I was telling gnarlsagan in a message the other day that I had my comply foam tips and er4s in my ears for a while listening to music, enjoying the heck out of it, and then realized I wasn't using any eq at all. Could I have improved things with a touch of sub bass eq? Sure, but I never noticed anything was missing. I'm saying this for two reasons.
First, the er4s, while not perfectly flat in the sub bass, definitely doesn't lack any major amount of bass. In fact, I'd say most speakers that people love for "bass" have less sub bass than the er4s. Anyhow, the comply tips really help for me. I can insert them the deepest while getting an excellent AND uber comfortable seal. I mean comfortable. So far, I'd say the er4s is as comfortable as anything else, but isolates better when I use these tips.
Second, I realized why the bass roll off didn't bother me that night listening with no EQ... I was using lossless files and my JDS C5 amp instead of just my fuze. I can't exactly say why, but I tried using no eq again tonight, only this time being aware of it. I am listening right now and it sounds great. Again, with the C5 sourced from my apogee duet computer interface using lossless files. So, here's the thing. I can't exactly tell how or why, but the bass just sounds better on the C5. If I do a switch back and forth between fuze/C5 I have a very hard time telling any difference. However, when I listen with the fuze using no eq I almost always feel the need to add my sub bass eq after 15 seconds into a song. Not that it's "needed" but I much prefer it. So I will have to compare the C5/lossless to the fuze side by side instead of just the fuze with and without the C5.
So apparently either the C5 is doing something on high gain that makes the bass sound better or it's the lossless files... or both. It doesn't sound louder or boosted at all, but just better somehow. And that further makes it seem less recessed. I still prefer a tad eq no matter what to make it truly flat and wish they had that implemented in them by default. However, this is a nice thing to know. I might have to use lossless and/or the C5 with my fuze as well now.
The C5 is pretty much ruler flat frequency response as is the sansa line of players with these audio components (fuze/clip/zip). So I'm not sure what it is. Perhaps the extra power is just making a difference in driving them better? Perhaps the lossless files? Perhaps don wilson could chime in on wether the raw amp power would make a difference if the fuze drives them well to begin with? I don't notice any other major differences so far, but I'll start doing more serious comparisons. Again, the difference is so small I have a hard time telling between the two comparing them. But I know it's there, because more than once now I've found the sound to be different without even knowing why and then realizing it's the C5 on my computer vs. the fuze being different. So there was no mental bias in the picture.
I'll post this and ask john seaber on the c5 thread as well. He did mention the high gain sounding "different" but I'm not sure why... I think he said he did all the measurements on high gain, thus the frequency response should be ruler flat... Interesting. Go C5/ER4S/lossless combo!!! Wow. That's all I can say.
