[HAMS]

I said FR and isolation. THD?
https://www.innerfidelity.com/images/EtymoticER4SR.pdf
https://www.innerfidelity.com/images/PhilipsSHE3590.pdf

The $10 Philips had lower THD almost across the board (at 100dB. It doesn't make sense for THD at 90dB to be higher than at 100dB--points to noise issues with their measurement at their time, i.e. either outside noise intruded on the measurement or the Philips' performance was challenging the noise floor of the measurement system itself at the time)

That said, I own and have owned the ER3SE, the original ER4P and the MC3. The etys are worth it for the isolation alone--the FR I get from any earphones using Viper4Android on Android or Electri-Q on PC.

Can you make it sound exactly like etymotic though? I don't think so. Play any frequency with different iem on each ear at equal loudness are they sound the same? I don't think so.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Can you make it sound exactly like etymotic though? I don't think so. Play any frequency with different iem on each ear at equal loudness are they sound the same? I don't think so.

Have you heard a pure sine tone in an IEM before?

 

[JohnYang1997]

Can you make it sound exactly like etymotic though? I don't think so. Play any frequency with different iem on each ear at equal loudness are they sound the same? I don't think so.

That's not simple as it sounds. Everything comes down to frequency response (magnitude and phase response) plus non linearity (thd and imd). Yes you can measure it an perform equalization. But then you realize it doesn't sound as you wish. There is a proper way to perform equalization use your ear to match two sounds and use sine wave to assist in the high frequency 7khz+ range. After that you may think it sounds terrific but then you move it a little bit then it sounds off again. Or you just can't get the peaks out. Or your earphones have phase issues or distortion is too high etc.

A side note, equalization can alter phase response. For single driver headphones/in ears, they are mostly minimum phase systems. You can use minimum phase filter to correct the phase response and magnitude response the same time. And it will sound very good. It will correct the square wave response too. And perfect square wave response for headphones is not perfect square wave it's more like etymotics and hd650. Issue is it may eat a lot of dynamic range, meaning it's much much quieter if your headphones need a lot of equalization. Also mentioned before, it may change every time youn wear it and it's definitely different from person to person.

 

[JohnYang1997]

To tell how well it works, just compare er2se and er3se also with mk5 and er4s. They are dynamic drivers and balanced armature drivers. What etymotic did is essentially equalization but in physical form or acoustically /electrically or all. And that's basically how to tune headphones/earphones. It may require simulation or many trials and errors. And it may take a lot of time and effort and money.
And the whole science behind it is single driver headphoens / inears are approximately minimum phase systems/filters. And human ears are mostly sensitive to frequency response (magnitude and phase response).
It may contradicts to many people's beliefs but that's reality and truth.

Surely it's not perfect. And headphones /earphone are not 100% minimum phase linear system. So there are trade offs between sensitivity linearity size frequency response cost. In fact if the goal was clear it's not really that hard to get to etymotic sound. However most companies just don't have the goal. They just design randomly or to pursue one or two aspects, often time wrongly. I won't get into too much about other companies.

 

[HAMS]

Have you heard a pure sine tone in an IEM before?

Yes. My question if you play 100hz tone for example, and match the volume for two different IEM put them on each ear they still sound not the same, it's not all about FR, distortion and decay also affect the characteristics of sound.

 

[JohnYang1997]

You can definitely get a pair of sony mh1c to sound like etymotic.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Yes. My question if you play 100hz tone for example, and match the volume for two different IEM put them on each ear they still sound not the same, it's not all about FR, distortion and decay also affect the characteristics of sound.

Decay is only small portion of it. If you match the frequency response within your ears the sound will be really close. Earphones and headphones are very short decay to begin with. It's not room correction. We can approximately very closely that most people won't even tell apart and even us with trained ears can only hear a bit difference.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Also the point is to match within your ear. If you go deeper each driver is essentially a transducer which also can be equivalent to an ideal transducer and an nonideal voltage amplifier/voltsge source. It can have output impedance, distortion, and nonlinearities. Our ear canal can be seen as a load. That's where acoustic impedance comes in. The dampers in the earphones are essentially a part of the load but that's more like an equalizer which is non desirable but essential in most cases. So in general earphone driver interact with your eardrum very differently from earphone to earphone from person to person, ear tips change a lot too. But to tune it at the reference point of eardrum or further actually what we hear through perception we bypassed all of those. It's nearly perfect if you can use your ear as an measuring instrument.

