VSONIC GR07 Impressions & Appreciation Thread - Page 303

I'll have to try that before mine get bought. Sounds like it would help a lot.

Also the GR07 and ER4S have much different goals imo. The ER4S is more technically proficient on almost every level, but the GR07 isn't trying to be. I think it helps to look at how Ebert reviews movies. He judges a horror movie as a horror movie, and not as a statement on man's place in the universe like Tree of Life.

I think if one can accept that premise then it becomes clear that having both sound signatures at one's disposal is the most sensible and wallet draining option.

I only listen to iems with flat eq, so I get the sound signature that was intended by the manufacturers. It's pretty obvious that you can EQ an iem to be close to the signature of another iem but it will never be the same. It's all down to thechnical ability, tuning, the housing, the depth insertion and a lot of other suff. The low treble of the gr07 is slightly hot but that's all. You can try to Eq to make it sound analytical but that's not a fair comaprison - it's like going the other way around. What will be you opinion if you EQ the er4s to sound warm and sweet? It will still not have the natural presentation and the dynamic range of the gr07 and you can't fix its decay times, bass body and texture.  Yeah, the er4s will still give you more detail but that doesn't make the sound realistic as analytical iems I made for analyzing. It will never sound as musical as the gr07. For that matter even the brainwavz b2, which has great treble and superior detail retreival to the gr07 and you might call it analytical, is a lot more musical than the er4s. It's funny your talking about 3D sounstaging as for me both gr07 and er4s are lacking in that matter - soundtage is not just instrumental separation, it's width, height, depth and positioning. I'll have to mention again the B2, which has a lot more airy and spacious presentation than the er4s. So for me aside from instrumental separation sounstaging isn't one one of the er4s' strong suits and drfinitely not one to quote and brag about. You have to put EQ aside and realize that they are competely different iems that are not meant to be competing against each other. Each one has its strong and weak sides and while I do love the er4s it's definitely not the do-it-all and the most versatile iem around.

Edited by kova4a - 12/6/12 at 12:22pm

They do. It's obvious with some pink noise listening. They also have a pretty prominent one at 6 kHz, which is where the bulk of the sibilance and rough highs comes from. 

The ER4 is certainly faster than the RE0, both in attack and decay. That's likely where the extra detail is coming from. Treble = Detail. The upper harmonics for virtually every instrument extend up to at least 3 kHz, save for like the tuba, which extends to about 2 kHz. There is no instrument which exists only in the bass, midrange, or treble. For example, the GR07's bass definition comes partially from that bump in the lower treble. 

And I certainly wouldn't say that the decay of the ER4 is unrealistically fast. Far from it, actually. If anything, the GR07 is slightly too slow. Have you ever heard, say, a kick drum in a live performance? It's like a sharp kick in the chest with hardly any ringing, and that's exactly how it's portrayed by the ER4. The GR07 is slightly boomy by comparison. Still excellent, though.

Edited by Alondite - 12/6/12 at 1:17pm

I agree, particularly with the 2nd paragraph.

Well, I would never call the decay times of the er4s slow. The fact is that I go to a lot of rock and metal concerts and the drums are one of the thing I listen to most. The gr07 can portray drums with fast attack and low decay pretty accurately too but the er4s is just unrealistically tight and lacking any sort of reverb, especially when listening to live concerts from a hall. I also did say that it's most noticable with slower drums where the er4s has the same decay time as with the fast ones. I listen to a lot of live recordings and the gr07 jus nails it, especially with drums. But it's not only the bass and the drums. Come on - listen to something from Johnny Cas on the gr07 and the er4s. Johnny's voice never sounded like that -it's warm and full with some grittines - the er4s isn't even close to portraying it properly

"Musical" is a totally subjective label. I personally consider the ER4S more musical than the GR07. The B2 is known to be slightly treble-emphasized, so that might be responsible for it being more airy. It could be due to better treble extension. I haven't heard the b2, myself, so I'm not sure. "Analytical iems are made for analyzing." Perhaps that's true for most people. For me, a musical IEM is accurate in tone, with no colorations. You're right about soundstage, that it's more than just instrument separation. Furthermore, everyone seems to have a different idea of what good soundstage is.

 

"You have to put EQ aside and realize that they are competely different iems that are not meant to be competing against each other." I never mentioned anything about them competing. I only gave objective descriptions about each IEM, and pointed out that I preferred the technical strengths and presentation of the ER4S.

 

"I do love the er4s it's definitely not the do-it-all and the most versatile iem around." That's true... for you. Everyone will be different, and for me, the most accurate headphone happens to also be the most versatile.

Edited by tigon_ridge - 12/6/12 at 12:49pm

Well, as I said I love both but they are two iems to have that can compliment each other not to compare them against each other. For me a musical iem is an iem that is a little bit fun, has great dynamic range is easy to listen too. The er4s can be tiring at times and is "a little" bit to unforgiving to bad recordings. As far as versatile goes, that is a headphone that can handle everything you throw at it relatively good. The er4s can't do that - there are way cheaper iems that will destroy it if you listen to rap, dubstep and any sort of EDM

"The er4s can't do that." I'm testing a quite a few bass heavy tracks that have plenty of sub-bass. With my EQ setting, I'm hearing a good amount, which I believe is an accurate amount. I feel the visceral vibrations massaging the back of my throat. Now, I'm sure the GR07 can do that to an even greater degree, but that would sacrificing neutrality/accuracy; so I will respectfully disagree, the ER4S is handling them all quite beautifully.

