- ER4XR First Impressions (& UERR comparison) -
Many pages ago, I asked whether upgrading to an ER4XR was worth it. And now i feel i can begin to answer my own question.
And from my initial impressions, possibly yes indeed.
Etymotic Research seems to have addressed some (not all) of the issues which held it back from becoming possibly my long-term IEM.
As has been said many many times in this thread, they seem to have extended and empasised the low end, giving the ER4, the body it (sorely) lacked in many tracks. And they implemented it in such a way, that makes the bass and its renewed extention only fully apparent when pushed and asked for. Especially in electronic music this becomes evident - where some lower frequency layers and samples are almost completely lost on the ER4s, the XR can show parts it you didn't know where there when only listening to the ER4s. When not asked to show this aspect of the sound, this bass extention is hardly apparent, making certain bass-light songs sound almost identical to how they sound on the ER4s.
While the bass 'problem' has been addressed, other grips with the ER4s remain, such as the small soundstage and non-satisfying instrument placement and layering. But these issues can probably traced back to the lack of air which simply is inherited due to the ventless, high isolation design.
Directly comparing the ER4XR to the UERR (demo) was very interesting and did not do well to the my image of the UERR. In comparison the UERR did not seem ahead (if at all) from the ER4s/XR in terms of detail and treble implementation. It did improve, to a certain degree in terms of soundstage and imaging, but not to a degree I would have expected given my very fond but old memories of the UERM before I owned the ER4s. Outside of that the UERR seems to have a lot in common with the (much cheaper) ER4XR in terms of overall tonality and perceived target demographic.
This being said, I don't think I will be upgrading my ER4s to the ER4XR, simply because I find buying the same IEM twice, is not an efficient use of my resources. I can attest that the XR is without a doubt an improvement to the ER4s, but they remain close siblings, with the ER4XR basically being a more versatile version of its older sibling. For the same price, one can purchase other IEMs which potentially compensate for the ER4s' shortcomings better than the ER4XR, while at the same time not being as good as the ER4 in terms of detail and treble extention.
The InEar Stagediver 2 comes to mind in this regard.
Due to time constraints (i was the last to leave the store) I was not able to compare them to the ER4SR, but will do so in the coming days, as I return to do more auditioning.