it, the other reason is that acrylic custom IEMs are very rigid, while ear canals are not. This, at least for me, limits the use of custom IEMs. As soon as I move my facial muscles or deviate too much from the position of the body as it were when the impressions were made, like when laying down on my back in bed, the shape of the ear canals changes and consequently affects the sound and the comfort. (Perhaps silicon custom IEMs work better in this respect!?)

 

As I warned at the beginning of this review, I'm not exactly (not even mildly) clinical when I write about sound, but I hope this review has been to some value to someone nevertheless. Thanks for reading!