 

[HAMS]

You can definitely get a pair of sony mh1c to sound like etymotic.

Really? my mh1 never sound like etymotic no matter how much I EQ them by ear. Its pretty obvious on bass region where mh1 sound flabbier and never get close to etymotic speed.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Really? my mh1 never sound like etymotic no matter how much I EQ them by ear. Its pretty obvious on bass region where mh1 sound flabbier and never get close to etymotic speed.

You are not eqing correctly.
merely 2db at any frequency will throw off the sound. You need very well trained ears and experience in equalizing by ear. It's not easy to do. And the equalization is different from person to person.
Ps distortion plays a role as well. Low frequency distortion can change the perception of bass too. And yes, if you are nitpicking the decay will eventually affect the sound a bit. If you equalize correctly it will sound much closer than you think tho.

 

[HAMS]

You are not eqing correctly.
merely 2db at any frequency will throw off the sound. You need very well trained ears and experience in equalizing by ear. It's not easy to do. And the equalization is different from person to person.

like I said the bass sounds flabby is it's characteristics. I can reduce them even more to the point they sound anemic yet they still sound slow.

 

[chinmie]

to think that it takes different equipment to adjust frequency, and to manipulate attack and decay of sound, and read here that you can eq something to match other headphone/earphones and disregarding that other factor really amuse me

will read this discussion further

 

[JohnYang1997]

like I said the bass sounds flabby is it's characteristics. I can reduce them even more to the point they sound anemic yet they still sound slow.

I just equalized my mh1c to sound like etymotic er4s sound without listening to er4s. I just eq to just able to identify some characteristics of etymotic when playing several tracks I am very familiar with. Remember our mh1 may be different and we may insert our er4 differently so the end result to you can be different. But still I want to show this.
The software is called equalizer apo. And it's free afaik.
Be sure to use minimum phase (at least approximately) equalizer. Otherwise it will sound off. Many equalizers use linear phase filter. Those will not get you the sound as close.

 

[JohnYang1997]

to think that it takes different equipment to adjust frequency, and to manipulate attack and decay of sound, and read here that you can eq something to match other headphone/earphones and disregarding that other factor really amuse me

will read this discussion further

Because you only listen to sound pressure at your eardrum not the earphone not the material. Everything from your dac to your ear drum can be considered as a big filter. If you know how the filter does to the signal and how you can undo it you can replicate other filters. Mostly it's frequency response (magnitude and phase response) it can also be considered as a impulse response. It's the convolution of the original signal and your earphone. If your earphone is linear you can make a perfect linear redo or undo filter. However your earphone is not 100% linear so it will be a little off. But it's close enough for you to be wowed. My friend did equalize stax 009 beats urbeat er4 and some other headphones with original and let people decide which is which, none of the people are all correct. And the result is even counter intuitive. Only when you can conduct all these tests correctly you can tell the strength of it.

 

[chinmie]

Because you only listen to sound pressure at your eardrum not the earphone not the material. Everything from your dac to your ear drum can be considered as a big filter. If you know how the filter does to the signal and how you can undo it you can replicate other filters. Mostly it's frequency response (magnitude and phase response) it can also be considered as a impulse response. It's the convolution of the original signal and your earphone. If your earphone is linear you can make a perfect linear redo or undo filter. However your earphone is not 100% linear so it will be a little off. But it's close enough for you to be wowed. My friend did equalize stax 009 beats urbeat er4 and some other headphones with original and let people decide which is which, none of the people are all correct. And the result is even counter intuitive. Only when you can conduct all these tests correctly you can tell the strength of it.

i do talk about material sound. i do mixes and recordings in my younger years, and to my experience, in recording those two (freq and dynamics) must be treated or manipulated with different things. no matter how many points of surgical parametric eq we use, you can't manipupate dynamics. and some things in audio is like salt in soup. you can add, but you can never remove it. you can add water, but the whole taste is compromised. add a brick limiter, no way in earth you can add dynamics back to it.