[tnmike1]

I've just seriously upgraded my listening devices with the Supermacro IV LE upgraded and the v-cap unit. Now I'm looking and wondering if the Ety 4p is the best I can do. And yes, I know Xin uses the ety "sound" to design his amps.

Now that said, I've had myeye on the UE Triple Fi pros for quite awhile.

Now the question: I totally agree with Aevum that the Ety4p is really a standard for IEMs.

But, Antonyfirst: you have both Etys and the UE Triple Fi 10 Pros. So, to you: how do you like the sound, comparing the two?

Wouldn't mind waiting for either Westone 3, or the klipsh Custom 3 to see what triple drivers sound like. Also wouldn't mind buying the UE triple-fi 10 pro from Earphone solution IF, and the big "if" I'm going to get sonic improvement over my Etys

 

[IEMaddict]

Quote:

Originally Posted by IPodPJ /img/forum/go_quote.gif I used to feel the way you did. But after being in this hobby awhile I've realized no more than one driver is required. How many full-size headphones do you know that have more than one driver per ear? There are one or two and those are crappy gimicks for gaming purposes. No high-end fullsize headphone needs more than one driver, and neither do IEMs. The problem is that armatures do not have a natural tone to them. I'm glad that Sennheiser's new IEMs are using dynamic drivers. The future of excellent sounding IEMs will be with dynamic drivers. Micro technology is getting better every day. The multiple armature race is getting ridiculous. The reason they use so many is because armatures do not have the ability to reproduce natural sounding, full-range audio. Also, consumers almost always tend to think more is better, so one day I'm sure they will have 10-driver customs. The ER4 may have the most accurate frequency response but they are far from natural sounding... but at least Etymotic isn't buying into the gimmick. Just wait and see.... Sennheiser will take the lead on the IEM market now, and other well known companies will follow suit with dynamic drivers.

It's not that I think that two or three drivers is better than one, if so than I wouldnt think that the ER4-S is better overall than the super.fi 5 pro and many other multi-driver iems, its just that I personally prefer the sound of multi-driver iems because in IEMs atleast, multi-driver iem's have bigger soundstage and dynamics tend to bloom more than most single driver iems IMO. Maybe your right, maybe its armature technology, because high end phones like the hd650s and k701s dont suffer from this at all with there one driver per ear. Many of the best sounding phones in the world only have one driver.

 

[SBD]

They made even their er4p single armature. Why would they spend their time and money making a triple driver??
Squeezing the most clarity out of single drivers, that's what they do and do well. Plus they have to focus on satisfying the population who wants that sound...

 

[SBD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by IEMaddict /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's not that I think that two or three drivers is better than one, if so than I wouldnt think that the ER4-S is better overall than the super.fi 5 pro and many other multi-driver iems, its just that I personally prefer the sound of multi-driver iems because in IEMs atleast, multi-driver iem's have bigger soundstage and dynamics tend to bloom more than most single driver iems IMO. Maybe your right, maybe its armature technology, because high end phones like the hd650s and k701s dont suffer from this at all with there one driver per ear. Many of the best sounding phones in the world only have one driver.

They're both coming out of the tube and into the same ear...and I don't think drivers actually "struggle" to put out multiple sounds at once, they only struggle to put out a full spectrum of sound.

I don't know what you're talking about with the hd650s and k701s...aren't all cans "single driver"?

 

[jsmithepa]

What did the Tuttles (American Chopper) said? They buy what we give them!

BTW, no new AC episodes... could Vinnie have really mess up?

 

[catscratch]

I would agree with Etymotic's design view if balanced armature drivers didn't have issues with reproducing sound over a broad frequency range, but they do. You simply cannot take a single balanced-armature canalphone and expect it to do bass well out to 20hz and treble well out to 20khz; UE have been trying to crack the 20khz barrier with their latest four driver canalphones and I don't think they've succeeded; the E500 with its 3 driver is rated up to 19khz and that I think is the highest that a balanced armature is rated so far; whether or not it can actually produce sound at 19khz within meaningful decibel tolerances is another matter. The first canalphone that is able to well and truly put in a lot of meaningful upper-treble information is going to go a very long way towards addressing the criticism that canalphones aren't very natural sounding. That criticism, as I see it, is more or less there because canalphones struggle to replicate the full set of overtones and harmonics for any given tone, which your ear, being used to the actual instrument, quickly identifies. That, of course, and the fact that canalphones bypass HRTF's entirely, while your brain is still compensating for them while you're listening, so the very psychoacoustic machinery that lets you enjoy sound in a normal manner gets in the way of your enjoyment of canalphones.

I bet that if we had binaural recordings mixed specifically for canalphones in mind, played back on canalphones with a full frequency range, people wouldn't be calling them "unnatural."

I believe that balanced armatures will crack 20khz, and soon. This really is a wonderful technology. It's given us great-sounding headphones, unfortunately they are still few and far between, and so far they pretty much have to be custom-molded in my experience (still haven't heard triple.fi). We haven't plumbed the depths of this technology and we will see very good things from it in the future. I don't think dynamic drivers are the way to go here, I have never heard a miniature dynamic driver with anywhere near the level of transparency offered by balanced armatures, and I doubt I ever will. I think there is a lot more performance potential left in balanced armatures, which we are only beginning to explore, than dynamic drivers, which are well established and have been milked for all they're worth.

Based on my experience with the ES2, I think that a triple-driver configuration with a dedicated bass driver, a midrange/treble driver, and a dedicated supertweeter is the way to go, though you could still double-up on bass drivers to get more control. That's why there will probably be a UE11 or the Westone 3 custom in my future. Maybe both. I'll have to wait until the Westone comes out and see.