Hello,
Does anyone have ER4 as well as Trifi 10? I own ER4 and keen to try Trifi10 since it has triple BA instead of one. I understand that number of BAs inside is not as important as it seems and love to hear someone who owns both and how it differ in terms of sound. Thank you very much.
I won't comment on the sound quality side (= resolution) as I just couldn't be too objective here because the ER-4S is, tonality-wise, just the in-ear I love the most. Except for treble naturalness, I would probably rate the Triple.Fi 10 higher (bass speed, separation, but don't quote me on that - the Triple.Fi 10 is one of my favourite fun in-ears whereas the ER-4S is my favourite neutral model (even more than my technically superior UERM)).
To my ears though, the Triple.Fi 10 has got a flat, somewhat oval soundstage whereas the ER-4S's is more three-dimensional, with more spatial depth.
If you're looking for a nice fun in-ear, you could also look at the Audio Technica ATH-IM03. Basically like the Triple.Fi 10 but with somewhat less upper treble sizzle, a three-dimensional soundstage with better imaging and an overall better resolution.
As for the frequency response: very neutral ER-4S (dark grey) vs. v-shaped Triple.Fi 10 (blue):
Please note that my plots weren't recorded with professional equipment but with my Vibro Veritas coupler that was pseudo-calibrated to more or less match a real IEC 711 coupler’s response with applied diffuse-field target, hence the results shouldn’t be regarded as absolute values but rather as a rough visualisation.
Especially at 3, 6 and 9 kHz, there are sometimes greater deviations from professional plots – but for a general, rough comparison between various in-ears and a rough idea of how they sound, the results are sufficient, and in the mids and lows, they are even (very) accurate.
With both graphs, you should add ~ 5 dB around 3 and ~ 10 dB around 6 kHz, so that they are more accurate (it is a calibration error and I just don't have the time to correct it - for amateur measurements and to show the difference between various in-ears though, they are good enough).
Thank you so much for your detailed explanation. Very helpful, indeed.