[flip]

I must be doing something wrong. I just bought the revered Etymotics ER6 phones, and the sound quality is just terrible, really tinny, lacking almost all bass, and possibly worse than any headphones I have heard from years.

I know that insertion and positioning is important - I am following all the insertion instructions, pulling the top of the ear "up and out" to open the ear canal, and inserting them so snug that I can get that "water in the ear at swimming pool" feeling, but to no effect. I have also tried the foam pad - no improvement. I have tried them plugged into a Creative Zen MP3 player, CD walkman, and hi-fi amplifier - all sound just as bad.

So:
a) What am I doing wrong ?
or
b) Are they faulty ?
or
c) Do they always sound like this (in which case I don't understand why they get such good reviews here) ?

Thanks for any help

 

[kaervin]

You might try to add a dedicated headphone amp to the mix. The ER-6's really need to have a little help to sound good. I use mine with a Supermini V6, and a META-42 and they sound wonderful.

 

[MichaelFranks]

Those aren't the er6's I know and love, but your ears aren't mine either!

 

[Sugarfried]

Probably a dumb question, but have you worn earplugs before?

I'm not familiar with the "water in the ear at swimming pool" feeling, but that doesn't sound right to me.

What I know is that if there is not a complete seal of the ear (a coupling of the sleeve material to your ear) low frequencies are the first to go. That's not exclusive to the ER6, that's with all in-ear earphones / canal phones.

Have you experimented with positioning while listening to music? Sometimes you might be able to get it in the right position, at least enough to verify that they're working properly.

 

[flip]

Is this just a question of volume ?
I've tried driving them from a hi-fi amp (OK, just a Rotel, but all other headphones are fine with it) and even cranked up the bass, but it's as if the ER6s just can't do anything with that bass.

 

[Rizumu]

No....No I think you're not getting the seal right. The ER-6's only sounded like that when I wasn't getting a seal. You'll be like "Whoa, good sound!" all of a sudden when you get it.

 

[usc goose]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rizumu No....No I think you're not getting the seal right. The ER-6's only sounded like that when I wasn't getting a seal. You'll be like "Whoa, good sound!" all of a sudden when you get it.

true that. it's a seal thing, not an amp thing. i run my er-6s unamped all the time. good luck with the seal. tried the foamies?

 

[MichaelFranks]

if you are using the plastic tips, give em a little saliva then slide them in. Don't push them in too deep though or you can ruin the sound that way too.

If using the foamies, make sure you squash the tips down as much as possible, then push them in (pulling back on your ear) and let them expand.

Like mentioned above, when you get the right seal you will know it!

The tinny treble might calm down a bit as you burn them in, the bass will never be brain-shaking, but it will be solid and "full", once you get that good seal.

 

[iamdone]

I had er-6's before getting the er-4p. With the 6, I also got the "water in the ear at swimming pool" or the "popping feeling you get on a plane" effect. They just made me dizzy. I also couldn't get very good bass either. The mids sounded great but the high were a little too harsh. I wasn't a big fan of this headphone. The er-4p is a different story. No dizzy feeling, fit great, easy for me to get a seal, and the bass was there. I think if your going spend more on an amp, get the er-4p instead and then by the S adapter and amp later. I went this method and would have regretted keeping the er-6 if I didn't.

You might also want to try the shure e2 if your staying at the just above or below the $100 mark.

 

[BobMajor]

It may be that you just need to break them in for 100 hours or so. But if you still find them too bright then you can do what I do:
I got a little bit of open cell foam. I cut a piece about one-half square millimeter (that's so tiny you can't even pick it up with your fingers). I use the razor I cut it with to lift it and place it in the inside of the ear tip (I came to prefer the foam tip). Be sure the piece of foam isn't so big that it completely blocks the inside channel of the ear tip. I cut the foam so it only fills about one-half to two-thirds of the channel. This allows the foam to partially block treble just enough to increase the volume to get more bass response but without also blocking any ambience of the recording which makes the recording more lifelike.

 

[DigDub]

this might sound improbable, but have you tried changing the filters?

 

[fredpb]

After all the hype about er6's, i got some. I am severely disappointed myself. They only really offer me isolation at the gym, which is the only place I use them. Bass is sad.

 

[MichaelFranks]

The headphone out on creative products suck almost as much as the drivers. Have you tried them with anything else?

 

[flip]

OK, after a lot of experimenting, I can get a decent sound using the foam pads. It's still nowhere near as solid as most other phones I've tried, but the mid-range is certainly more detailed, so I'll go with this for the time being.

I couldn't get anything reasonable using the rubber plugs. Tried repositioning and resealing them while the music was playing, wetting them with saliva, and could certainly tell when the seal was made, but the sound was still thin. As a reference, I was playing the latest Kraftwerk "Tour de France" CD, which isn't exactly bone shakingly bassy. What should have been a bass drum sounded more like someone tapping a cardboard box with a pencil when heard using the rubber plugs.

I'm interested to hear that the ER4P is so different from the ER6. I thought it would be using the same sort of ear plugs, so why the difference ? I find the effect of sealing a pocket of air inside the ear (as the rubber plugs do) rather alarming. I think the air pocket acts as a resonant chamber for the eustachian canal (OK, I just looked its name up in a book), so I can hear my own breathing much louder than usual. Also, any vibration on the phones cable sounds amplified; it's almost like the wire is connected to the ear drum.

Creative products output suck ? What ? All of them, from the humblest of Muvo players to an Audigy II ? OK, that's an opinion, although the Zen MX sounds just fine through the various Sony and Senheiser phones I've tried it with. Anyhow, since I bought the ER6s specifically to use with the Zen player, I don't really have any other option, other than for side-by-side comparison. I've also tried the ER6s with a Rotel amp, a Creek Audio amp, and a Sony Discman, and the difference in sound quality seems pretty marginal.

 

[iamdone]

Even though ER-4P and ER-6 are from the same company, the 6 is made in China and the 4P is made in the US and each pair is tested to be within a minor difference of each other.

The ER-4P and even more so the 4S sound sooo much better than the ER-6. The music sounds solid and full. The drums sound real. If you add an amp to the picture, the sounds begin to surround you.

The ER-6 just seems like too much money for something you are not completely happy with. The 4P was twice as much but don't believe I feel ripped off spending that much for them.