[luisdent]

 

   
Absolutely.
 
When using glider tips my ER4S sound completely different than their intended 100% deep insertion / sealed sound with triple flange or Etyomotic foam. They provide a rather bright presentation, with surprisingly nice amount of air and lot of crisp detail, especially micro detail, the note weight is much lighter. Also offers the best soundstage width. I use ER4S this way with Matrix M-Stage desktop amp, its also this pairing which provides high coherency levels and separation.
 
I can't say this is exactly how the ER4S should sound for most though I really enjoy them this way and would go as far to say using this combination of tips, amp would be close as possible turning ER4S into a full-size headphone presentation. (within the possible boundaries of reason). Its quite unique and excellent for hearing ER4S in another light, especially the micro details.
 
And the comfort far surpasses any other Etymotic tip option,.

Glider tips are intended to be inserted as deep as the triple flanges or foamies and will sound very similar. I think you'd get the same effect with the orther tips incorrectly inserted. The same goes for custom sleeves, where the tip cannot be inserted deep enough.

Really? Do the gliders go in that far? I've never tried to force them, but that sounds impossible with my ears. lol and I wear triple flange deeper than most.

 

[Voyageur]

Really? Do the gliders go in that far? I've never tried to force them, but that sounds impossible with my ears. lol and I wear triple flange deeper than most.

I'm a bit skeptical about it as well. I never got to insert the glider tips that deep, and fear that they might be blocked in the ear canal if I try to do it. I can only achieve at inserting them half way in, making the ER•4 look like TripleFi since they stick out so much haha. Besides I find the "vacuum effect" of the gliders to be just way too uncomfortable. Also the most claustrophobic tips IMHO. Other than that, agree on the comments about sound presentation, but I have yet to try a tip that offers (on the ER•4) a combo comparable to Shure's olives: supreme comfort, great isolation and sound.

 

[H20Fidelity]

 
Really? Do the gliders go in that far? I've never tried to force them, but that sounds impossible with my ears. lol and I wear triple flange deeper than most.

 
With some slight lubrication (a dap of water or spit applied to the tip) glider tips do insert up inside the second bend of my canal. Though I wouldn't call it forced entry or tight fitting like foam or triple flange. They slide inside this section then kind of bottom out or hit an area inside the second bend which doesn't allow them to go any further. I can feel the canal seal around the tips though there's no compression or feeling the tip squash together inside the canal. From my experience its quite a different sound, akin to a Grado headphone.

 

[headdict]

Really? Do the gliders go in that far? I've never tried to force them, but that sounds impossible with my ears. lol and I wear triple flange deeper than most.

They do, but it's a painful experience. I tried only with HF5, though.

 

[uzi2]

 
Really? Do the gliders go in that far? I've never tried to force them, but that sounds impossible with my ears. lol and I wear triple flange deeper than most.

The gliders are just foam with smaller air pockets and will compress just as much. I find they live up to their name and a slow and steady insertion will get the Etys to the required depth. If this method doesn't work for you, try squashing them first as you would with regular foamies.
I find them to be the most comfortable tip by a long way.

 

[castleofargh]

measuring the tips on hf5, I could get like 2 big families of signatures. but that was obviously not inside a real ear, and I was focused on trying to get the same signature by changing the insertion depth to see if it was possible, so I don't really remember how deep was each tip sorry. still I did get something similar to silicon tips with the gliders at some point.
but let's not kid ourselves, moving 1mm away from some ideal position will end up with several db change at some point in the trebles, so IMO the exercise is to find a tip that naturally comes in a place where you don't get some nasty 7-8khz resonance(at least that's where I have them from trying test tones on all etys, mostly that happens when I don't go deep enough), and some actual bass. the rest is just too insertion dependent for me to believe I can even get the same sound in both ears, let alone a consistent insertion that would come from a physical limit.
and any signature you end up with could be EQed TBH, so the main job really is to find consistent way to insert them using whatever tip, and pray that it will be comfortable enough and will not move while you sweat and move your jaw.

 

[Francisk]

Somehow the glider tips just never work for me. I still prefer my ER4 with my triple flange tips although they're not the most compfortable.

 

[Francisk]

Here's Speakerphone's measurement of the ER4S. Very interesting indeed, hope you guys find this useful: http://clarityfidelity.blogspot.com/2015/08/etymotic-research-er-4s-iem.html

 

[uchihaitachi]

  Here's Speakerphone's measurement of the ER4S. Very interesting indeed, hope you guys find this useful: http://clarityfidelity.blogspot.com/2015/08/etymotic-research-er-4s-iem.html

What an amazing blog! Thanks!

 

[castleofargh]

  Here's Speakerphone's measurement of the ER4S. Very interesting indeed, hope you guys find this useful: http://clarityfidelity.blogspot.com/2015/08/etymotic-research-er-4s-iem.html

cool blog thanks, I hope it won't go dead like MRO.
no real news about the er4 because it's been measured so many times already, but I ROFL looking at http://clarityfidelity.blogspot.fr/2015/07/effect-of-jvc-spiral-dot.html
no comment, just the graph saying "look!!!! look ! it does nothing!!!" ^_^. fewww it's good to have a good laugh.

 

[Francisk]

 
cool blog thanks, I hope it won't go dead like MRO.
no real news about the er4 because it's been measured so many times already, but I ROFL looking at http://clarityfidelity.blogspot.fr/2015/07/effect-of-jvc-spiral-dot.html
no comment, just the graph saying "look!!!! look ! it does nothing!!!" ^_^. fewww it's good to have a good laugh.

