[Francisk]

PT version comes with the adapter that turns it into the S, In other words, you have both P and S version by purchasing the PT version.

 

[Invocation]

What is a more confortable alternative (and still keeps good sound) if I cannot get use to the original tri-flange tips? Should I go with Comply Tsx-100, Tx-100, Shure EABKF1, or Westone True-fit? Isolation is not a major concern as I only wear them in my study room. I also heard Klipsch's duo flange is a good choice as it is more comfortable and function much the same as the original tri-flange. Has anyone tried those? Thanks!

 

[Barndoor]

I was ok with the standard tips, but would get a bit uncomfortable after an hour or so.
I tried the comply ts100 and find them really good, so haven't felt the need to try anything else.

 

[Invocation]

Has anyone tried to connect an adaptor with a larger impedence? The one recommended by Ety is 75 ohm but I read a review said er4p actually sounds better (when sufficiently powered) if adding 275 ohm to reach around 300 ohm.

 

[castleofargh]

  Has anyone tried to connect an adaptor with a larger impedence? The one recommended by Ety is 75 ohm but I read a review said er4p actually sounds better (when sufficiently powered) if adding 275 ohm to reach around 300 ohm.

/!\ NOT a graph of the ER4!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ^_^
sorry I don't have one on hand, so I took the next best thing being close enough on many levels, the hf5. it has the same typical impedance rise in the trebles(white curve at the bottom of the graph), so adding impedance has the same effect as the ER4 making it brighter.
 

 
 the graphs are aligned, in reality of course the loudness gets attenuated and you can read the value in db at the bottom showing how much the loudness changed. except for 1000ohm, I had to change the amp output just to be able to measure something, so that one value is BS.
one consequence is that I ended up with a lot of noise at 50hz so I just cut it out of the graph, the low end actually showed very little difference when I adjusted the loudness for each measurement.
 
sorry I talk a lot for nothing, but I'm always afraid a graph alone will be abused and misinterpreted. ^_^
anyway with you idea, you would need a good deal more voltage than usual, to change less and less in the signature. as you can see adding the first 5ohm(from about 0.6 of the amp) changes the signature more than going from 150ohm to 1000ohm. it's a lot of efforts for something a good EQ could do.
and etymotic seemed to agree as the er4B went to attenuate the low end instead of keep on adding impedance to increase the trebles.
 
 
if someone wants to send me an ER4 I could do the same thing with the actual thing. but trust me on that one, the result would also increase the trebles slowly following the same shape(both impedance curves are very very similar), and the increase would slow down the same way too. only the magnitudes might change a little because by default the HF5 has slightly lower impedance than the ER4.

 

[Invocation]

Thanks a lot for a detailed explanation. Sorry I am kind novice to hi-fi so not very sure what do x-axis and y-axis mean in the graph... But my guess of the conclusions are, 1) the increase in impedence would make the treble louder (and more detailed?) but would not have a sensible change to the bass and mid-range; 2) there is only marginal change after reaching 100 ohm, so Ety's 75 ohm adaptor should be enough. Am I right?

 

[uchihaitachi]

  Thanks a lot for a detailed explanation. Sorry I am kind novice to hi-fi so not very sure what do x-axis and y-axis mean in the graph... But my guess of the conclusions are, 1) the increase in impedence would make the treble louder (and more detailed?) but would not have a sensible change to the bass and mid-range; 2) there is only marginal change after reaching 100 ohm, so Ety's 75 ohm adaptor should be enough. Am I right?

X axis is frequency low to high
y axis is loudness in db 
 
depends on what you consider 'marginal change'. 1db or greater difference is audible to the human ear. 

 

[castleofargh]

X is frequency response bass on the left, trebles on the right.
Y for all the curves except the white line, is on the left and is a decibel axis(how loud each frequency is).
the white line is the impedance curve of the IEM and the values are in ohm on the right vertical axis. maybe I shouldn't have mixed 2 kinds of graphs sorry, but it was to show the relationship between the impedance curve of the IEM and the shape of the signature change. the part where the impedance rises is the part that will end up boosted with added resistance. make for an intuitive way to guess if adding resistors might sound nice or not.
 
 so yeah the trebles will increase forever if you keep increasing the resistor's value, but the increase will slow down reaching some limit toward infinite impedance(do I say that right?). so it's a case of diminishing return more than 100ohm being a hard limit. you can see how 1000ohm does still boost the trebles, it just does it in a smaller quantity compared to how much voltage you will need to get from your amp. I was close to 5V for the 1000ohm measurement and the sound was far from loud, so it would be a problem on portable devices that usually don't reach 2Vrms. + the ER4 is less sensitive than the hf5 I used here(at least I remember i that way), making things worst.
 
 
and no the trebles don't get more detailed, just louder. subjectively they might feel more detailed though ^_^.

