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#1
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iPod and earbud/earphones
A question around a portable music player may seem inappropriate
for this forum, but the real question is around the "science" of portable listening (poorly phrased - please indulge me for a minute)... Santa brought me an iPod. I'm unhappy with the stock earplugs that ship with the iPod - they sound OK, but I can't get them to stay in my ear. Did some research, and the Etymotic Research ER-6i looked like a winner (the ER-4i was a little out-of-range, price-wise). My initial experience with the ER-6i left me very disappointed. The use a flange so they can be inserted into the ear canal, and this stay put, but I was not happy at all with the sound - sounded like the first generation of CD players, back in 1980 or something. Thin, tinny, etc... After some experimentation, I found that the seating in the ear canal has a huge impact on the sound quality (I know, DUH!), and I could get the ER-6i's sound actually very good. But doing that consistently is something I stil have not mastered. So.... I'm curious of the folks in this forum have had similar experiences, and would share what they concluded. I'm getting ready to trash the "earbud" devices altogether and just use headphones, but that means compromising space and weight (I commute a lot - the iPod is used for commuting and traveling). I'm also curious about the science of earbud devices as compared to over-the-ear headphones. Obviously, there's more of an engineering challenge to building an earbud device that provides good sound, by virtue of the size constraint, so it seems intuitive that a moderate prices headphone is going to sound better than an expensive earbud system. thoughts, comments, experiences welcome. (FWIW, I love music, and care about sound. Have a fine rig at home, very good vinyl front-end,, still listen to vinyl, etc... just by way of background). |
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#2
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"Jim Mauro" wrote in message
... snip, to shorten I'm also curious about the science of earbud devices as compared to over-the-ear headphones. Obviously, there's more of an engineering challenge to building an earbud device that provides good sound, by virtue of the size constraint, so it seems intuitive that a moderate prices headphone is going to sound better than an expensive earbud system. thoughts, comments, experiences welcome. Read a review somewhere in last two months of a new earbud product that is custom-molded to your ear and is supposed to provide phenomenal bass. Can't remember where saw, or who mfg was. Shure sticks in my mind, but my memory is far from reliable these days. |
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#3
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Jim Mauro wrote:
A question around a portable music player may seem inappropriate for this forum, but the real question is around the "science" of portable listening (poorly phrased - please indulge me for a minute)... Santa brought me an iPod. I'm unhappy with the stock earplugs that ship with the iPod - they sound OK, but I can't get them to stay in my ear. Did some research, and the Etymotic Research ER-6i looked like a winner (the ER-4i was a little out-of-range, price-wise). My initial experience with the ER-6i left me very disappointed. The use a flange so they can be inserted into the ear canal, and this stay put, but I was not happy at all with the sound - sounded like the first generation of CD players, back in 1980 or something. Thin, tinny, etc... After some experimentation, I found that the seating in the ear canal has a huge impact on the sound quality (I know, DUH!), and I could get the ER-6i's sound actually very good. But doing that consistently is something I stil have not mastered. So.... I'm curious of the folks in this forum have had similar experiences, and would share what they concluded. I'm getting ready to trash the "earbud" devices altogether and just use headphones, but that means compromising space and weight (I commute a lot - the iPod is used for commuting and traveling). I'm also curious about the science of earbud devices as compared to over-the-ear headphones. Obviously, there's more of an engineering challenge to building an earbud device that provides good sound, by virtue of the size constraint, so it seems intuitive that a moderate prices headphone is going to sound better than an expensive earbud system. thoughts, comments, experiences welcome. (FWIW, I love music, and care about sound. Have a fine rig at home, very good vinyl front-end,, still listen to vinyl, etc... just by way of background). You might want to read the following: http://www.linkwitzlab.com/reference_earphones.htm Siegfried Linkwitz likes the Sony Fontopia and the Shure E2C's, and the equalized ER-4S. I found the E2C's to sound very good, but perhaps like you, I am not a big fan of ear canal phones because they are harder to use, and they could block out too much sound to be safe for walks, etc. I also found the ER-6's not very comfortable. The Sony Fontopias are a step up from the iPod buds, so you may want to give that a try. A light-weight comfortable over-the-head set that I use a lot is the Koss Porta-Pro, but they leak quite a bit of sound. |
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#4
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Jim Mauro wrote:
A question around a portable music player may seem inappropriate for this forum, but the real question is around the "science" of portable listening (poorly phrased - please indulge me for a minute)... Santa brought me an iPod. I'm unhappy with the stock earplugs that ship with the iPod - they sound OK, but I can't get them to stay in my ear. Did some research, and the Etymotic Research ER-6i looked like a winner (the ER-4i was a little out-of-range, price-wise). My initial experience with the ER-6i left me very disappointed. The use a flange so they can be inserted into the ear canal, and this stay put, but I was not happy at all with the sound - sounded like the first generation of CD players, back in 1980 or something. Thin, tinny, etc... snip Jim, I own an Etymotic ER-6 for some years now and I still like it. Viewing a movie on a transatlantic flight with my ER-6 is just unbeatable. Good sound, effective noise damping and much less fatigue during the flight. The same is also true for train travel. The sound from my good old portable Sony C-303 CD player is fantastic through the ER-6. More so, because I feel more comfortable when I know that my neighbours in the train are not disturbed by the sound from my earbuds... The sound from my laptop is as well pretty good. However, when listening to my new iAudio G3 MP3 player I experienced the same thin, tinny sound you described. Since I know that the ER-6 is an excellent earbud on other sources I blame it on the MP3 player. Moreover, the iAudio simply has not the power to drive the ER-6, i.e. I have to set the volume to about 80% max. to have decent sound. The only way out now is to adjust the built-in equalizer to get the best match for the program material. Another possibility is to use less compressed MP3 files if you have enough disk space. I feel that the detail resolution of the ER-6 reveals compression flaws in MP3s and this makes the listening experience very dissapointing. Cheers, Franco |
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#5
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Jim Mauro wrote:
I'm also curious about the science of earbud devices as compared to over-the-ear headphones. Obviously, there's more of an engineering challenge to building an earbud device that provides good sound, by virtue of the size constraint, so it seems intuitive that a moderate prices headphone is going to sound better than an expensive earbud system. different transducers for different environments. an insert earphone (like the etymotic) only has to move the small volume of air in your canal, while a headphone must move quite a bit more air to yield the same SPL levels at the eardruum. I love the isolation my ER-6 provide, but in some cases that much isolation isn't desirable, so I use my sennheiser HD-600s, which sound great, but don't offer any isolation. if I never had to talk to anybody, I'd wear the ER-6 all the time. (: earbuds have never worked well for me; they don't sit well in my ear. likewise, my wife has cone-shaped canals and inserts (and earplugs) always pop out of her ears. everybody's body is anatomically different, (especially ears,) so there's no one-size-fits-all headphone/earbud/insert . -- Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | The United States is the one true country. The US is just. The US is fair. The US respects its citizens. The US loves you. We have always been at war against terrorism. |
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#6
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#7
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Linear Mode
