The Shures definately look like hearing aids to me

If you have the Etys properly inserted, it just looks like you have a couple of black tubes in your ears.

And I definately like the fact that they don't look overly blingbling, it means you get a lot less attention from the "got a dolla or a smoke" brigade.

Can't comment on the Ety's but the Shure E2 always makes me wonder if people think I'm hard of hearing.

With such great sound...
Who cares if it makes you look ugly?
It's just one of those hi-fi sacrifices you must make.

BANGPOD

oooh god as long as its not neon your FINE

and if you want to look good look for something other than headphones to do that^^

Most of us head-fi thugs look pretty ugly wearing nearly any kind of headphone. I'm not sure why the ER-4S would make me look exceptionally ugly. Let me take a look in the mirror tonight and report back...

Speaking as a fashion-concious public transit user I'll post my comments The Ety's definitely look dorky, the red and blue (and green!) colors are completely unnecessary But they are passable as normal. The best thing about the E2's is that they are black so the look like any old earbud at a glance. They do tend to sag out and with the pointed top look weird. But honestly with the proliferation of over-the-ear headphones nobody is going to look twice. I've have them all including E5 and even it looks hearing-aid like. The saving grace is the clear color which makes them look high tech.

TOO UGLY TO WEAR?

why would you think you're too ugly to wear etys?

you didn't attach a picture though, so we can't be sure

anyway, beauty is in the ears of the, uhm, you know, the one whose head is filled with music - so i guess we all qualify on that account.

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Speak for yourself!

Also, if you get an iPod, it's beauty will surely offset the ugliness on the Ety ER4's

I think the ER-4's have a professional studio look. Simple black with color coded strain reliefs. And I even like the shiny braided cord.

I haven't been in public yet for fear of getting hit by a car or not hearing someone call my name, not becuase of the looks. It looks fine; the crazy stuff people wear on their heads in order to listen to music around college campuses doesn't even begin to compare to the etys.

By the way, let it be known that I've finally discovered the "good seal" and now even techno sounds full-bodied. It is total bliss.

Frankly, I wouldn't care if the Etys made it look like cockroaches were pouring out of my ears. The important thing is that it sounds almost like I am in some dude's well-tuned listening room while riding on a bus!

Fact is, I agree with Daffy Duck. I think they look really cool in a "this was designed by an audio engineer" way. The massively functional channel color coding is a dead give-away. I prefer that look over the slick/modern stuff because that is all fad. If you are going to put down that kind of money on an obscure headphone, you are probably going to own them for longer than a fashion trend's half-life. The industrial/functional look is timeless. I wish the iPod had this look. A sturdy block of black metal with red LEDs and analog line level meters.

*sigh*

Geek fetishes.

Hey, all I have to say is, the Shure's earphones makes it look like Shure actually have a product "design" team, not just a bunch of engineers simply making the sound "work"...

And it's not like Shure doesn't do exactly the same thing.. give you musical bliss on-the-go, and still allows you to look good as well..

It might look like a hearing aid to a certain degree, but hearing aids are a heck of a lot more expensive and are very well designed products in general.

A little match stick with wires going into my ear does not tempt me to spend $200...

And who says you have to look ugly when listening to good sound?.. Look at Sony CD3000, *any* of Audio Technica's headphones.. They sound great, and they look great. The CD3000 might be huge, but they're not "ugly".

Edit:

Almost forgot, "no" on-stage musicians will ever wear an Ety... doesn't mean they have to wear Shure's.. but it certainly detracts from aesthetics.

What about the Shure E1s, those look worse than the etys. I'm surprised the haven't updated the style to match the rest of the lineup. The E1s even use that hear aid flesh tone color.

At least the etys are black. I don't think they look ugly, just cheap which I prefer as not to cause attention to myself.

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Hehehe.. I have to admit, E1's are too ugly to wear.. hehehe

It's a huge reason why I owned both the E2's and the E5's.. but never bothered looking at an E1...

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So is it looks alone the cause most people to skip over these headphones. I haven't really seen them compared to the ety ER-4s. I'd guess that the etys are a better headphone though.

One question about the Shures, do they use filters like the etys or how do they work if wax gets in them?

Probably both looks and price points. At $150 and much uglier than the $99 E2's, the E1's seems to be just missing the market for consumer purchases. I can't say if it's really a better phone than the E2, since I never heard it myself.

The E1 has been around a long time as well, but it's always been marketed toward pro-musicians, only recently (with the E2 and the E5) it was also marketed towards consumer as well. The E2 is definitely a consumer earphone, and the E5 is a combination consumer/professional product.

It's easy to say that the ER-4 is better than the E2, but it's hard to justify the ratio of the price different alongside the performance difference. So it might be even harder to say the extra cost of the ER-4 is worth it over the E1... but again, I haven't heard the E1, so I don't know.

To answer your question, the E2 has a "filter"-like thing, except it's not like the Ety filter. The tube size of the E2 is pretty large, so they have this "sticker" filter that gets stuck on the end of the tube, all the wax should stick to just the filter (if any) and never get inside. I never had a problem with having to remove the wax from the E2.

The E1 and E5 does not have any sort of filter, the tubing is small enough that it should not be a problem. They do give you a tool to remove earwax should any ever get inside. I have never had to deal with any earwax removal (other than cleaning the sleeves) since I've got the E5 about 5 months ago now..

Personally, I've never understand why filter on the Ety's were needed, but I didn't have the Ety's long enough to have ear wax build-up on them. Perhaps the ear-wax somehow makes it into the Ety's tubing much easier (and there's plenty of people that had to replace them, so I'm sure it does happen)...