I did say better for my taste so that aside, "nowhere as good" sounds like a stretch to me between these two. We all have different scales from low to high but after going to a meet and also visiting places like JH Audio, plus having gear sent to me, I find the degree of gain from something like this going up, or say GR07BE's, isn't that large to me.
There are certain aspects to sound that really stand out between phones(EX1000 vocals) but for the sound package overall, it's purty dam good at this lvl*. I actually ended up liking the fit of the Ety's to my surprise and stuck them in reeeeal deep. KC06's where another surprise I found got up there with the best I've heard when talking about vocal presentation. On the other hand of what I consider similar sound, GR06's sounded cloudy and muddy in comparisons.
What you say of the E-Q8 vs ER4S I would say of the GR06 vs KC06...
*I'm not saying you claim the E-Q8 isn't good sound but for those reading that might conclude this from your post, I find it's dam good sound.
I agree, 100%.
After being here for as long as I have, and experiencing all that I have, I've found that I simply can't relate to the majority of HFiers who always state things in bizarre absolutes, such as "destroys," "miles beyond," "nowhere near" etc. etc. I've never, ever found this to be the case, ever, no matter how much money is involved so long as there's a decent baseline for comparison. I find these descriptors to be misleading at best, and with that said, I'll throw down the gauntlet by stating that I think, the EQ-8 is a stellar, superb performer, and one that I feel can easily trade punches even with something overly over engineered such as JH's Angie. Is the latter a better phone, hell, is it one of the best phones I've heard to date? Yes, it is. Is it miles beyond, and the EQ-8 just simply nowhere close? Not for a second, in this, or any other reality.
One interesting thing that I've noticed is that the frequency response of "most" earphones is roughly the same amount of "accurate" in a technical sense. But each one is simply approached from a different perspective.
For instance, the er4s is touted as super reference by many. It has at least a 6db drop in overall "sub" bass levels, and a few pretty small dips and peaks in the treble compared to most. But the "average" difference from a relatively flat signature is let's say at least 10 db or more of overall "correction" that is needed.
Then take something like the MH1. With stock configuration, it needs about 8db cut in overall bass and very little treble adjustment here and there. Again, "roughly" 10db of correction needed.
Then something different again like the westone 4r. People say it is warmer or softer than something like the er4s. However, to get the 4r to be more neutral takes a boost in the upper mids/lower treble at about 10db overall increase when the various points are added together.
This isn't a hard fact or anything, but it's interesting in two ways. First, it seems that getting a neutral response, or any response for that matter, involves working with a pretty consistent amount of acoustic "room" to flex. And second, that "most" earphones, whether someone says that are drastically or amazingly different are actually probably within a few db here and there of another earphone they claim it "blows" away".
There are some nice advances, and things seem to be improving with the technology like the bass drivers in the shure 846 and such, but only slightly. And the cost to performance ratio is not always so clear. The ZA tenore is still one of the best, most neutral earphones i've ever heard at $50. So they seemed to get past most of that 10db "room" most earphone seem to be flexing this way or that. But there are properties of the tenore that aren't as good as well. So it almost balances out in another way.
Just blabbing out loud here, but it's interesting to think of at least. Usually, if something is greatly bassier or way outside of that general range, it suffers from distortion or other detrimental audio artifacts...
