[natogandalf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TacticalPenguin /img/forum/go_quote.gif 1. How can you accurately tell that your stock buds don't distort at 30 if you don't listen to them at 30? 2. If your hearing is so sensitive, you should be fine with 15 or less on the etys. You're not getting a good seal, or something, I don't know. At 18 on them I can't hear someone screaming their head off at me. No reason to listen that loud. I can't stand that volume, seriously there's something up and its not the phones. I listened to them for about 15 seconds just to see how loud it is, and I can't stand it. 40km/h is an exaggeration, I would say more like 130, and it's against the law to drive faster anywhere except the autobahn. That said, any other armature would probably start distorting too at such a ridiculous volume.

1. I can tell you 100 degree hot water is very hot without actually bathing in it. I can also tell that the stock earbuds don't dist at 30 by raising the volume step by step up to 30, all the time listening for distortion, and then removing the buds from my ears to prevent discomfort from the unpleasantly high volume. Is that clear enough?

2. You're assuming there is nothing wrong with my etys here. If I get low volume and distorted sound at 18, isn't there even the slightest possibility of a pair of faulty headphones? If I was happy with 18 and the etys didn't give distortion at low volume, do you think I would be starting a thread about it?

The stock earbuds give off higher volume at the same volume setting as the etys.

Also, your remark with the 130km/h is made by taking your own etys, which work perfectly fine, and comparing them with my Etys that I have started a thread about because I feel there is something wrong with, without any clue as to what I'm hearing. Can't you see the error in that?

3. AS I SAID, the stock earbuds DO NOT give off distortion AT THE EXACT SAME VOLUME SETTING as the etys, even though the sound itself is louder. ALSO, the stock earbuds almost don't isolate sound AT ALL, so don't you think it's pretty wierd?

Jesus christ!

Quote:

Originally Posted by synaesthetic /img/forum/go_quote.gif 10 bux says your hearing's shot.

Okay. I got a perfect score at the last hearing test I did. PM me for payment details.

What you're doing here is basically this.

Me: My etys dist at volume X. What can be wrong?
You: *Listen to your etys at volume X*. No, my etys DO NOT dist at that volume! What are you talking about? There is nothing wrong with my etys, you are stupid! Since my etys work fine, there is no possibility in the world what so ever that you've gotten a faulty pair.

Me: 18 isn't that high actually
You: What? 18 on my etys is really high and since there is not even the slimmest chance that you might be right about that the phones can be broken, your hearing must be messed up!

I guess you can see my point. If my etys are indeed faulty it's kind of obvious that they won't behave as yours. Even though your comments have mostly been ignorant (no offence to those who actually gave fair answers) you've convinced me to take the phones back to the store. Hopefully they'll have some kind of demo ex that I can compare with.

Think about it, if I really could endure THAT much higher volume than the rest of you I should be practically deaf, which would be very odd since (as I've pointed out at least once before) I'm always the guy asking people to turn down the volume because I find it uncomfortable. When I listened to a pair of Amphion speakers at a hi-fi store I asked the seller to turn down the volume a notch. Do you think he would demo a pair of speakers with the volume cranked up way too high? Can we PLEASE drop the hearing discussion now, there is nothing wrong with my hearing what so ever. I'd be happy to take a hearing test with anyone of you.

If someone else feels like adding their input, please do so with the fact in mind that I'm not currently listening to your perfectly fine pair of etys.

 

[Calexico]

Ask some of your friends to listen at 18 and see if they consider it loud or not.

After that, if you're absolutely SURE that the Etys are distorting and it isn't because of how loud it is, then you probably just got unlucky and maybe try for a third replacement.

If those distort too, honestly I'd have to go back to the "you're playing music too loud" theory.

 

[TacticalPenguin]

I'm sorry that I have confidence in at least one of your two pairs being the same as my pair from a high quality IEM making company. It is all my fault that I assume that since we have the same high quality player and same high quality headphones that our volume levels should at least be close, especially if you've had yours replaced before, meaning it is unlikely that it is different from a normal pair.

