[likeafranfran]

I had an issue with my EVO as well, and considering how fast they've sent me a replacement without asking a thing, I also think that the T2 connections aren't that reliable.

I ended up getting a SuperBax cable as a replacement to the original ridiculously thin cable. It can be strong but I hate how it gets tangled.

I have in my evo a effect audio maestro (discontinued) with IPx conectors and 0 tangle problem

 

[Rackhour]

@qsk78 @tricolor Can I ask what your usage was/is like? Hours of wearing a day, what activities, stuff like that?

My work is very listening-intensive, so I am always wary of IEMs breaking suddenly.

 

[qsk78]

Can I ask what your usage was/is like? Hours of wearing a day, what activities, stuff like that?

I bought my EVO in December 2021 on amazon. I cannot say that the 1st year was very intensive. That time (still covid time) I did not go out very often, focusing mainly on a desktop system and full-size headphones. The last 3-4 months was the most intensive period of usage, on the go only, with a custom made cable with Nobunaga Labs connectors who have a license from Estron, to my knowledge, so their connectors should be identical to the original ones. So I did not do anything stressful with them, just a normal 2-3 hour a day usage.

The cable...

 

[Rackhour]

I bought my EVO in December 2021 on amazon. I cannot say that the 1st year was very intensive. That time (still covid time) I did not go out very often, focusing mainly on a desktop system and full-size headphones. The last 3-4 months was the most intensive period of usage, on the go only, with a custom made cable with Nobunaga Labs connectors who have a license from Estron, to my knowledge, so their connectors should be identical to the original ones. So I did not do anything stressful with them, just a normal 2-3 hour a day usage.

The cable...

Thanks for chiming in.

So, the best case scenario is that you were the victim of a random factory defect, and the worst case scenario is that T2 is inherently more inferior.

I pray that for my sake as a fellow owner, it’s the former than the latter

 

[tricolor]

Thanks for chiming in.

So, the best case scenario is that you were the victim of a random factory defect, and the worst case scenario is that T2 is inherently more inferior.

I pray that for my sake as a fellow owner, it’s the former than the latter

I'll be honest, I have a feeling it is not exactly as reliable as it could be. I don't think I have put a lot of stress on the cable/connector, as the only time I have disconnected the unit from the cable was to replace the original cable with the superBAX. And although I do use it in a daily basis, I think I am quite cautious removing it and putting straight up in its case. Never tangled them directly in my pocket, for instance.

Lately, I have been also using a final audio B1, so I'd say I have used it even less than unused too.

I did not do any cable rolling either.

But on a side note, Estron seems to be a fairly professional oriented company, so if it is actually being used by professional musicians for instance... That should be seen as positive.

 

[Rackhour]

I'll be honest, I have a feeling it is not exactly as reliable as it could be. I don't think I have put a lot of stress on the cable/connector, as the only time I have disconnected the unit from the cable was to replace the original cable with the superBAX. And although I do use it in a daily basis, I think I am quite cautious removing it and putting straight up in its case. Never tangled them directly in my pocket, for instance.

Lately, I have been also using a final audio B1, so I'd say I have used it even less than unused too.

I did not do any cable rolling either.

But on a side note, Estron seems to be a fairly professional oriented company, so if it is actually being used by professional musicians for instance... That should be seen as positive.

I’ll just continue deluding myself into believing that your case along with qsk’s were factory defects and not a sign of worse things to come.

Fingers and toes crossed.

 

[AnyDave]

I had an issue with my EVO as well, and considering how fast they've sent me a replacement without asking a thing, I also think that the T2 connections aren't that reliable.

I ended up getting a SuperBax cable as a replacement to the original ridiculously thin cable. It can be strong but I hate how it gets tangled.

We've actually had fewer failures with T2 than MMCX, but obviously no connector system is perfect. T2 sockets are rated for 10k insertions, whereas MMCX is roughly 500.