I beg to differ on the Spiral Dots graph though, there's definitely a difference in sound. I can vouch for that, you'll definitely hear the difference (slightly accentuated lows and highs) even if you're deaf 

 My guess is that somehow the measuring equipment did not pick up the difference due to some unknown reasons. It could also be the way it was inserted into the measuring equipment too. Then again, every different insertion, even with the same tips will measure slightly different which leads me to be a little suspicious of the measurement on the Spiral Dots looking exactly identical after taking out the IEM and changing the tips and putting them back into the measurement equipment again 

 No two graphs measurement can be totally identical even with the same tips. Go take a look at many other measurement graphs. Anyway, you should try the Spiral Dots yourself and let us know what you think.

 

[james444]

  I beg to differ on the Spiral Dots graph though, there's definitely a difference in sound. I can vouch for that, you'll definitely hear the difference (slightly accentuated lows and highs) even if you're deaf 

 My guess is that somehow the measuring equipment did not pick up the difference due to some unknown reasons. It could also be the way it was inserted into the measuring equipment too. Then again, every different insertion, even with the same tips will measure slightly different which leads me to be a little suspicious of the measurement on the Spiral Dots looking exactly identical after taking out the IEM and changing the tips and putting them back into the measurement equipment again 

 No two graphs measurement can be totally identical even with the same tips. Go take a look at many other measurement graphs. Anyway, you should try the Spiral Dots yourself and let us know what you think.

 
A difference to what? Sure, there's a difference to other tips. But did you remove the dots to see whether those make the difference?

 

[Francisk]

   
A difference to what? Sure, there's a difference to other tips. But did you remove the dots to see whether those make the difference?

Ahhh...I see, it's about the dots on the Spiral Dots tips the graph was trying to imply. My bad, castleofargh and james444

 
 
Unfortunately the insertion bore is too wide for ER4 and the Spiral Dots just won't allow deep insertion. It would be interesting to find out how they fare with the ER4.

 

[Eternalmetal]

So, after owning the ER4PT for a little over a year now, I wanted to weigh in on some of my opinions (I guess this is like a mini-review).
 
When I first started using them, I went through all the tips that Ety offered, and even got some of the Shure foam tips to see which ones I liked the best.  In the end (after about a month of testing), I found the Ety triple flanges to sound the best, but they were really uncomfortable.  So for about 2 months I used the Shure foam tips since they were a little bit more comfortable, but I eventually gravitated to the triple flanges full time.  I use my headphones daily, for about 3-4 hours a day, and id say for about 2-3 months I found them to hurt my ears quite a bit while wearing them for 3 or 4 consecutive days in a row.  I knew going in that people said these werent very comfortable, and coming from the Westone 4, I used to agree.  I was close to buying new IEMs as a daily driver, but my funds were short so I decided against it since these werent cheap to begin with.
 
After maybe 6 months of 5 days a week use, my ears got used to these phones and all of a sudden I realized that I was no longer having comfort complaints; on the contrary, I even found them comfortable to wear for hours on end.  Even un-broken in triple flanges feel comfortable, and I can wear this headphone as long as I want to listen to music, audiobooks, or podcasts without any discomfort AT ALL.  I dont know exactly how long it took for me to get used to them (my ears used to get really sore, and it would hurt to pull them in and out), but I can attest to the fact that if you enjoy the sound of these IEMs as much as I did/do, that you can[i/] get used to them.  To me, they are now almost as comfortable as my Westone 4s, and just as comfortable as my previous Shure SE315s.
 
As for proper insertion, it definitely takes a while to find the balance between being too deep and being too shallow.  My right ear sounds better when it is inserted almost as far as it can go, while my left ear leaks slightly when I go that deep and have to pull it out a little to find the perfect seal.  A pair of tips can reliably last me for probably 3 or 4 months, and after that I have to rotate the tip in just right way where the creases line up towards the bottom of my ear, but I can still get a decent seal for probably another month.  Finding the perfect insertion still takes me probably 5 or 6 seconds for the left ear, but my right ear inserts perfectly almost every time.
 
I am currently using the red filters (as per luisdent's suggestion), and in using these I definitely liked the subtle changes that they provided better.  I havent changed them out for about 10 months now, so I dont even remember how the blues sound anymore.  Im completely happy with the way they sound, and im not looking for any difference atm (other than the horrible SQ out of my current Moto X smartphone - otherwise my rockboxed ipod classic sounds much better -  especially with the S adapter and maybe some EQ).  Sure, maybe everything about the sound isnt perfect, but still by far my favorite IEM out of any ive owned in the past.
 
One last thing, cable noise.  At first, I was extremely bothered by the cable noise when moving around, and was considering making an aftermarket cable for them.  But after the suggestion of wrapping the cord around the ear, I found that the noise was eliminated almost entirely.  It's a shame that they arent ergonomically set up for wearing them this way, but the twisted cable is flexible enough for this to be a non-issue.  My one and only complaint about this IEM is that the cable is just too long.  I always have to stuff a coiled up piece of it into my pocket, or else it gets caught on things.  Unless you are 7 foot tall, this cable is just a little too long.  
 
So in short, my long term experience with the ER4 is extremely positive.  This IEM did have quite a steep learning curve, but im glad that I roughed it out.

 

[nk126]

Nice write up!

+1 on the cable length, as well! The microphonics are bad but I can live with them. I've been wearing Ety triple flanges for years and agree that once you get used to them they're not that bad. But man, that cable is long!

I ordered awwan's adapters and a third party cable in part to have mic/remote functionality but also just to have less cable to stuff into my pocket while commuting!