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Interesting, I think my tastes tend more towards neutral. The only thing I dislike about the Ety Gilmore combo is the accentuated upper end that Bangraman mentions. I usually do mmost of my listening at work with the standard V2 and the Etys.

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Heh, when I get the Gilmore Balanced and the Maestrobator in you should drop by and visit them!

Thanks for all the comments on my questions Lindrone and Bangraman and others!

Cheers,
Raul

no problem

I find this discussion of neutrality a little odd. When I hear someone say the Etys "enhance detail," I assume the headphones emphasize a certain frequency range (like treble). Maybe "resolve detail" is a better description. To me, "enhance" sounds negative.

In a sense, you could say the Sony V6 "enhances" midbass and treble, IF the recording you're listening to (or your source component) is bass-light and closed-in on the top. But listen to a recording that has a good balance of tone and the V6s can sound uneven.

If the Etymotics REALLY are "tonally neutral," they would seem like a good choice for a collection of recordings that ranges from bright to very warm or even closed-in. If the Etys are bright, you would want to match them to warm electronics or only listen to warm recordings (very limiting).

This reminds me of Martin Logan speakers (among others). They are extremely revealing and the treble range is well-extended (but not necessarily bright), so they don't match well with bright electronics. Likewise, they are not the speakers to own if most of your recordings are of lower quality and on the dry, bright side of neutral. You'd be better off assembling a system that is warm, lush, and of lower resolution. It might sound more "natural" to you, but not necessarily to someone who listens mostly to well-recorded music.

Sorry about rambling on like this. It's Monday.

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kyrie,

Thanks for the response and comparisons.

It strikes me that both audiophile and natural are subjective "meta-adjectives" that require description in terms of other subjective adjectives. Somehow detail, flatness, extension, maybe even separation, are things that I can imagine as measureable. So whether people like more or less of these qualities, they could likely agree on an ordering of different cans as to which has more or less of each.

My own experience with Ety ER6 and Shure E3 was that at first I thought the ER6 had much more detail. Later, I could find most of what was present in the ER6 in the E3, but it was harder to draw out. Maybe my ears need more training. However, in the end, I preferred what I perceived as the greater transparency of the Ety sound. I can imagine someone sacrificing some of that for the warmer sound of the E3, but I wasn't about to.

Alan

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I use the term "enhances" detail specifically, because I don't think Ety just "resolves detail well", it sacrifice a type of detail that's very important to enjoyable music to give you the perception of more instrument separation and resolution.

Specifically, the "air in between notes" is the important aspect of music that Ety's do not do very well. By now it sounds like a broken record coming from me... but Ety's enhances the rising note, and almost disregard the decaying note. So you hear the string being plucked, but you don't hear the natural decay of that note that blends into the next. Thus the instrument separation and note separation is "enhanced".

There are other headphones that can do both rising and decaying note very well, and they have less preceived detail resolution than Ety's. Such as HP1000 and CD3000, both headphones gives you a more realistic detail resolution than the Ety. Although CD3000's colored sound will also have people say it enhances certain type of detail over others.

Shure definitely made a trade-off here, they chose to make the music enjoyable and full, instead of taking that out in stress for detail.

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Except the Ety's aren't 'tonally neutral', because they fail to produce convincing mid and low-bass. Those regions are just a representation of notes, not a reproduction. Combine that with a lack of decaying notes, I don't think they're anywhere close to being a "reference" headphone of any type. That honor still goes to HP1000, I think. I think even HD600 or HD650 is probably a preferrable reference over the Ety's, imho.

Instead, I have to admit they're a very good pair of "critical" headphone, because you can pick apart the music very easily with them. If you want to pay attention to the nuisance of every note, the Ety's are very good at doing that.

Of course, the Shure's aren't an answer in this specific arena either. Shure earphones are just musical and enjoyable.. they are certainly not "reference" headphones at all.

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This is definitely the deciding factor in the Ety vs Shure choice... although I would like a better word to be found than 'transparency'. It's the best word for it right now, but transparency doesn't fully describe what phones like the Etys do to get you to hear the trebles. To me it's not a passive thing but definitely a form of enhancement. Sometimes I want it (for home use it's sometimes desirable) but for many other times I don't.


I can get over this for portable use most of the time, but especially in high noise situations I found the Etys just lacked substance. I found the 'S' to be especially deficient in this regard.


I would like a more what I call transparent sound, which would be passing along the detail to a listener like me without dragging my ear in the direction of the trebles. As an example both the Grado RS-1 and the Audio-Technica ATH-W2002 does this well with appropriately matched back-ends. Unfortunately neither Shure quite delivers it either as both of them have certain elements of the sound which impede that effort-free passing on. Which is why I constantly yo-yo between the E3, E5 and the ER-4P/S (I have the three plus the resistor box to make the 4P a 4S usually sitting in my backpack) based on which is the best compromise for the album I'm listening to. Life isn't easy when you're picky.

Thanks, now I understand what you mean.

None of these headphones is "perfect." All these terms we use are so subjective.

I can't really afford to own both Shures and Etymotics and I'm still trying to figure out which I will stick with in the end. I own (and love) Vandersteen 2CEs, so I have a hunch the Etys won't be a permanent addition to my home.

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I'd say! You have just about $800 worth of equipment sitting right there in your backpack. And add your ipod and amp...

The curiosity got the best of me. Just orderd the E3 from B&H for $149 shipped.