Take a deep breath. Slowly, slowly, put down the packing materials...step back...take another deep breath...and listen again. Alot of people describe your reaction when they first get etymotics. They take some getting used to, to say the least (for most people, anyway).
Here's a post from November 2001:
If you search the forums, you will find a tremendous amount of discussion on two topics raised here: (1) how long does it take to get a good fit with the etys, and (2) how long does it take for them to sound good. Various incantations of these discussions are spread throughout both this site and headwize.
(1) How long does it take for a good fit? This tends to vary by people's reports from immediately (rare) to about a month (rare) with most people getting good at inserting them correctly after about a week or two. Too deep or too shallow and they sound very thin and bright. Too deep with the rubber tips and people complain of increased pressure in the ear. It takes a while to get it just right. If you can't get used to the insertion or feel, custom molds are available for them.
(2) How long does it take for them to sound good? This is more complex. Short answer: it varies. Long answer: this, I believe, is a combination of a few factors. The fit determines how good they sound to a large degree. But equally important, I found that my ears and brain needed to be retrained to attend to the subtlety of these headphones. Listening over a few weeks, even after I got the fit right, lead to an "Aha" experience, where I suddenly heard what everyone had been talking about. I think that this is a function of brain-training more than ear training. Peoples ears are used to hearing using the pinna (the cauliflower-like swirls outside your ear canal) to shape the sound they hear. Since etys insert into your ear canal, they bypass the pinna, and this requires some getting used to. Furthermore, with extended listening (multiple listenings, not wearing them for a week straight), the brain slowly begins to change in its interpretation of the ety's sound. At first, it tries to understand the sound like all your other phones, and often leads to initial feelings of disappointment, especially because other headphones convey a percentage of their sound through the mastoid process (that boney protrusion behind your ear). If you tap it, you will see how much sound it conveys to the ear, compared to say, tapping your skull on the top. Etys do not rely on this bone to convey any sound. Hence, the brain has to be trained to hear bass, for example, without the visceral experience of bass. This type of relearning, i think, is what leads to the AHA experience.
My etys, when I first bought them, were a disappointment. I figured out how to get them into my ears correctly after about a week, but I still thought that they were only "good" phones, no better than my 580s, and clearly not worth $300, but then, one day, wow, enough LTP (long term potentiation--a term used to described brain re-training) had occurred, and I experienced them in a whole new way. Since then, they have clearly become my standard headphone. I use them (4p, by the way) for all portable uses, and with a conversion cable to 4s for amped use. I'd recommend giving them some time before deciding that they are not for you.
You can read this thread here:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showth...brain+training
Most people argue for three weeks to a month as a reasonable time frame for getting used to etys.
Best of luck in finding "that sound" that so many rave about here.
