lindrone
King Canaling
- Joined
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Last edit.. one caution added to the end of the review, make sure you read it
A while ago, I did a review of the Shure E5c plus various fitting options... in the review itself, I lamented not having been able to do a side-by-side comparison of the Shure E5c versus one of the forum's all-time favorite: Ety ER-4. Since then, I've been fortunate enough (Thanks to Dunbar) to having had a chance to compare them head to head. The link below is to the original review of the Shure E5c... a good read at least for reference.
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showt...0&highlight=e5
So without further ado, let's go into this ER-4 vs. E5c comparo:
Earphones
Shure E5c
Etymotic ER-4P w/ P=>S adaptor
Source (with or without amp)
iPod (using only uncompressed WAV) + Super Mini v6.2D
iPod (using only uncompressed WAV) unamped
NAD C541i + Gilmore V2
Sony D-25S + Gilmore V2
Test tracks
"Ben Folds Live" - Ben Folds
"Sunny 16" - Ben Folds
"Whatever and Ever Amen" - Ben Folds Five
"A Rush of Blood to The Head" - Coldplay
"Parachute" - Coldplay
"Jars of Clay" - Jars of Clay
"If I Left the Zoo" - Jars of Clay
"Kind of Blue" - Miles Davis
"Come Away With Me" - Norah Jones
"Speakerboxxx/ The Love Below" - OutKast
Miscellaneous comparison headphones
Sony MDR-CD3000
Sennheiser HD-580
Sennheisder HD-590
I've added 2 CD's to my testing collection, I thought "Sunny 16" by Ben Folds should be listed, because there's one specific track on it which is worth mentioning for one reason. Also I've added OutKast's newest album for testing out the bass, you'll see why this was needed.
I tested the ER-4P with and without the P => S adaptor cable. I noticed that the midrange and the low-end are both slightly more controlled and accurate when I used the S adaptor. So I didn't feel a need to separate out the 4P as a separate comparison. I also settled on using the tri-flange tip for both the ER-4 and E5c for testing... as they produced the best sonic results and best fit for me. So now all the specs has been listed... time for the real thing...
Fit & Finish
Here's a few pictures to show what package that the Shure E5 and the Ety ER-4 came with....
Ety with the big, black plastic box with stuffs inside
Closed Ety box
The Ety and the Shure box side-by-side
Shure box opened up showing the goodies inside
The Ety came in a big black plastic box.... Pretty impressive. It has a nice layout to hold all the things it came with. Extra tri-flange plugs, wires, and replacement filters. Sitting next to the Shure E5c box though, it does seem a lot less spectacular. The Shure E5c box is a brushed aluminum cube. The top has embossed "Shure" logo, and the bottom box has embossed "E5c" carved onto its sides. Shiny... brushed... embossed... aluminum... Everything here says "expensive". Hell, it should be, considering the price.
The fit & finish of the Shure is definitely a class above the Ety's... No question there.
Comfort
I had to struggle with the ER-4's a lot in the comfort department. When I first got them... I had them in, played a few songs through them and thought, "Hey, this thing sounds almost worse than my E2c's!" Of course that can't be true, ER-4's oughtta sound much beter than the E2c's... so I shoved them a little deeper into my ear (quite tentatively, I must add). Only after shoving them in a little bit deeper, that the mid-range and the low-end of the sound is brought out.
I thought to myself... "Hmm, well, this isn't bad.. pretty good sound..." That's about when I started feeling pain in the deep inner end of my ear. Yes, I am now finally getting the sound I was supposed to get, except my ear hurts like hell. I pulled them out a little bit... While still maintaining pretty good seal & sound. Except now if I left them on for a while, the weight of the cable will drag the plug out ever-so-slowly.... It's not soon before I have to do the whole "shove and pull a little bit out" thing.