 

[AnyDave]

I'll be honest, I have a feeling it is not exactly as reliable as it could be. I don't think I have put a lot of stress on the cable/connector, as the only time I have disconnected the unit from the cable was to replace the original cable with the superBAX. And although I do use it in a daily basis, I think I am quite cautious removing it and putting straight up in its case. Never tangled them directly in my pocket, for instance.

Lately, I have been also using a final audio B1, so I'd say I have used it even less than unused too.

I did not do any cable rolling either.

But on a side note, Estron seems to be a fairly professional oriented company, so if it is actually being used by professional musicians for instance... That should be seen as positive.

That's pretty unusual, but you absolutely should expect better reliability than that.

 

[Neutral Freq]

I is no here. I CIEM-only. No Etymotic, but Etymotic part of my early Audio Arc.

I noticed sale. Sale good, No? For cost of Linum Cable approx. $200 you can get EVO with Linum cable.

[External Link] BHPhoto Reputable

Just Add to Cart for Sale price. Is good I think. I don't know, I is CIEM-only.

I is out.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Has anyone of you ever compared Etymotic EVO and FiiO FD7? or who has owned both and make a brief comparison?

 

[Simplicitation]

I like Head-Fi. I've been lurking here since ... decades. So I want to contribute back a thoughts.

Because we're in the era of influencers: I paid for mine (and every other product mentioned here) out of pocket from my blue collar wages.

I bought the EVO hoping to get Ety sound in a motorcycle-helmet friendly shape. I'm very happy with them, but it is hard to articulate why. Yup, they put my helmet's JBL speakers to shame while still isolating nearly as well as foam earplugs, and they're better in every way than AirPods Pro but for convenience. I expected that, though. What I didn't expect is that they don't have the ER4 house sound ... and while I would have read that as a negative before listening to them, I write it now as a positive attribute.

The ER4 series (I used an ER4P for over a decade, then replaced them when the cable-joint failed with an ER4XR) has a distinctive sound I haven't heard anywhere else, not that I'm a prolific headphone hobbyist. The ER4 sounds like it is etching the music onto a sheet of glass that you can run your fingertips over and study in different lighting at your leisure. It is a lovely if unforgiving experience. Pity the track that clips, like Amy Winehouse's You Know I'm No Good. The EVO doesn't do this; the sounds are still there, but their edges aren't emphasized. Yet, I think the EVO is nonetheless more revealing than the ER4.

(Close listening setup: Apple Music -> USB -> Qudelix 5K -> stock cables -> EVO -> medium tri-tips. I do normally listen to my ER4XR with a balanced cable, though, so that might make a difference.)

Take a congested passage like in Metallica's My Friend of Misery (4:17), The White Stripes' Little Cream Soda (0:18), or My Chemical Romance's It's Not a Fashion Statement (3:06), and the EVO yawns a little bit. All the voices have their own full character without being pushed out of the way by the others; I haven't yet had a "wall of sound" experience with the EVO.

I'm hearing lyrics clearly now that were always muddy before. My favorite example is from Tori Amos' Crucify (2:05), where I've often heard, "got enough beer to start my own religion," but now it is "got enough guilt...", even showing the slightly swallowed "gu-" followed by the rising "-ilt" so clearly that it makes it hard for me to believe I've sometimes heard something else over the last 30 years. There's a simple clarity, or perhaps "intelligibility" is the word I want, that the EVO brings to the table.

A simpler sound stage -- Lyle Lovett's North Dakota, Hopetoun Brown's Hate I Don't Love You, or The Wood Brothers' Pilgrim -- shows the same excellent resolution for each voice, but reveals a bit of unpredictable placement for the voices. I think this is likely due to me still getting used to how the EVO fits. I've tried all the tips and settled on the same tips as I wear with the ER4, but they don't seat as deeply or stably with the EVO due to the size of the housing. Maybe I'll try some third party tips ... but it took me a few years to really settle on how to wear my ER4s, and I've only had a month or so with my EVOs, so we're in early days yet.

