I've received a XR today. I've never tried an Etymotic earphone before. I actually like everything about it. Well, except the cable micro phonics. But that could be normal, wearing it cable down. But I'll be listening to it in a steady environment. It's very small, and deep insertion doesn't bother me. It sounds different from everything I've tried before: the instruments sound like real instruments, as when you go to a live performance. This is impressive to me and it's a factor that I had never given that much importance. I never really thought much about it, still I have this hobbie in a much more active way just for about two years. The real representation of instruments and not so, it's really important I feel and it is for me a game changer. It's also a not very sensitive earphone and requires some power. I'm used to power hungry IEMs, like the ones from the Earsonics brand, so it's easy to me to identify this. Not a problem to me, I have a powerful DAP and handles a lot of volume. And have not tried yet in other source. I have a ritual when I buy a new IEM: let it play the Daft Punk RAM 88/24bit album about 3 times on a row (burn in bench), not on my ears, and double the normal volume listening. It really strikes me out that it shows no distortion and how clean and perfectly matched the channels sound, even at higher volume. This is also impressive, they never sound off to me. The bass plays a role in here, it has good quantity in sound as a whole and it can't be loose. About the bass, even the XR, to me, it's bass shy to play determined genres of music where bass is the main character, and not so. Some prefer those genres like this, OK. I'll not go further on this, it's very subjective to personal tastes. Something that I can't stand is an earphone than can't show the sub bass when the music asks for it. And feeling that the sound has no weight. I guess these does it quite well in conformance to the rest of the frequencies, and not overshadowing them. I like the sub bass in these. It only appears when called and I wouldn't like less quantity than this. This applies to overall bass I guess. So, it's perfect for me...as I will be using this to play classical music, acoustic, orchestra, jazz, some OST, slow music, genres more in this registry. For instance, for Rock music I would not like this that much, it's not "fun" enough to me: bass is shy with low quantity and weak impact, and sound isn't thick enought. Like when you go see an orchestra performance, you ear the instruments, when you go to a Rock concert you hear the speakers with a nice bass slam and a bit rolled off treble. I guess ER4-XR is perfect for the first example, as it makes you feel you are there, in the audience of a classical performance, you really feel that its instruments are playing live in front of you. And that's outstanding, I really appreciate the existence of these IEMs and the brand Etymotic. I became a fan. These are my sincerely first impressions for now. Also wanted to add that I noticed a good soundstage and also a good projection of sound in distance, but I've not that much experience.
Really better. On the other hand - Stax is still another league.