I know some people out there don't have any trouble with Ety's cable noise. Perhaps they're used to having that cable distortion and just ignores it in the background. However, from my perspective, I've never heard any cable noise as bad as this. Not with my Shure E2c's, not with the E5c's. I think this is something Ety finally addressed with the braided cable that now ships with the ER-4's. The problem is not in the inherent design of the canalphone (in fact, I found collusion to not be much of a problem compared to cable noise), but the fact that Ety chose, with this generation of their headphone, to go with these heavy, thick cables that seem to transmit every little vibration, brushing against objects straight back into your ear. Not to mention that "shirt clip" which just constantly bangs against things while I move... because.. well, I've got nothing really adequate to clip it onto. Meanwhile all these "design flaws" could be overcome by one retrofit or another.. they're design flaws nonetheless.
Now.. putting in the E5c's... If you read my previous reviews, you would've known how much struggle I've gone through with the custom moldings. However, I must note, that's not because the options available with the E5c's were terrible. It was purely because I was seeking "something better" out there that I might not have known. (And if you read through that review, you would've noticed at the end of the day, the best thing was the Shure's own tri-flange option)
The E5c's tri-flange tip is much more forgiving... since the tube of the earphone unit itself doesn't stick all the way through the tri-flange, the front of the flange tip is very soft and pilable. It fits into your canal in a very comfortable fashion. You don't even have to stick it all the way in to get a proper seal... You can give yourself some breathing room and still achieve as good of a seal as you would sticking them all the way in until it hurts.
The E5c also has a semi-transparent, soft, yet very sturdy cable that wraps around the top of your ear, eventually meeting in the middle behind your head. Now, the cable positioning might be a problem for some people.. because the cable will end up behind your back, not in front of you. Some people will find it annoying to manage the cable when it's behind your back (for example, if you have to wear a backpack or something). However, the weight and quality of the cable, plus the wrap-around-ear fitting... eliminates almost, if not all cable noise there is. The only way you can get cable noise from these headphone is by asking your friend to tug on the cable 'til either your head or the earphone falls off. The collusion effect though, as with all canalphones, are still there. However, the softer tri-flange tip seem to help here as well.. there's a bit less vibration feedback even when I'm chewing food.
Winner: Definitely the E5c.
Sound characteristics
Oh boy.. am I ready for some flame here... This will be the argument of the ages when it comes down to canalphones... In short, if I was to compare these two earphones in some ways that correlates to the experiences I've had with headphones: I would say that the ER-4's are like HD-580's, while the E5c is like the CD3K.
Comparing the high-ends... The ER-4's are very clear, with good resolution and music quality. Without listening carefully, I would think that ER-4's might actually have better high-ends than the E5c; but after carefully listening for a while, I realized it's not that E5c doesn't have good high-ends... it's that E5c has a lot more "balance" across all the sound spectrums. The ER-4 has a very, very "neutral" bass... which some people prefer. E5c has a very responsive reproduction across all sound ranges, including the bass. In comparison, when you get both the bass and the high-end, it would seem that the high-end is not as clear as the ER-4. However, listening carefully again, the E5c's high-end is actually more resolved, more pronounced, and reaches higher than the ER-4; it's just that when you've got bass going on as well, it creates an illusion that the high-end on the ER-4 is more pronounced.
In the midranges... The ER-4 once again, has a very good, relaxed presentation with plenty of clarity. I would think that with the E5c's dual-driver w/ crossover design, it might have problem producing as clear of a midrange as the ER-4. However this also turned out not be the case. Just as with almost all other sound, the E5c is more resolute, clear, and resolved in the midrange than the ER-4... There is a upper-mid that seem to be a little more recessed in the E5c, but that's also in comparison to everything else that's more pronounced.
The bass... well, I think the ER-4 has what some people would refer to as "neutral bass", while I don't think it's really bass at all. This is where the OutKast's newest album comes in... OutKast's album has a lot of very, very exaggerated bass (as with almost all hip-hop anyway, right?)... I used that album exclusively to test the "range" of the bass on the ER-4. I had previously made statements in my E5c review comparing the bass of the CD3K to the E5c... and the truth is, I can't even start to make a comparison here with the ER-4. There's no way that I would mistaken ER-4's controlled, recessed, neutral bass to any real "headphone"... Where the E5c could be considered a "headphone replacement"... ER-4 is distinctively a canalphone. The bass in the E5c will make your head feel like it's rumbling, the ER-4 gets nowhere near that.
