Can any one do a  comparison between these and w4s?  I'm having many sleepless nights because of this ... Lol :p 

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Originally Posted by elnero 

I placed my order on the 12th, but due to a problem with Paypal I didn't pay until the 14th. I haven't received any notifications yet but that may be because I'm in Canada which likely requires a different shipping method.

 

Haha, fellow Canadian. High five!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sylaw 

Can any one do a  comparison between these and w4s?  I'm having many sleepless nights because of this ... Lol :p 

Yes, another eager person like me. :)

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Originally Posted by lee730 

 

Sony EX1000, JVC FX700 and Sennheiser IE80s are noted to have the biggest sound stages for universal IEMs generally. But there are also other good IEMs out there with big sound stages such as EX600, MDR-7550, FX500, Sennheiser IE7, etc. But those 3 are noted as being the best in those regards. The IE80s are a noticeable improvement IMO and fell exactly into my sound preferences. The IE8s fell short with way too much mid bass which required me to use EQ to get enjoyment out of them. I don't use EQ with my IE80s and am very happy with them. I'm not sure how it would compare to the 4As though. I'm positive the 4As are more detailed but not sure if I would say they are more of a fun and non-fatiguing IEM as the IE80s are. YMWV.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swimsonny 

When I say top 3 I mean the EX1000, ASG-1 and IE8. Biggest sound stages I have heard.

 

Thanks for the further explanation. 

Ugh. But I'm still torn between them. Unable to make up my mind. :(

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Originally Posted by rubick 

Received my shipment tracking number!

Thank you Heir Audio for the wonderful service provided.

Very prompt reply from them and they were very helpful in every single way.

Thumbs Up!

No tracking number here yet.. I'll be on the beach/water all weekend, so it won't be hard to forget about the wait.. Hopefully a notification will be waiting for me when I return...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sylaw 

Can any one do a  comparison between these and w4s?  I'm having many sleepless nights because of this ... Lol :p 

They should be shipped out this coming week.. There will be comparisons and impressions coming as soon as people receive them.  It won't be long now..

Quote:

Originally Posted by librarian 

My opinion on 4ai vs er4s in short:

 

conclusion first: 4ai is a better all rounder than er4s. i think a lot of people will find it easy to like them. as allways it's a matter of taste. these are comparable, both good iems, but i prefer er4s by far.

 

4ai is not as detailed as er4s in the top end. also it misses the sense of airyness and openness, that the er4s has. in comparison i found the 4ai to sound a bit congested and closed. i feel the er4s let's me get very close to what is recorded. and it sound very natural to my ears. it's not so much the level of detail, as the presentation itself, that makes me like er4s more. it's the sense of air/space between instruments and especially vocals that makes them sound very accurate to my ears. while i find 4ai to sound good, and especially the low end, they just don't sound very natural to my ears. they are "over-doing it" in some way... i'm a real er4s fan here, and if you like er4s, but find them a tiny bit too "thin" sounding and needs more presence in the low end, then the 4ai might do it for you.

 

4ai has more presence in the lower frequenzies, but for classical music i find it to be too much. it may add a dramatic quality to some music, but mostly i find it to lack the refinement of the er4s in complex passages. single notes (especially cello) sound good and very "fleshed out" on 4ai, but presenting more that one note at the time, say a big chord on piano, it begins to sound a bit muddy/muffled to me.

 

with some jazz i find 4ai good, for instance with  jazz from the 1960's like dexter gordon on blue note. it creates a "club-like" feeling due to it's "closed in" sound. (not closed in compared to most other iems, but compared to er4s, yes)

 

er4s has a very special sound, not suitable for everyone - or every genre. i don't listen to reggae with er4s. the 4ai are much better for that. (need the extra bass and low end presence). but i won't have to choose just one iem, and i have another one, the klipsch x10, for reggae. x10 can't compare to 4ai technically, but it has a certain quality to them, that i just like - and prefer over the 4ai.

 

i think that sort of sums it all up. i know this is an appriciation thread, but someone pointed me in this direction as the question about er4s pupped up.

Thanks for the review/comparison. It will be interesting to hear the difference first hand tomorrow. I have not been as enamored with the ER4S's as Librarian. I am definitely looking for more detail and openness than the ER4S's! Maybe that's expecting too much out of the Heir's or any IEM if the Ety's are the king of detail and openness.

We'll see...

Ordered the W4R's just the other week, feel like I may have made a mistake...

We can all expect more impressions and comparisons soon. Click on the link:

Heir Audio World Tour

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Originally Posted by Swimsonny 

Sinocelt, make sure you still get the 4.Ai impression from the tour over here!

We can link from one to the other, and conversely. There'll also be reviewers posting on their own websites.

Quote:

Originally Posted by darinf 

Thanks for the review/comparison. It will be interesting to hear the difference first hand tomorrow. I have not been as enamored with the ER4S's as Librarian. I am definitely looking for more detail and openness than the ER4S's! Maybe that's expecting too much out of the Heir's or any IEM if the Ety's are the king of detail and openness.

 

We'll see...

Had a great audition session with Brannan from Heir today. He is a great guy and extremely accommodating. Talk about service!

He brought over a pair of 4i's, 3i's, and a Magnus cable.