While the EVO is more forgiving with clipping or compression, it seems to reveal the lack of a full dynamic range on older recordings. Olafur Arnald's For Now I Am Winter ripples sensations across the entire spectrum, but Philip Glass' Metamorphosis (any of them) seems like it was recorded in a room draped with heavy velvet. Same thing, respectively, with Chris Stapleton's Cold and Van Morrison's Caravan. Or just compare Beethoven's 7th, Allegretto, from the Vienna Philharmonic (2013) vs London Symphony Orchestra (1960). I suspect this is a frequency response thing that could be accommodated with mild equalization on my Qudelix, but I've listened to some of these recordings many, many times and never thought about the range of richness before.

In short: the EVO is both more forgiving and more revealing than the ER4. Totally did not expect that, but I love it. The in-concha shape is far more accommodating than the infinite barrel, even if I'm still figuring out how to best fit the EVO to my ears. For recording engineers, the ER4 is likely a better choice because it makes problems impossible to ignore. But for listening, I'm finding the EVO pretty awesome, and I had for years thought that the ER4 was my endgame.

I have not, however, had much experience with other headphones in this price range ... maybe I ought to ... what's the phrase? That's right: "Sorry about your wallet."

 

[AmbientMonkey]

Got these a week ago, was struggling a bit with a fit, because it's a completely new thing to me, it goes deeper than other IEMs, so I just needed to find the right angle, at first I thought it's not for me, my ears are too small, because even with the smallest ear tips I still felt a bit of pain in my left ear, because I "stuffed" it in wrong, but I was still using it daily, because I liked the way bass sounds so defined and refined on these, the way I was putting these in was that connector would end up pointing towards my eyes, while it should, in my case, point right up in the air above my head, somewhere around 11 o'clock, the moment I discovered that right angle, I have no trouble fitting these in and no discomfort at all once it is in.

Isolation is supreme, bass outstanding, I wasn't into hip hop at all, but after getting these IEMs I got all Drake's albums, Jay Z, Kanye West, 21 Savage, Beyonce, Rihanna and bunch of other similar artists albums, because production on their albums is really outstanding in terms of sound quality and the way bass is accented in those productions, listening to it with EVO is like listening to speakers, bass sounds so real to me, so refined and detailed and you get more intimate details, isolation from outside is so good you can relax even in office with all the fan noise around.

What a great purchase, you just got to find the right angle, fitting method for you, if this kind of IEMs with deep fit are your first, some of you probably laugh, thinking no wonder I felt such a discomfort stuffing it in at such an angle, lol, I laugh at myself too, I can't believe I was forcing it in the way I did it, lol.

 

[jleewachter]

deleted

 

[episiarch]

What I didn't expect is that they don't have the ER4 house sound ... and while I would have read that as a negative before listening to them, I write it now as a positive attribute.

The ER4 series (I used an ER4P for over a decade, then replaced them when the cable-joint failed with an ER4XR) has a distinctive sound I haven't heard anywhere else, not that I'm a prolific headphone hobbyist. The ER4 sounds like it is etching the music onto a sheet of glass that you can run your fingertips over and study in different lighting at your leisure. It is a lovely if unforgiving experience. Pity the track that clips, like Amy Winehouse's You Know I'm No Good. The EVO doesn't do this; the sounds are still there, but their edges aren't emphasized. Yet, I think the EVO is nonetheless more revealing than the ER4.

I agree with these impressions, and I really love my EVO. But I really missed what you call the etched aspect of the ER4 sound. I've switched to brown filters, which for me are giving a pretty good best-of-both experience.

 

[CantScareMe]

The UltraBaX fits the EVO just fine. I switch between the UltraBaX and the SuperBaX all the time. The UB has more conductors and is a bit nicer construction, but it's not a night and day difference, IMHO. There's a bigger delta between the regular BaX and the Super.

Looking to source an UltraBaX T2 (there isn't a balanced version I assume) and SuperBaX T2 4.4mm Balanced in the UK...

..any links / advice would be much appreciated!