The soundstage of the E5c is much more dynamic than the ER-4. The ER-4 is much more relaxed... I feel like I'm in the 10th to the 15th row at a concert when listening to the ER-4. Where with the E5c, I feel like I'm sitting in the first row.. or perhaps even in the studio while the musicians are recording. With this more dynamic presentation, it also allows the E5c to project the different dimensionality in the music much better. There's more separation between foreground and background.
For example, the 1st track of Ben Fold's "Sunny 16" EP ends with a little conversation in the background, "Mr. Producer, any suggestion or comments?"... When I was listening to this CD on the E5c, even though I've heard it before.. I caught myself actually turning around and see who's behind me in the room. With the Ety, it just doesn't have that effect. Since the entire soundstage seems to be more distant... there's just a lack of "interaction" with the music.
In conclusion.. this goes back to the comment I made when this whole section started. Within the context of this comparion, I felt that the ER-4 very much reminded me of a well-driven HD-580. It's got a very pleasant and musical soundstage, but not as intimate as the CD3000. While all the reproduction is very smooth, it lacks the "punch" that some music requires.
The E5c is like the earphone version of the CD3000... it's got a very well rounded presentation, not overtly bright nor recessed. It's what I would consider, personally, a more accurate presentation of sound. The bass are there when you expect them to be, meanwhile the mids and highs are still superior to the ER-4.
The sound signature of the E5c definitely resemble a "headphone replacement". It is by no means settle with itself just being a canalphone.. it's seriously designed to bite into that bigger headphone feel. The ER-4's is unmistakenly the feel of a canalphone, which is not a bad thing at all... there are definitely people who will still prefer the sound signature of the ER-4.
Winner: With my preference, I'd say the E5c.
Overall value
Okay, so if you've read this far.. it definitely seems like I'm bashing the Ety ER-4's left and right... The truth is, after listening to both of them for weeks... I do feel that the E5c is a better earphone. However, this is where the Ety lovers will find their redemption.
If you look on the market, you can now find an ER-4P/S for $210 or so.. or you can get a ER-4P with a S adaptor cable for $50 more (if you use the authentic cable)... which brings you to $260 or so. Even if you find a really bad street price, you're looking at $250 to $300. Not to mention how many people out there has ER-4, even though they aren't likely to part with it, at least there's still somewhat of a market for an used ER-4.
The Shure E5c retails for $499. You can get the Shure E5, which is the same headphone without the consumer packaging, for about $450, but you miss out on some of the goodies, and the shiny cool box. There's virtually no used market for the Shure E5c, you've got to be luckier than (insert your own luckier than whatever reference here, I can't think of a good one.. hehehe) to be able to find one much cheaper than that. Then you've got to spend the extra $10 or so to get the tri-flange tips, which doesn't come as a part of the package, but by far provides the best sound to maximum the full capability of the E5c.
So, at the very least you're looking at a 2x price increase from the Ety ER-4 to the Shure E5c. Now, is the sound of the E5c "twice" as good as the ER-4? As the law of diminishing return kicks in, you can bet for sure that the sound is not "twice" as good from the ER-4 to the E5c. Some of us can still justify the E5c, because the added comfort and versatility, plus the superior sound quality might justify that $500 being spent.
Now, compare the Ety ER-4 to something else.. say.. HD-580. I can definitely see why people would prefer the ER-4 to getting something like the HD-580. After all, ER-4 sounds very, very good, even though the bass might still be laid back; then again, some people would think HD-580's bass is too laid back as well... So for $200 you get a headphone that's very good, both portable and for @ home use. You can choose to amp it or not amp it, it will only improve. Where with the HD-580, you've got to spend at least $150 to $200 on an amp to get it to sound the way it's really supposed to. (I've used a HD-580 with cheaper amps before, mint meta, for example... I don't think anything under $150 is really adequate). So if you look at it, $200 for a ER-4P or S, versus $150 for HD-580+$150 for amp... At $100 less you're getting a very, very comparable sound.
So... when it comes down to value/performance ratio...
