Review: Shure E3c, E5c, and Ety ER-4 comparisons

[bangraman]

That's the difference between yours and my perceptions I suppose. I wouldn't have been happy with just the E5 if I knew what the Etys sounded like. I want, and of course have, both. Interesting your comments re what you've heard. I think the Etys are a bit like portable DT880's. Certainly boring to some, but for listening while concentrating I feel they have a lot of merits. The main fault I can lay at the Etys (the P's) door is that I sometimes get the feeling "I should be amping this". With the E3c I didn't feel this anywhere near as much. Although some of this is attributable to the increased efficiency, I'm sure because this is a lot due to that I like the response of the E3c better for what I happened to be listening to.


Meanwhile some odd results are emerging in my listening...
Mingus: Etys < E3c (with some reservations)
Future Loop Foundation: Etys > E3c (ditto)
Not what I expected (scribble scribble).

 

[elnero]

Quote:

Originally posted by bangraman Although we are fundamentally arriving at the same conclusion, that the new E3c are indeed good, I have to question how objectively lindrone listened to the Etys because there's now a lot of things in his reviews regarding the Etys that I can't reconcile.

Your calling into question Lindrone's objectivity because your feelings on the Ety's differ? Why is it when someone has a differing viewpoint than you you have to question their "objectivity"?

 

[bangraman]

Call it habit, call it arrogance, whatever... I don't really worry about it, because this is the way I am.


But it does come across like arrogance, doesn't it. For a while now, it's been clear that we don't share exactly the same taste in phones, but some things that he's saying about the Etys struck me as a little odd in comparison to what he's saying about the Shures. I therefore questioned how much of a comparative listen he's given both phones, and I know such a question isn't really answerable but how objectively he listened to the Etys as opposed to the Shures. That's all... I can do that, can't I?


For me it's involved taking all three whereever I'm going and swapping, as well as extended sessions on a single phone to switch for a short time to another. To give anywhere near an authoritative opinion in a review labelled as a comparison, I expect a person to spend about the same amount of time with each phone when they are actually doing the comparison.

 

[lindrone]

Quote:

Originally posted by elnero Your calling into question Lindrone's objectivity because your feelings on the Ety's differ? Why is it when someone has a differing viewpoint than you you have to question their "objectivity"?

Now now... Bangra's not being bitchy or evil here...

In fact, I very much value Bangra's view on these topics. There's been more than a few times when I PM'd Bangra to bounce a few ideas off of him. Bangra is a very credible and experienced reviewer (as I often depend on his reviews on headphones that I haven't heard), and I think it's fair for him to ask such a question. I'm sure in any review where the reviewer seems to have a clear bias, objectivity is a concern.

Bangra's more objective review is a nice contrast to my more biased review, and only with multiple reviews from different viewpoints can other Head-Fiers judge for themselves without having heard both 'phones.

 

[gpalmer]

Quote:

Originally posted by lindrone I didn't get around to try the Gilmore V2 with any other source at the meet. I did to go Chinchy's place later and tried it with his 333es, and the Gilmore V2 was previously owned my Habib and attached a NAD 541i before. It's hard to explain, there's something about the midrange clarity that seems to be lacking to me. I'm not sure if the Gilmore V2 SE does any better in this regard, however I distinctively remember the other aspects that you mentioned about the Gilmore V2 SE. Darker, and more refined. Perhaps those other two aspects gives me a sense that the midrange resolution improved.

I have to admit that I really haven't compared the two against each other since the SE first got here and I spent an hour listening to them back and forth. That was on my portable DVD player also which might have skewed the results. Maybe we can compare them if we do our mini-meet.

 

[lindrone]

LOL.. I just realized I made a terrible typo...

Quote:

Gilmore V2 was previously owned my Habib

It's supposed to "owned by Habib"... LOL.. I'm not implying any ownership to Habib or any sort of minion/master relationship here...

Or am I?

 

[scottder]

Quote:

Originally posted by lindrone It's supposed to "owned by Habib"... LOL.. I'm not implying any ownership to Habib or any sort of minion/master relationship here... Or am I?

All you Habib belong to us.

Scott

 

[Spent&Bent]

Quote:

Originally posted by scottder All you Habib belong to us. Scott

Infact, All your phones are belong to us!

To get further OT: has anyone ever done a suitable animation of this with headphones when this thing was popular???

I imagine pictures of head-fiers and other celebs with headphones to the thumping soundtrack.

 

[scottder]

don't forget

 

[Habib]

O yeah, go ahead and open the floodgate to the Habib jokes...

I am kind of semi-involved with the lindrone's Shure vs Ety thing since I am present. But I wasn't really inclined to say anything because I am not really interested in canalphones. I think they all tend to induce claustrophobia. And for the money, I dont think they touch the headphones in the same price range. The only thing going for these phones is portability and I think it's a hefty premium to pay.

Be that as it may, I liked the etys slightly more the e5 largely influenced by the price tag. To me $500 can get you a lot of headphone, there is no way to justify that, even if it's indeed "the best in the world." At $250 etys are more affordable and provided a reasonable level of performance. I think that echoes the sentiment of many head-fiers, that there are better use for $500 to improve you main gig. But lindrone is a portable guy so I understand his pursuit for the best portable phones. That amount of money he spent on custom moldings alone is staggering. He's like the "mini Nik" of the canalphones.

In the end, I think the E3 has the most value beucase it sounds surprisingly close to E5 under most condition though lacking the booming bass of the E5. The problems with etys are the microphonic cable and comfort issue. That thing just doesn't stay in my ear comfortably. I think the deal breaker for E5 is the buzz sensitivity thing (and price of course).

 

[lindrone]

Hey, two things to clarify, the "buzz" problem with the Gilmore V2 is not with just the E5, it's with all the Shure earphones. And it is amp dependent, just as much as CD3000 has problem with certain amps

There's plenty of amps where there isn't any buzz or hiss problems with Shure earphones.

 

[orl2222]

Well, I'm conviced. My ety's finally broke (RH tip broke after 3 yrs) So I have also pre-ordered the EC3's. They do remind of EX71's with the tips they use, and I'm hoping the build quality is a lil better than the ety's.

 

[austonia]

just pre-ordered a pair of E3's myself. Thanks for the quality review.

I've been looking for something between my EX71's and ER4S. Until now, nothing really fit.

 

[scottder]

Don't thank lindrone, he's made me want to spend more money than I want to think about!

lindrone, my wife wants your head on a platter!

Scott

 

[lindrone]

You had the urge, I merely moved you into it faster than you were ready for...

I'm not evil, really.. I'm not