I did all my listening using a Panasonic BD-E6500 Blu-Ray player with a hard drive connected to it that I had some FLAC files on it. I fed the output to a Smyth Realiser A8. Then the Heir's were connected directly to the headphone output of the Realiser.

The only headphones I have listened to prior to today are my Etymotic ER4S's and my Stax 407 with Stax 323 energizer. I have never been to a Head-Fi meet or auditioned other similarly priced IEM's or headphones, so my experience is pretty limited.

To cut to the chase, these are some really great sounding IEM's. As many others have said, the 3i's are more bass heavy, the 4i's sound more accurate and still have plenty of bass once you get a good seal (more on this later). Compared to my Etymotic ER4S's the 4i's have a much more full sound and much more bass. Switching to the Ety's made the Ety's sound really thin and almost a complete lack of bass. The Ety's were more detailed and seemed to have more high frequencies. I always thought the Ety's may have too much high end which can lead to more sibilance and some harsh highs but tons of detail. The 4i's definitely have less detail, but a much smoother high end with no sibilance. There were just sounds and detail in the high end that I could not hear with the 4i's but could hear with the Ety's and certainly with my Stax 407's.

The 3i's I listened to less. I prefer a more accurate sound than artificially higher bass. But the extra bass was great for pop music. I definitely felt the high end on the 3i's was not nearly as good as the 4i's especially in terms of accuracy and smoothness and detail.

Obviously to compare the $400 4i's with a set of $1600 Stax may not be fair, but that's what I had on hand to compare to. I was using Stax 407 with a Stax 323A amplifier. As expected, the Stax were far superior in every sense. Detail, bass, mid-range, etc. was no comparison. I was hoping I could find similar Stax sound with the portability of IEM's, but maybe I'll have to wait until I want to try some 8A's some day.

As far as other qualities like openness or imaging, I cannot really comment. I have never really heard out of head imaging from headphones unless I am listening to binaural recordings or the output of the Smyth Realiser. Since the Realiser generates perfect out of head imaging, the imaging of the headphones can't really be heard independent of the Realiser processing. Since I would most likely always listen to Realiser processed audio, the imaging of the headphones alone is not a concern to me. With the Realiser, the 4i's sounded pretty good when listening to DTS 5.1 audio from a Blu-Ray disk. Again, I still preferred the Stax by far, but the 4i's were way better than the Ety ER4S's because the 4i's had much more bass and fullness in the mids which is much better for watching movies.

OK, read on for some more comments on other aspects of the Heir IEM's.

The workmanship and finish of these IEM's are simply stunning. I know it's been said many times before, but these things are beautiful. Brannan also brought his 8A's with gold flecks, etc. and those were jaw dropping! (The 8a's were huge.)

The fit was actually a problem for me. Initially, I used the medium size double flange tips. I think I have pretty big ear canals, but for some reason I could not get any kind of seal on my right ear. I didn't realize that I didn't have a good seal at first and the first time I listened to the 4i's, they sounded terrible. I was shocked and afraid to even say anything to Brannan about it. It basically sounded like I was listening to a portable AM radio! SO, I tried the small tips and that helped but still no good. I then tried the small red tips. Those worked the best, but still, I had to press lightly on the IEM's in my ear to get any kind of seal. At least when I did this, I could hear the quality of sound I was expecting after reading all the reviews here.

Fortunately, I had some Shure foam tips with me, which fit great on the 4i's. Hallelujah!! Finally I was hearing lots of bass, a full mid range, more detail in the highs, etc. That made all the difference. Like the Ety's, a good seal is essential with these IEM's

More fit problems. I also noticed that my right ear felt something painful pressing on my outer ear. But my left felt perfectly comfortable. It ends up that on my right ear, the stock cable black plastic connector has sharp ridges on it and those ridges were pressing against my ear cartilage causing a slightly painful pressure point. Certainly unacceptable for my ears. I am sure not many people would have the same problem, but for me it was unusable. Fortunately Brannan had a set of Magnus 1 cables with him. The connectors on those cables are smooth and round. Once we installed those, the lack of ridges on the connector was perfectly comfortable. (I think they do that on purpose to sell more Magnus cable upgrades! just kidding...) So for me, the Magnus cable upgrade would be a necessity.

Even though I could have bought the 4i's and Magnus on the spot, I just couldn't "pull the trigger". To be honest, from all the reviews here, I was expecting more. If the sound would have been closer to my Stax, I would have bought them in a second.

To his credit, Brannan offered to let me audition the Heir products any time for as long as I wanted. I was a little time constrained today even though I spent a good 2 hours listening. I would love to spend more time with them before buying a pair.

Let me know if you have any other questions. I can try to answer them...

Quote:

Originally Posted by esuhgb 

great impressions. did you find any sonic differences between the Magnus and the stock cable?

To be honest, I didn't really pay attention to the cable differences since I was focused on fixing the pain in my ear. Shortly after swapping the cable, I swapped out for the Shure foam tips. So, I didn't really do any comparisons with the cable as the only variable. Plus once I realized that I could only use the Magnus for my ears, I didn't really want to take the time to compare the cables. I would guess that I would need much more listening time to be able to discern the subtleties of the difference in the sound of the cable.

Maybe next time...