Winner: ER-4
Conclusion
So... at the end of the day.. I think the Shure E5c is a much better headphone. Better build & construction, better sound, better at just about everything. Why shouldn't it be though? I mean, it's TWICE as much as the Ety ER-4. If it isn't overall better than the ER-4, I'd have a pretty big gripe to hold against Shure, right?
What it comes down to, is that do you really have $500 to spend on a pair of canalphones? When I first started this thing.. I had a very specific need for wanting to get the best portable set-up possible. In retrospect, with the $500, I'm very close to a Sony CD3K + Gilmore V2 or something.. right?
When it comes to recommendation though... I wouldn't hesitate to suggest the Ety as an option... (of course, I'd have to warn them about all the possible discomfort and so on.. so forth)... but if you've got $500 to chuck at a pair of earphones.. get a Shure E5c...
One last caution...
I was kindly pointed out towards one possible flaw with the Shure E5c. I haven't given it that much of a thought, because in this review, I've been focusing on trying to bring out the best characteristic in both earphones.
Sensitivity (at 1kHz): 122 dB SPL/mW
That spec right there, is the sensitivity rating on the Shure E5c. It is extremely source sensitive. So a side-effect of that, is out of most headphone amps, it will produce a background hiss due to the sensitivity of the headphone. I hear a slight "buzz" from my Gilmore V2 with the gain switch turned out to level 2. I hear a constant "hiss" from my Super Mini v6.2D.
Xin has offered to modify my Super Mini so it wouldn't produce that hiss by either lowering the gain or adding more resistors... but I never got around to sending it back (and started eyeing a Super Micro anyway)...
However, from most desk amps, this sort of specialized modification is probably not possible. This background "hiss" is probably considered unforgivable by some people. Especially if you listen to a music with a lot of "black notes". Personally that's not my normal genre, and I don't notice the hiss when there's music playing. To some people, it will definitely drive them nuts.
I don't know if Shure will have some sort of fix or solution to this problem... but it can definitely be a deal breaker for those people who's considering a Shure E5c. If not for this one flaw, this earphone would've been near perfect.
A while ago, I did a review of the Shure E5c plus various fitting options... in the review itself, I lamented not having been able to do a side-by-side comparison of the Shure E5c versus one of the forum's all-time favorite: Ety ER-4. Since then, I've been fortunate enough (Thanks to Dunbar) to having had a chance to compare them head to head. The link below is to the original review of the Shure E5c... a good read at least for reference.
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showt...0&highlight=e5
So without further ado, let's go into this ER-4 vs. E5c comparo:
Earphones
Shure E5c
Etymotic ER-4P w/ P=>S adaptor
Source (with or without amp)
iPod (using only uncompressed WAV) + Super Mini v6.2D
iPod (using only uncompressed WAV) unamped
NAD C541i + Gilmore V2
Sony D-25S + Gilmore V2
Test tracks
"Ben Folds Live" - Ben Folds
"Sunny 16" - Ben Folds
"Whatever and Ever Amen" - Ben Folds Five
"A Rush of Blood to The Head" - Coldplay
"Parachute" - Coldplay
"Jars of Clay" - Jars of Clay
"If I Left the Zoo" - Jars of Clay
"Kind of Blue" - Miles Davis
"Come Away With Me" - Norah Jones
"Speakerboxxx/ The Love Below" - OutKast
Miscellaneous comparison headphones
Sony MDR-CD3000
Sennheiser HD-580
Sennheisder HD-590
I've added 2 CD's to my testing collection, I thought "Sunny 16" by Ben Folds should be listed, because there's one specific track on it which is worth mentioning for one reason. Also I've added OutKast's newest album for testing out the bass, you'll see why this was needed.
I tested the ER-4P with and without the P => S adaptor cable. I noticed that the midrange and the low-end are both slightly more controlled and accurate when I used the S adaptor. So I didn't feel a need to separate out the 4P as a separate comparison. I also settled on using the tri-flange tip for both the ER-4 and E5c for testing... as they produced the best sonic results and best fit for me. So now all the specs has been listed... time for the real thing...