I never said it can't handle them - I said it can't handle them properly. It just lacks the bass body and mostly the sub bass to give them justice. Yeah, the songs may sound good enough but as I said there are a lot much cheaper iems that will handle them way better. Just listen to that and tell me honesltly the er4s can do it and that t doesn't sacrifice anything// The er4s may be accurate for acoustic music but it can't be further from portraying dubstep and edm accurately. Do you think that when people created music like that that made it for analytical iems or great speakers and iems that can handle it properly (and I'm not saying the gr07 does it justice too)

There are a few issues with that viewpoint.

#1. There's not a whole lot of reverb in most instruments naturally, even in something like the tympani. Reverb is typically an effect of the mastering or the recording environment. 

#2. It is physically impossible for the decay to be shorter then the recorded decay unless the headphones are incapable of reproducing the decaying frequencies. The headphones do not simply play the attack then decay naturally; the decay is recorded and the headphones reproduce the decay. It's possible for headphone decay to be too slow, but a decay that is too fast is the result of the master, not the headphones. 

#3. Expanding on #2 a bit, "accurate" headphones are called accurate not because they sound natural, they are accurate because they accurately reproduce what is on the recording. If the recording and mastering is done properly, then accurate headphones will sound simply sublime. However, if the recording is poor, accurate headphones will portray it as such. Less accurate headphones may be more forgiving, or even better-sounding with poor recordings, but they won't sound right at all with good recordings. 

#4. Many live recordings aren't simply raw recordings. They are produced to some degree.

#5. The GR07 aren't even close to portraying vocals properly either. They are overly warm and thick, honky, and sibilant. 

Edited by Alondite - 12/6/12 at 1:34pm

Sorry for the double post.

Analytical headphones are accurate to the recording. If there isn't enough bass, then the tracks weren't mastered with enough bass, It's as simple as that. It's actually likely that the tracks were mastered using inaccurate, bass-heavy monitors, which is why they don't sound right when played through accurate headphones.

For the record, I listened to both of them with my RE0s, which have even less bass than the ER4, and they still sound fine with plenty of impact and rumble. 

Edited by Alondite - 12/6/12 at 1:42pm

Well, no recording actually sounds like the er4s portrays it. I was at the hi-fi expo in my country this year, which was just next to my home and they gave me to listen to some $100-200k systems with my recordings and the er4s couldn't be further away. I know what realistic is and what analytical iems do - the b2 pushes even more detail than the er4s ans is way more agressive in the treble region and that doesn't make it more accurate. Analytical iems don't acccurately produce what is on the recording - are you serious? I said it already - have you ever been to a live concert - nothing sounds that cold. Even my brother's band sounds analytical and cold with the er4s - they sound  nothing like that and my brother's voice sounds nothing like that ( I should know he's my twin brother and has the exact same voice as me, which is prety bassy)

This is all subjective. What you consider "proper" may be "too much" for another person. What you think is analytical maybe someone ideal musicality. This was my point. To me, the 4S does most things accurately including bass heavy music. I think you're coming from basshead's pov, which is not necessary wrong; but you tend to see bassy IEMs as more accurate. I see it differently, but that's all a matter of personal opinion. You must understand, though, that even from a professional mixer's pov, "accurate" bass is flat bass, from 10Hz to 200Hz; and the ER4S's bass response is likely one of the flattest, but with only a gently roll off from 50Hz down, which is easily dealt with using EQ. This roll off may be worsen with bad fit.

 

The problem with perceiving bass accuracy in IEM, is that one often feels the flat response is not enough due to the inherent fault of all IEMs. Thus, the vast majority of IEMs are designed with a slight-to-gigantic bass boost. The problem with this is that once music that is vocal-centric is played, it becomes obvious that this bass boost can more often than not become intrusive for a lot of listeners, including myself. Some listeners feel the additional warmth makes vocals more natural or musical, but again, this is all subjective. In the end, if we are looking at things from a purely technical pov, accurate means flatness, and is not synonymous to the perception of naturalness.

Edited by tigon_ridge - 12/6/12 at 2:03pm

Regarding point #2. Actually, headphones can exaggerate decays. The SM3 I lived with for a year proved this to a high degree.

 

#5 is really curious. I heard them as warm and sibilant, but never honky.

EDIT: Sorry apparently forgot to quote. Was in response to this:

"Well, no recording actually sounds like the er4s portrays it. I was at the hi-fi expo in my country this year, which was just next to my home and they gave me to listen to some $100-200k systems with my recordings and the er4s couldn't be further away. I know what realistic is and what analytical iems do - the b2 pushes even more detail than the er4s ans is way more agressive in the treble region and that doesn't make it more accurate. Analytical iems don't acccurately produce what is on the recording - are you serious? I said it already - have you ever been to a live concert - nothing sounds that cold. Even my brother's band sounds analytical and cold with the er4s - they sound  nothing like that and my brother's voice sounds nothing like that ( I should know he's my twin brother and has the exact same voice as me, which is prety bassy)"

Every single argument you make falls apart when you consider two things:

1. The definition of "analytical." 
2. The quality of the recording and mastering.

Analytical does not mean "cold with little bass and aggressive treble." Analytical headphones only fit that description when the recording does. The definition of analytical is actually a logical conclusion of "what is true." The B2 is no more analytical than the ER4 because it has more aggressive treble and pushes more detail (which it doesn't, unless you're not amping the ER4 properly).  

The price of the audio chain means nothing if both the recording and entire audio chain are not accurate. 

Live concerts are not the same as a recording. Irrelevant argument. 

If recordings of your brother's band sound cold and analytical with the ER4, then that's how they were mastered. If you use inaccurate equipment in the master, the master will be inaccurate.

The GR07 is much farther from accurate than the ER4 is. The GR07 has a much better soundstage presentation, but tonally it's much less accurate than the ER4.

Edited by Alondite - 12/6/12 at 2:06pm