That said, try changing the filters?

 

[Hoeboe2k]

Maybe you're thinking the lack of bass is distortion?? It is not, the er-6i bass does not have much body if that is what you're looking for. You can hear it is basically it. It's very tight so maybe that's the distortion?

 

[jinx20001]

or maybe they are just crap

 

[natogandalf]

I took the etys to my father. He couldn't hear the distortion, but then again he had never heard the songs before in his life. However, he brought the volume up to 25 for listening and the cranked them up to 30 to look for the distortion without looking bothered.

I then took them to a friend of mine who heard the distortion right away and said it "ripped the music to shreds". He found 30 to be a good listening volume.

I haven't given them to anyone else, but I'm willing to bet money that they'll hear the distortion and also listen at 20-25.

And I instructed both of them on how to insert the phones so that they get isolation. I actually think my friend got better isolation than I usually do.

So I guess they probably are broken?

 

[bob13bob]

I think I have similar problem. I have not cleaned or replaced the filters yet. sometimes mine will distort real badly but it's rare. Really strange problem. I don't try to replicate it but I will next time. They distort at moderate volumes (i take out and put back in the ear buds to use surround sound as reference). My sennheiser hd555 sound fine at these times. (to make sure it's not my hearing.)

 

[- Xtreme | Fidelity -]

It could just be those specific songs were not mastered correctly and the Ety's are showing the flaws. I get this all the time with my earphones. Even if the song is encoded in FLAC straight from a CD it still may have some shrillness, sibilance or blown bass while some other songs even in MP3 format sound perfectly fine. This is the price we pay for high resolution earphones and headphones....some of our favorite songs may not sound too well compared to other regardless of file format or bitrate. If that's not the case the single drivers may just be pushed to their limit, I doubt it since balanced armatures are generally very fast when it comes to signal changes from the amplifier compared to dynamics. To the OP have you tried listening to those songs in FLAC? Good Luck!

EDIT: I was not paying any attention to the date of these posts and just realized how late I am....Sorry

 

[lotorus]

Define the distortion in detail. Does it sound like a blown speaker, where the extremes sound over-modulated? Instead of listening to music, listen to spoken word, and see if you can hear it then. Is it in both earphones or just one?

The RIGHT phone in my 6i's started to distort, but the left was fine, so it was easy for me to notice something was wrong. Spoken word for some reason made the distortion a lot more noticeable than when I tried different songs.

 

[skeptic]

I don't think it is your pair. I think the 6i's just fail when it comes to reproducing bassy music. The attack is clean enough at low frequency, but to my ears, the design simply does not handle sustained deep bass well, and bass decay is almost altogether missing. Pumping up the bass (or volume) results in distortion, although some claim that they are improved with amplification.

TacticalPenguin and I have disputed this point in the past, and many headfier's really seem to enjoy single BA IEM's. Sadly, I cannot say the same. If your ears function like mine, and if you can still return your 6i's, you might consider trying a dynamic IEM like the NE-7's, Atrios, Sen IE8's etc. While you won't get as crisp an articulation between notes, these tend to push more air, providing cleaner, more resonant bass, at least in my somewhat limited experience.

Best of luck in resolving your issue!

 

[derek8555]

To bob13bob:

I second Xtreme Fidelity's idea that the Etys may out-resolving your HD555 and show more recording/transcoding flaws in the songs. The HD555 do not produce particularly refined and detailed sound, but the Etys are known to be very sensitive.

The other possibility is that your Etys are broken. But as lotorus have pointed out, is it both ears or just one? Having both drivers broken at the same time is very unlikely, unless they were overpowered and got permanently damaged at some point.

These are just what I think would be a good step to determine the problem. Hope these will help you troubleshoot the matter. Good luck!

 

[bob13bob]

ok, lost these and moved on to sound magic pl-30. much better head phones imho. cheaper too. these er6i just don't have any bass. I'm no bloated skullcandy bass fan either.

the distortion is bad when it does it, not a resolve issue. It sounds like a blown speaker bad.