Fit & Finish
Here's a few pictures to show what package that the Shure E5 and the Ety ER-4 came with....
Ety with the big, black plastic box with stuffs inside
Closed Ety box
The Ety and the Shure box side-by-side
Shure box opened up showing the goodies inside
The Ety came in a big black plastic box.... Pretty impressive. It has a nice layout to hold all the things it came with. Extra tri-flange plugs, wires, and replacement filters. Sitting next to the Shure E5c box though, it does seem a lot less spectacular. The Shure E5c box is a brushed aluminum cube. The top has embossed "Shure" logo, and the bottom box has embossed "E5c" carved onto its sides. Shiny... brushed... embossed... aluminum... Everything here says "expensive". Hell, it should be, considering the price.
The fit & finish of the Shure is definitely a class above the Ety's... No question there.
Comfort
I had to struggle with the ER-4's a lot in the comfort department. When I first got them... I had them in, played a few songs through them and thought, "Hey, this thing sounds almost worse than my E2c's!" Of course that can't be true, ER-4's oughtta sound much beter than the E2c's... so I shoved them a little deeper into my ear (quite tentatively, I must add). Only after shoving them in a little bit deeper, that the mid-range and the low-end of the sound is brought out.
I thought to myself... "Hmm, well, this isn't bad.. pretty good sound..." That's about when I started feeling pain in the deep inner end of my ear. Yes, I am now finally getting the sound I was supposed to get, except my ear hurts like hell. I pulled them out a little bit... While still maintaining pretty good seal & sound. Except now if I left them on for a while, the weight of the cable will drag the plug out ever-so-slowly.... It's not soon before I have to do the whole "shove and pull a little bit out" thing.
I know some people out there don't have any trouble with Ety's cable noise. Perhaps they're used to having that cable distortion and just ignores it in the background. However, from my perspective, I've never heard any cable noise as bad as this. Not with my Shure E2c's, not with the E5c's. I think this is something Ety finally addressed with the braided cable that now ships with the ER-4's. The problem is not in the inherent design of the canalphone (in fact, I found collusion to not be much of a problem compared to cable noise), but the fact that Ety chose, with this generation of their headphone, to go with these heavy, thick cables that seem to transmit every little vibration, brushing against objects straight back into your ear. Not to mention that "shirt clip" which just constantly bangs against things while I move... because.. well, I've got nothing really adequate to clip it onto. Meanwhile all these "design flaws" could be overcome by one retrofit or another.. they're design flaws nonetheless.
Now.. putting in the E5c's... If you read my previous reviews, you would've known how much struggle I've gone through with the custom moldings. However, I must note, that's not because the options available with the E5c's were terrible. It was purely because I was seeking "something better" out there that I might not have known. (And if you read through that review, you would've noticed at the end of the day, the best thing was the Shure's own tri-flange option)
The E5c's tri-flange tip is much more forgiving... since the tube of the earphone unit itself doesn't stick all the way through the tri-flange, the front of the flange tip is very soft and pilable. It fits into your canal in a very comfortable fashion. You don't even have to stick it all the way in to get a proper seal... You can give yourself some breathing room and still achieve as good of a seal as you would sticking them all the way in until it hurts.
The E5c also has a semi-transparent, soft, yet very sturdy cable that wraps around the top of your ear, eventually meeting in the middle behind your head. Now, the cable positioning might be a problem for some people.. because the cable will end up behind your back, not in front of you. Some people will find it annoying to manage the cable when it's behind your back (for example, if you have to wear a backpack or something). However, the weight and quality of the cable, plus the wrap-around-ear fitting... eliminates almost, if not all cable noise there is. The only way you can get cable noise from these headphone is by asking your friend to tug on the cable 'til either your head or the earphone falls off. The collusion effect though, as with all canalphones, are still there. However, the softer tri-flange tip seem to help here as well.. there's a bit less vibration feedback even when I'm chewing food.
Winner: Definitely the E5c.
Sound characteristics
Oh boy.. am I ready for some flame here... This will be the argument of the ages when it comes down to canalphones... In short, if I was to compare these two earphones in some ways that correlates to the experiences I've had with headphones: I would say that the ER-4's are like HD-580's, while the E5c is like the CD3K.
