[Spyro]

Craps out or distorts when you turn it up.  To me that throws all other merits out the window.  High Efficiency or high SPL is a mandatory.
 
What is your dealbreaker?

 

[djvkool]

...is expensive

 

[macbug]

Could you explain what this means?  I don't really understand why it's mandatory to sound good at volumes you'll never listen at .

 

[Spyro]

Quote:

Could you explain what this means?  I don't really understand why it's mandatory to sound good at volumes you'll never listen at .

I really shake my head wondering what people dont get about volume and listening???
 
Let's put it this way.  Imagine a 50" HDTV watching from about 50 feet away.  That's the equivalent of listening to your W4's at a very low volume.  It sounds fine but doesn't really differentiate itself from any other IEM.  I could be satisfied with ANY IEM at snail level listening volumes.
 
Okay, now watch that same HDTV from 10 feet away.  Everything is more vivid and the resulution is state of the are.  Reminds me of listening to W4 at louder levels.

 

[soundstige]

I really shake my head wondering what people dont get about volume and listening???

Let's put it this way.  Imagine a 50" HDTV watching from about 50 feet away.  That's the equivalent of listening to your W4's at a very low volume.  It sounds fine but doesn't really differentiate itself from any other IEM.  I could be satisfied with ANY IEM at snail level listening volumes.

Okay, now watch that same HDTV from 10 feet away.  Everything is more vivid and the resulution is state of the are.  Reminds me of listening to W4 at louder levels.

A more apt analogy is watching it from 10 feet away being the quiet volume, and from 2 inches away being loud volume, then getting a kink in your neck and a new glasses prescription from sitting so close. Sure, loud music is easier to hear; it doesn't mean it's safe.

 

[Spyro]

Inside of an hour, loud music is safe to listen to and is very engaging as well.
 
I just find there are certain times or moods we want to crank it up and the last thing you don't want to happen is the distortion to kick in. 

 

[macbug]

If I don't hear any difference at normal listening volumes I'd probably just not spend the extra money.

 

[Spyro]

Quote:

A more apt analogy is watching it from 10 feet away being the quiet volume, and from 2 inches away being loud volume, then getting a kink in your neck and a new glasses prescription from sitting so close. Sure, loud music is easier to hear; it doesn't mean it's safe.

 No, and this is where most people make the mistake.  You are confusing 2 different senses  and giving preference to the one opposite I am asking about.
 
TV is a "viewing" engagement/experience and the volume is an afterthought. 
 
Back in the 70's cars had phenomenal single speakers on the dash capable of heavy volumes.  But certainly the quad, 6 and 8 speaker systems engaged us all much more. 

 

[tinyman392]

I think you should read this article here: http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/loud-music-sucks

 

[Spyro]

I guess everthing is relative.  Without sitting beside each other we wouldn't know how loud we are talkning about relatively speaking.  Deep bass levels are not audible unless played at reasonably loud levels.
 
Don't care to argue as I tend to think its a personal preference thing but I must ask one question.....
 
Why (generally speaking) do bands tend to record, practice and play at what you would consider higher volumes when the audio quality is so much better at low listening levels?

 

[tinyman392]

Quote:

I guess everthing is relative.  Without sitting beside each other we wouldn't know how loud we are talkning about relatively speaking.  Deep bass levels are not audible unless played at reasonably loud levels.
 
Don't care to argue as I tend to think its a personal preference thing but I must ask one question.....
 
Why (generally speaking) do bands tend to record, practice and play at what you would consider higher volumes when the audio quality is so much better at low listening levels?

 
WARNING LONG POST AHEAD!!!
 
IDK about back then when things weren't digitally stored, but in the digital age, it may be better to record at higher volumes rather than low.  Let's go back and take a look at how a recording is done digitally today, going to the core basics.  A little above 0s and 1s though.  Given a constant time, we will measure the amplitude of a given wave at a given constant time.  Essentially, we create a drawing of a wave this way.  This wave can then be defined by some sort of function f(t) such that for a given time, the wave is at x frequency.  For simplicity sake, let's assume we are always in positive integer system + 0. 
 
Now, we can always reduce the wave with minimal loss of the actual structure of the wave itself.  Let's say that f(20) = 25.4433.  Now let's say that the recording company was using something that halved the volume (recorded at half volume).  We'd get the reading f(20) = 12.72165 = 12.7266 (4 digit arithmetic).  Note how we lost some precision in the lower volume.  Now the error in both instances will always vary by +/- .00005.  This we'll call absolute error.  However, relative error is the more important factor here.  Relative error = | actual - calculated | / actual where actual is the actual number it should be and calculated is what would be calculated.  | actual - calculated | = absolute error.  We know the absolute error for both instances, .00005 (differs by computer though).  So we get | .00005 | = | -.00005 | = .00005 for absolute error.  This means that the absolute error is the same in both instances.  We can calculate the relative error now.  We get the following relative errors: .00005 / 12.72165 and .00005 / 25.4433 or .000003930 and .000001965 respectively.  Notice how the error in the smaller amplitude is twice that of the one recorded at the higher amplitude (that is twice as high in amplitude).  Digitally speaking, it is more adventageous to record at higher SPL so long as we don't induce distortion or clipping. 
 
I hope all of that made sense.  We can generalize it like this.  Assume we have two SPL levels: spl1 and spl2.  Assume they aren't the same (one is higher than the other).  spl1 > spl2.  The absolute error for both is based upon machine precision (computers percision it can calculate to).  It would be +/- u where u is the machine's precision.  u / spl1 < u spl2 iff spl1 > spl2.  The relative error of the higher volume will always be better than the lower volume mathematically speaking. 

 

[soundstige]

Why (generally speaking) do bands tend to record, practice and play at what you would consider higher volumes when the audio quality is so much better at low listening levels?

They don't. A sentence like that doesn't really mean anything.

 

[planx]

Is this another thread where you get to finish the sentence?! I love these threads!
 
No matter how good an IEM sounds, it's a dealbreaker if it's not fun. I'm a huge fan of the Ety ER-4S. But I'm also a huge fan of the PFE232, Shure SE215, Shure SE530, and Westone UM2 as they are very fun sounding IEMs. If I had to HONESTLY answer, my ER-4S barely gets any time compared to my PFE232 and my CIEM only because it's too damn serious... It's truly a work of excellent electro acoustic engineering, but as a PORTABLE DEVICE, I find it's purposes very limited. They marvel at analytical sessions, but who does most of their listening as that..? I have my Vintage AKG cans for that! The reason why I love the PFE232 so much is you get best of both worlds. It sounds extremely accurate and very, very fun as well. The bass is soooo satisfying and the treble I drool over. And the best part is it's extremely well composed and very coordinated.

 

[H20Fidelity]

No matter how good an IEM sounds, it's a dealbreaker if......you were expecting an upgrade, only to find you've side or downgraded.

(Hurts lots with $200+ purchases)

 

[PeterDLai]

No matter how good an IEM sounds, it is a dealbreaker if it is uncomfortable to wear for prolonged periods of time.