 

[Barndoor]

I'm on a mobile device, so can't really read the graph very well.

I use my ER4s with a Colorfly C4. I have 2 75ohm adapters which i plug in series. I've never spent a lot of time comparing 75ohms vs 150ohms as on my first listen I decided I preferred 150ohms, so have stuck with it.

Do any of the lines on the graph represent 75 ohms and 150 ohms?

 

[castleofargh]

 as I've mentioned it's not a measure of the ER4. it's a hf5 that I posted to illustrate how the EQing from adding resistors isn't a steady thing. here I get close to +2db @8khz from adding the first 30ohm, but then to get another +2db, not even 1000ohm was enough. that was really the main point of the messy graph.
 
and that kind of behavior will stay true on the ER4! probably worth saying else my post is meaningless here.

 

 

[Barndoor]

Thanks, so in reality the 2nd 75ohms is most likely not making much difference, but the first is.

 

[ClieOS]

Here is how it looks with a ER4
 

Red is ER4P, Blue is ER4P with 75ohm adapter (= ER4S), and grey is ER4S + 75ohm (or in this case, ER4P with two 75ohm adapter).
 

Here is how they look when re-centered on 1kHz - you can see that the curve on ER4S and ER4S + 75ohm are almost identical. In fact, I have also measured ER4S + 175ohm and the result is more or less similar to to ER4S as well. That means there is little reason why you want to use more than one 75ohm adapter as the change in FR curve is minimum at best.

 

[Barndoor]

Thanks, learnt something today.

Obviously you're not measuring the placebo effect of using two though.

I tend to also use the adapter with my B&W P5, which is of a similar impendance to the ER4P, so a similar result applies to them and the fact that i think they sound better is my preference to more treble in the signature.

Does the output of my C4 impact at all?
When looking at some data on the C4 website the tests on the 6.3 jack are done at 100ohms and 300ohms. My (probably flawed) logic for adding the second adapter was that it put me nearer the middle of that range, so perhaps more in its best operating region.

 

[castleofargh]

Thanks, learnt something today.

Obviously you're not measuring the placebo effect of using two though.

I tend to also use the adapter with my B&W P5, which is of a similar impendance to the ER4P, so a similar result applies to them and the fact that i think they sound better is my preference to more treble in the signature.

Does the output of my C4 impact at all?
When looking at some data on the C4 website the tests on the 6.3 jack are done at 100ohms and 300ohms. My (probably flawed) logic for adding the second adapter was that it put me nearer the middle of that range, so perhaps more in its best operating region.

just to be clear, adding impedance to any headphone does not imply more trebles. the signature change here is a consequence of the impedance curve of  the ER4. so with different IEMs/curves you get different impacts from adding a resistor. I'm at fault for using another IEM and saying they act in a similar way, but it's true only because the impedance curve of the ER4 and hf5 as so very similar in there respective shapes and variation's magnitude.  sorry if I mislead you with that.
you can find the impedance curve of the P5 here http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/BowersandWilkinsP5.pdf  it shows a relatively stable impedance(2nd graph down on the left, and the pink curve). the variations stay between 27 and 30ohm, as good as saying it's flat. suggesting you won't get much signature change from this. if you end up with audible differences from the 75ohm adapter, they most likely come from another kind of interaction(driver damping, coupling caps,...)
 
 here is the er4 http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/EtymoticER4PT.pdf  the impedance goes from a little under 25ohm to 75ohm@20khz ! it's that massive variation that creates the "treble increase" with the adapter once you've adjusted the loudness. 
 
and I have some IEMs where adding a resistor actually boosts the bass. it's all related to the impedance curve of the IEM/headphone.

 

[Invocation]

Thanks a lot! Really learned a lot today.
So adding the impedence would make the treble (in the case of er4) sounds louder, if sufficiently amped? It seems there is not much change in the bass but due to the sound signature of er4 the increase of loudness is most obviously for the treble --- so this is a matter of balance.