Comparing the high-ends... The ER-4's are very clear, with good resolution and music quality. Without listening carefully, I would think that ER-4's might actually have better high-ends than the E5c; but after carefully listening for a while, I realized it's not that E5c doesn't have good high-ends... it's that E5c has a lot more "balance" across all the sound spectrums. The ER-4 has a very, very "neutral" bass... which some people prefer. E5c has a very responsive reproduction across all sound ranges, including the bass. In comparison, when you get both the bass and the high-end, it would seem that the high-end is not as clear as the ER-4. However, listening carefully again, the E5c's high-end is actually more resolved, more pronounced, and reaches higher than the ER-4; it's just that when you've got bass going on as well, it creates an illusion that the high-end on the ER-4 is more pronounced.
In the midranges... The ER-4 once again, has a very good, relaxed presentation with plenty of clarity. I would think that with the E5c's dual-driver w/ crossover design, it might have problem producing as clear of a midrange as the ER-4. However this also turned out not be the case. Just as with almost all other sound, the E5c is more resolute, clear, and resolved in the midrange than the ER-4... There is a upper-mid that seem to be a little more recessed in the E5c, but that's also in comparison to everything else that's more pronounced.
The bass... well, I think the ER-4 has what some people would refer to as "neutral bass", while I don't think it's really bass at all. This is where the OutKast's newest album comes in... OutKast's album has a lot of very, very exaggerated bass (as with almost all hip-hop anyway, right?)... I used that album exclusively to test the "range" of the bass on the ER-4. I had previously made statements in my E5c review comparing the bass of the CD3K to the E5c... and the truth is, I can't even start to make a comparison here with the ER-4. There's no way that I would mistaken ER-4's controlled, recessed, neutral bass to any real "headphone"... Where the E5c could be considered a "headphone replacement"... ER-4 is distinctively a canalphone. The bass in the E5c will make your head feel like it's rumbling, the ER-4 gets nowhere near that.
The soundstage of the E5c is much more dynamic than the ER-4. The ER-4 is much more relaxed... I feel like I'm in the 10th to the 15th row at a concert when listening to the ER-4. Where with the E5c, I feel like I'm sitting in the first row.. or perhaps even in the studio while the musicians are recording. With this more dynamic presentation, it also allows the E5c to project the different dimensionality in the music much better. There's more separation between foreground and background.
For example, the 1st track of Ben Fold's "Sunny 16" EP ends with a little conversation in the background, "Mr. Producer, any suggestion or comments?"... When I was listening to this CD on the E5c, even though I've heard it before.. I caught myself actually turning around and see who's behind me in the room. With the Ety, it just doesn't have that effect. Since the entire soundstage seems to be more distant... there's just a lack of "interaction" with the music.
In conclusion.. this goes back to the comment I made when this whole section started. Within the context of this comparion, I felt that the ER-4 very much reminded me of a well-driven HD-580. It's got a very pleasant and musical soundstage, but not as intimate as the CD3000. While all the reproduction is very smooth, it lacks the "punch" that some music requires.
The E5c is like the earphone version of the CD3000... it's got a very well rounded presentation, not overtly bright nor recessed. It's what I would consider, personally, a more accurate presentation of sound. The bass are there when you expect them to be, meanwhile the mids and highs are still superior to the ER-4.
The sound signature of the E5c definitely resemble a "headphone replacement". It is by no means settle with itself just being a canalphone.. it's seriously designed to bite into that bigger headphone feel. The ER-4's is unmistakenly the feel of a canalphone, which is not a bad thing at all... there are definitely people who will still prefer the sound signature of the ER-4.
Winner: With my preference, I'd say the E5c.
Overall value
Okay, so if you've read this far.. it definitely seems like I'm bashing the Ety ER-4's left and right... The truth is, after listening to both of them for weeks... I do feel that the E5c is a better earphone. However, this is where the Ety lovers will find their redemption.
