[rauer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by control They look exactly like my Sharp M33's. Coincidence?

I agree (with many posters here), they have to be rebranded MD33's. As I look at the hi-rez images, even the straight angle connector is exactly the same as the Sharp's extension connector has.

That's a solution for those not wanting a 4-pole phone pair. On the other hand, it's hard to believe the price would be competitive with the current price of the MD33's. On the other hand, buying Asian products online may not be an option for many.

I have to say that this thread has taken a very weird course. There are always fabricated news and rumours but so far I have no reason to believe the news is a genuine one. Pretty strange accusations have been made here - even though some have been more of the tongue-in-cheek kind.

 

[oluv]

i got this email today from sennheiser as answer to my questions regarding the similarity of MD33s and the new IE4, i tried to translate it directly from german as good as possible:

"...it is indeed the same earphone with the following differences:
- other color than sharp
- an additional "rider" to fix the wires to the head

acoustically the new IE4 is identical with the sharp md33s, and in our opinion and that from our customers sounding better than the previous IE3.
we don't get the earphones from sharp, but rather obtain them from the same supplier.

the price and availabilty of the new single earphone will be announced soon..."


well, i have no idea how to tranlate "rider", but it seems to be some device that fixes the wires, to avoid microphonics maybe, or to avoid "flying" cables when on stage.

it is also interesting that sharp isn't the original producer of the 4-poles but both sennheiser and sharp seem to have a kind of secondary supplier.

well, i think that was it. to tell the truth i prefer spending 39$ for a 4-pole sharp (that i can mod afterwards to work as 3-pole) than spending double for the same earphone with "sennheiser" written on it.
but i think it proves how "good" actually the simple md33s has to be, that even sennheiser chose this model for their future monitoring-system.

 

[hawkfire]

hello,

It comes as no surprise to me that Sennheiser has once again decided to relabel another companies product and use it for thier live performance monitoring IEM.

From the first of the IEM series Sennheiser IEM1=Westone UM1 in clear or flesh color to the Sennheisser IEM3=Futuresonics EM3, my opinion is that the products Sennheisser chose for rebranding were ill suited and overpriced for live performance monitoring.

Just something to bear in mind is that you will be paying a premium for the relabeled product and in my opinion cost vs sound doesnt make the Senheiiser IEM series worth buying at all.

Also, something else to consider is the simple fact that Sennheissers opinion is that the Sharp md 33 design sounds accoustically superior to that of the IEM 3 and I would most certainly concur with that statement since the IEM3 in my opinion has a very similar sound signature to the Koss plug.

What does that lead one to conclude about the actual sound quality of the IEM3?

It will be most interesting to see how sennheisser markets the new IEM4 series and prices them as well for retail sale and for professional use as a live performance wireless IEM.

My honest opinion is that the IEM4 will not sell well and I honestly hope they dont package deal it with the ew300 like they did with the IEM3.

 

[apnk]

I like that design but (i have the md33's) that design doesnt isolate very good like the Shures, Ety ect. for things like live concerts.

 

[appar111]

Quote:

Originally Posted by loco26 I don't really get your point, to be honest... if the selling guy tells the truth, sennheiser would be stupid not to drop them. the IE4s seem to be coming up really soon, so it would be rather risky for sennheiser to continue selling both products (if our suggestions are right that the IE4s won't be much better than the IE3s, just more expensive) a lot of speculations there, that's right. but olav's argumentation sounds considerable to me.

And I don't get your point either.... why would they drop them if they are selling well? If they weren't selling well (or at all), I could obviously see them dropping them, but not if they sell alot of them.

 

[Jmmmmm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by oluv acoustically the new IE4 is identical with the sharp md33s, and in our opinion and that from our customers sounding better than the previous IE3.

Wow, that is really sad, in several ways. I am glad I didn't buy the em3's. First, they admitting that a $40 headphone sounds better than their $180 headphone. Did they maybe..listen to the em3's before deciding to sell them (for a higher price than future sonics). That doesn't say much for the em3's. Second, how fickle is sennheiser? Some people write in and say "Hey, these headphones suck! Even my $40 sharp's sound better!" And a few months later, they drop the future sonics ripoffs and start ripping off the sharps. Design your own headphone, please. I wonder if we all wrote in to sennheiser and told them the koss plugs sounded much better than the shaprts, if we would see the new "Sennheiser ieplugs" in two months.

 

[apnk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jmmmmm Wow, that is really sad, in several ways. I am glad I didn't buy the em3's. First, they admitting that a $40 headphone sounds better than their $180 headphone. Did they maybe..listen to the em3's before deciding to sell them (for a higher price than future sonics). That doesn't say much for the em3's. Second, how fickle is sennheiser? Some people write in and say "Hey, these headphones suck! Even my $40 sharp's sound better!" And a few months later, they drop the future sonics ripoffs and start ripping off the sharps. Design your own headphone, please. I wonder if we all wrote in to sennheiser and told them the koss plugs sounded much better than the shaprts, if we would see the new "Sennheiser ieplugs" in two months.

The Sharps are $40 for international buyers, in Japan they are probaly like 25-30 bucks.

If the new Senns are cheap like for $40 i might buys some if they dont have the 3 pole thing and the nech-chain style which i hate.

 

[jirou]

Blast this news bit. I was just about to order the MD33 and struggle with the cord... but then this delicious morsel comes to light, and now I don't know what to do. I guess I can wait a week or so. All I'm gonna say is though... if Sennheiser prices them high, they are really stupid.

 

[Jmmmmm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jirou Blast this news bit. I was just about to order the MD33 and struggle with the cord... but then this delicious morsel comes to light, and now I don't know what to do. I guess I can wait a week or so. All I'm gonna say is though... if Sennheiser prices them high, they are really stupid.

if they fix the cord and price the same, I would definitely get them over the sharps. Unfortunately they priced the ie3's higher than the em3's, so I don't know if it will be true. It is possible that originally the ie3's and em3's were the same price, but the em3's dropped while senn. didn't want to lower theirs. Guess we just have to wait and see. Maybe they will make the senn ie4's that pretty brown color!

 

[cgdef]

Regardles of weather or not the picture is try (i personally think there is a good chance that it is, after all sennheiser loves to release new verions of perfectly good products) here's what I think about the switch from FSI to sharp or whoever the new provider is. Looking at the specs the replacement model is absolutelly inferior to FSI even though Sennheiser has bloated the word descriptin of the features. 106db SPL on the upcomming model vs. 118db on the old one ??? Is this another one of Senn's get rich fast ideas or what? Yeah the deal with FSI probably didn't earn them a lot of money because EM3 has pretty expensive drivers but you do get what you pay for. I'd rather put up with some extra incertion time than a lesser audio performance. I think I am perfectly contempt with my EM3s and am really glad that I bought them from FSI and not Senn.

 

[st5150]

guys I found this link:


http://www.dv247.com/invt/16971



Too bad its not priced competitively with the MD33's.