[H T T]

Somewhat relevant: My Sapporo beer has been outsourced to Vietnam. A definite difference in taste vs. Japanese Sapporo. Good but not up to Made in Japan taste Standards.

 

[ClieOS]

Somewhat relevant: My Sapporo beer has been outsourced to Vietnam. A definite difference in taste vs. Japanese Sapporo. Good but not up to Made in Japan taste Standards.

...my audiophile's spirit wants me to ask: have you volume matched and blind tested them or not?

 

[duo8]

Well Knowles drivers are still made in the US afaik.
I've seen Knowles drivers packaged in pairs, maybe they offer driver matching service?

Maybe it's only temporary due to the pandemic.

 

[McCol]

Well Knowles drivers are still made in the US afaik.
I've seen Knowles drivers packaged in pairs, maybe they offer driver matching service?

Maybe it's only temporary due to the pandemic.

Maybe not

My set were bought refurbished so its possible they were made a few months ago, I'll check the qc card

 

[ER4S]

Every pair of ER4SR/XR is measured before packaging, in order to maintain quality control, and thus I don't think you will find any real world difference between US made vs. Vietnam made version of ER4SR/XR. Besides, there is no point of guessing around - I think it will be easier for you just to contact Etymotic and have them clarify the situation.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/if-...thread-for-you.538615/page-1043#post-15940511

 

[max232]

I wish they would test the foam ear tips so they would not keep coming off in my ears.

 

[mark88888]

I made a post here, but have deleted and reposted to the main Etymotic thread as I think more will see it there.

 

[slex]

ER2XR came today, Made in Vietnam. No big deal to me!

 

[Banbeucmas]

Lol, I don't think it is a big issue. My ER2XR came in last month too, with a text written as: "Made in Vietnam". The earphone sounds normal with good channel matching (You can view it on my database, Sample 2 https://banbeu.com/graph/iem/etymotic-research-er2xr/).
Feels proud as a Vietnamese to have a solid product like this assembled in my country.

 

[koudairanger]

Do you know if they still have QC report enclosed?
I my ER4SR packaging comes with a hand signed QC report tested in US.
If Q.C is still done in US, there's not very much difference.
They claimed "made in USA of foreign and domestic products" in my 2016 version unit made in 2017, which means they started sourcing components long ago.

 

[tinyman392]

Do you know if they still have QC report enclosed?
I my ER4SR packaging comes with a hand signed QC report tested in US.
If Q.C is still done in US, there's not very much difference.
They claimed "made in USA of foreign and domestic products" in my 2016 version unit made in 2017, which means they started sourcing components long ago.

Are you referring to the card that measures the channel match and frequency response (100 Hz - 10 khz) with sensitivity, THD, and polarity readings? The model I got was tested October 7, 2019 (received it this year from Adorama). It doesn’t say where the QC testing was done, but does have a signature on it.

Edit: I think these QC reports are only for the ER4 (or higher) series of headphones. My ER3SE didn’t come with one. My ER4SR did though.

Edit 2: my box does say designed and engineered in the USA and assembled in Vietnam.

 

[koudairanger]

Are you referring to the card that measures the channel match and frequency response (100 Hz - 10 khz) with sensitivity, THD, and polarity readings? The model I got was tested October 7, 2019 (received it this year from Adorama). It doesn’t say where the QC testing was done, but does have a signature on it.

Edit: I think these QC reports are only for the ER4 (or higher) series of headphones. My ER3SE didn’t come with one. My ER4SR did though.

Edit 2: my box does say designed and engineered in the USA and assembled in Vietnam.

yes according to their product page only er4 models are manually tested by their engineer.
My paper doesn't say where exactly it's tested either.

(Edit: disambiguations about their testing)

 

[CK Moustache]

Indeed, only the ER4 series come with the "certificate of performance". Back before Etymotic were acquired by Lucid and the ER4 series IEMs were still manufactured in the US, they released the ER3 series as kind of a cheaper priced, slightly differently spec'd (lower impedance and therefore higher sensitivity, which also results in slight tonal differences compared to the ER4 equivalents) alternative to the ER4 and successor to the HF5 (manufactured in China vs the US (which, so I was told back then, was the main reason why they could be offered quite a bit cheaper), less strict quality control with more allowed production tolerance (but, so I was told, and so my personal measurements of the ER3SE and ER3XR show as well, in reality this shouldn't make any difference and most, if not all, ER3 series IEMs should perform within ER4 series production tolerance specifications, but unlike the ER4 series, they could not guarantee this (-> "certificate of performance")), no individual unit quality control by hand (hence no "certificate of performance"), less accessories, different cable).

Now with all of the talk about this "certificate of performance", looking at the ones I got with the ER4XR and ER4SR (late 2016), I am curious and wonder who "K.M.", who performed and signed both, is. @EtyDave

 

[AnyDave]

Indeed, only the ER4 series come with the "certificate of performance". Back before Etymotic were acquired by Lucid and the ER4 series IEMs were still manufactured in the US, they released the ER3 series as kind of a cheaper priced, slightly differently spec'd (lower impedance and therefore higher sensitivity, which also results in slight tonal differences compared to the ER4 equivalents) alternative to the ER4 and successor to the HF5 (manufactured in China vs the US (which, so I was told back then, was the main reason why they could be offered quite a bit cheaper), less strict quality control with more allowed production tolerance (but, so I was told, and so my personal measurements of the ER3SE and ER3XR show as well, in reality this shouldn't make any difference and most, if not all, ER3 series IEMs should perform within ER4 series production tolerance specifications, but unlike the ER4 series, they could not guarantee this (-> "certificate of performance")), no individual unit quality control by hand (hence no "certificate of performance"), less accessories, different cable).

Now with all of the talk about this "certificate of performance", looking at the ones I got with the ER4XR and ER4SR (late 2016), I am curious and wonder who "K.M.", who performed and signed both, is. @EtyDave

That would be Karen, who is one of our production people in Elk Grove Village.

 

[AnyDave]

yes according to their product page only er4 models are tested.
My paper doesn't say where it's tested either.

Just to be clear, every single earphone we make is tested before it's packaged. They all have to pass set test limits and we have a channel matching specification at 1kHz. This is common practice in the earphone industry.

The difference with the ER4 is that we match the channels tightly from 100Hz to 10kHz. This is not common practice in the earphone industry. We also provide individualized certifications that show the measurements for that pair of earphones. It's one of the things that makes the ER4 different from our other models.

I hope that helps clarify it.

These days, the manufacture and testing is done in Vietnam. We've worked with this company for a while now but only migrated the ER4s there in the past couple years. The earphones are built, tested and matched with the same process that we used before the move. We also have not made any material changes to the product.