[nadavnaz]

I've had my etymotic er-6i's for about a month now.

Every song I've heared, I hear again on them. It's a different world. I keep getting audiorgasms (<my new concept). I hear details I've never heard before on bands like "Porcupine Tree", I hear some fusion and hear every instrument, quiet equally, I hear the acoustic guitars for a change.

I HEAR EVERYTHING! Whole sound-bites that I've never noticed before in my life.



I'm listening to 192K+ mp3's through a Creative zen micro photo, direct to my iems. It's truely a begginer's setup! But I've never heard better clarity detail and balance in my whole life!

I gave a listen to my friend's audio technicha a900 (I think it was them). They WERE unamped, but yet again they sounded completely rubbish compared to the ety's. It was definitely above average in clarity and balance, but they still sounded "caned" (as though the sound passes a silver can and gets colored, sounds un-true... My descriptions aren't all that good, sorry...), and I couldn't get that amazing detail and clarity. It sounded like headphones!

So,
1. Can you accomplish such clarity and detail with full size cans?(I guess you can, but they need amplification)...

2. DOES IT GET ANY BETTER?! I simply cannot imagine better sound than this right now. (yet again, when I only had my ep630s I felt the same way.)
Which headphones\IEMS would be just like my ety's, but BETTER? (meaning, same sound signature, better sound quality-trueness etc.)


Sorry if this thread is pointless P:


Edit:Yes, it does get better. I think this whole thread is a result of me hearing a new song on my phones, Now i'm giving a listen to some old material and it sounds faaar from perfect. Part of it is cause of it being mp3's.

So, how much better does it get?

 

[kamal007]

get a better dap and an amp and a custom iem

 

[jinx20001]

does get better,much better

 

[nadavnaz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kamal007 /img/forum/go_quote.gif get a better dap and an amp and a custom iem

I need to take it easy mate, I'm just 15. Don't really have a job ya know


Quote:

Originally Posted by jinx20001 /img/forum/go_quote.gif does get better,much better

0:.... I really need to meet up with someone with high-end equipment. I really wanna hear how far it gets!

 

[saboteur1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nadavnaz /img/forum/go_quote.gif I've had my etymotic er-6i's for about a month now. Every song I've heared, I hear again on them. It's a different world. I keep getting audiorgasms (<my new concept).

Man, eargasms have been around for the longest time. I love them, though.

 

[Assorted]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nadavnaz /img/forum/go_quote.gif I need to take it easy mate, I'm just 15. Don't really have a job ya know

It's never too early to start. By the time I was 14, MP3 player upgrading and buying multiple Bose and Sony HPs was my hobby, and I was also tight on budget.

Also it's generally accepted as "eargasm" here

I totally agree with you, at first the ER6i's sound much clearer than full sized headphones, but later on you'll realize the extra layers in the highs and lows, and the nuances hidden behind the curtain of mid texture that was missing with the ER6i's being revealed to you either through 1) better IEMs or less obviously, 2) better source (I never really regarded the lower Zens as "good quality").

So my answer is, yes it does get better, much much better. But why fix it when it's not broken? You'll be much happier that way, and have more to spend on other things. If you still really want to upgrade, the ER4P is very bang-for-buck if you can find it for $200~, and also very neutral but again, like the ER6i's, lacking a little bass.

 

[LaBreaHead]

Next possible incremental improvements might be:

Ety ER4's unamped (since you seem to appreciate the Ety sound)
Ety ER4's amped
Ety ER4's amped, listening to lossless files through a better player
Etc, etc.

Beyond that, keep in mind that each degree of improvement should cost a lot more -- the law of diminishing returns (actually, the returns won't diminish ... it's that the cost will multiply exponentially!).

Isn't it fun to hear things -- to really hear things -- you didn't know were there, in music you had listened to many times?

 

[wakeride74]

Yup... get a better DAP, a line-out with a decent cable, a Pico or Hornet and some UE11's.
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Then you can start on your home rig

 

[Fitz]

It gets so much better that you will start selling organs on the black market (not your own) to buy more AKGs.

 

[Jon118]

Just skip all the other mess and go straight for the HE90. In all seriousness though, a pair of ER4s could do a lot for you. But re-ripping everything to lossless could too, and that is free.

 

[Chris_Himself]

try listening to some "In Flames" with some properly amped AKG K701s. then it really doesnt get better than that.

 

[mrdeadfolx]

Its gets so much better than that you wont even know what to do with yourself.

 

[earwicker7]

Yes, it gets much better. It's called analog

.

I know it's very hard to convince the younger folks (listen to me, I'm only 36--d'oh!) that records are anything other than archaic. In a convenience-centered world, the idea that you can't use them in your car or on the bus, that you have to clean them a lot, that you can't just pull the turntable out of a box and plug it in and expect to get decent sound, etc, etc, probably makes this all sound crazy to most people. But the truth is that they are a much better medium for music than CDs and especially MP3s. There's too much info for me to put in one post, but there are major compromises in sound quality when going from vinyl to any of the digital media other than, possibly, SACD and HDCD. About the only benefit, IMO, of digital media is the ease of use and the lack of background noise.

Go to a local hi-fi (and I mean REALLY hi-fi, you can't find turntables anymore unless it's a boutique, high-end place) and try one out with your current equipment.

Now, after that long, somewhat off-topic rant, I'm assuming you're wanting to focus on stuff you can do with the MP3 player. Yes, oh god yes, it gets better. You NEED a headphone amp to get better than decent sound. It's not just an issue of bigger cans being harder to drive (I'm pretty sure there are some cans that are much more efficient than some IEMs), you also have to factor in that, in every case that I can think of, the output stage on an MP3 player is an abortion. For some reason, it's criminally overlooked. You're probably getting at the most 1/2 of the sound that you could out of your IEMs.

So, if you want fast improvement, get an amp. I'd warrant that almost any amp out there that functions is going to work better than the output stage of what you have now. You don't have to spend a huge amount of money on it, although that certainly won't hurt

.

 

[Gautama]

Just 15? I turn 15 on the 16th, and look at my setup! Honestly, go out and hear something. For me I went to ToddR and listened to his HD650s, ER4Ps, SE530, and his sons MS-1s out of his Singlepower and Pimeta (respectively) and man, it really opened up my eyes.

 

[MaloS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nadavnaz /img/forum/go_quote.gif DOES IT GET ANY BETTER?!

You do not want to know. There was a day I owned HD595 and thought it was the best thing ever...look at me now. My portable rig costs 2 grand, and I feel every penny of it was totally worth it.