If you look on the market, you can now find an ER-4P/S for $210 or so.. or you can get a ER-4P with a S adaptor cable for $50 more (if you use the authentic cable)... which brings you to $260 or so. Even if you find a really bad street price, you're looking at $250 to $300. Not to mention how many people out there has ER-4, even though they aren't likely to part with it, at least there's still somewhat of a market for an used ER-4.
The Shure E5c retails for $499. You can get the Shure E5, which is the same headphone without the consumer packaging, for about $450, but you miss out on some of the goodies, and the shiny cool box. There's virtually no used market for the Shure E5c, you've got to be luckier than (insert your own luckier than whatever reference here, I can't think of a good one.. hehehe) to be able to find one much cheaper than that. Then you've got to spend the extra $10 or so to get the tri-flange tips, which doesn't come as a part of the package, but by far provides the best sound to maximum the full capability of the E5c.
So, at the very least you're looking at a 2x price increase from the Ety ER-4 to the Shure E5c. Now, is the sound of the E5c "twice" as good as the ER-4? As the law of diminishing return kicks in, you can bet for sure that the sound is not "twice" as good from the ER-4 to the E5c. Some of us can still justify the E5c, because the added comfort and versatility, plus the superior sound quality might justify that $500 being spent.
Now, compare the Ety ER-4 to something else.. say.. HD-580. I can definitely see why people would prefer the ER-4 to getting something like the HD-580. After all, ER-4 sounds very, very good, even though the bass might still be laid back; then again, some people would think HD-580's bass is too laid back as well... So for $200 you get a headphone that's very good, both portable and for @ home use. You can choose to amp it or not amp it, it will only improve. Where with the HD-580, you've got to spend at least $150 to $200 on an amp to get it to sound the way it's really supposed to. (I've used a HD-580 with cheaper amps before, mint meta, for example... I don't think anything under $150 is really adequate). So if you look at it, $200 for a ER-4P or S, versus $150 for HD-580+$150 for amp... At $100 less you're getting a very, very comparable sound.
So... when it comes down to value/performance ratio...
Winner: ER-4
Conclusion
So... at the end of the day.. I think the Shure E5c is a much better headphone. Better build & construction, better sound, better at just about everything. Why shouldn't it be though? I mean, it's TWICE as much as the Ety ER-4. If it isn't overall better than the ER-4, I'd have a pretty big gripe to hold against Shure, right?
What it comes down to, is that do you really have $500 to spend on a pair of canalphones? When I first started this thing.. I had a very specific need for wanting to get the best portable set-up possible. In retrospect, with the $500, I'm very close to a Sony CD3K + Gilmore V2 or something.. right?
When it comes to recommendation though... I wouldn't hesitate to suggest the Ety as an option... (of course, I'd have to warn them about all the possible discomfort and so on.. so forth)... but if you've got $500 to chuck at a pair of earphones.. get a Shure E5c...
One last caution...
I was kindly pointed out towards one possible flaw with the Shure E5c. I haven't given it that much of a thought, because in this review, I've been focusing on trying to bring out the best characteristic in both earphones.
Sensitivity (at 1kHz): 122 dB SPL/mW
That spec right there, is the sensitivity rating on the Shure E5c. It is extremely source sensitive. So a side-effect of that, is out of most headphone amps, it will produce a background hiss due to the sensitivity of the headphone. I hear a slight "buzz" from my Gilmore V2 with the gain switch turned out to level 2. I hear a constant "hiss" from my Super Mini v6.2D.
Xin has offered to modify my Super Mini so it wouldn't produce that hiss by either lowering the gain or adding more resistors... but I never got around to sending it back (and started eyeing a Super Micro anyway)...
However, from most desk amps, this sort of specialized modification is probably not possible. This background "hiss" is probably considered unforgivable by some people. Especially if you listen to a music with a lot of "black notes". Personally that's not my normal genre, and I don't notice the hiss when there's music playing. To some people, it will definitely drive them nuts.
I don't know if Shure will have some sort of fix or solution to this problem... but it can definitely be a deal breaker for those people who's considering a Shure E5c. If not for this one flaw, this earphone would've been near perfect.
