ER 6i from Etymotic Research - I can’t hear you! No, really, I can’t hear you!!

sjonke,

I own these headphones and use them all the time.  Are you using the rubber earpieces?  If so, they’re harder to get a good seal with.  If using the foam pieces properly, and new ones at that as the older ones lose the seal, you will get an airtight seal and will have significant bass, only rivaled by my Sony MDR-V700’s.  Poor highs and lack of bass are signs of poor seal and clipping signal.  Turn down the volume and verify the seal.

If you’re certain you’re sealing them properly, they may not fit your ears with the regular inserts.  Try getting a set of the larger foam inserts and try them.  I don’t like the flange inserts because they don’t get me the same quality of a seal that I do with foam, even though they are reusable.

iPod’s are more than capable of driving these headphones, because they are very high efficiency; they were made specifically for the iPod.

Personally, I love these phones, both with my iBook and my iPod.  In fact, with these phones I can really tell how poor the fidelity is on the iBook sound card, so I’m going to be dropping $100 shortly for an M-Audio Transit as replacement.  For the price, these are the best phones I’ve ever used, and I do consider myself a very strong audio enthusiast, if not borderline audiophile.

Let us know what Etymotic says about them.

Thanks for the CX 300 info, Steve.  Somehow that model (and the $40 sale) slipped through my radar.

I like my PX-100’s (and HD 580’s, which still deserve a better amp than I can afford) although sometimes the ambient noise is too distracting.  The price/necessity ratio has kept me from trying in-ear phones but ~$50 for well-rated (helpful, when bias-filtered) Sennheiser’s gets my attention.

Amazon’s got the CX 300B’s for $54 through Office Depot.  I always check there first because qualifying orders over $25 have free shipping, which almost always eliminates any competition and their sometimes outrageous shipping rates.  But Office Depot wants ~$10 for shipping+tax, killing any possible temptation of making an impulse purchase.  I’ll be watching for another sale.

If you do get ‘em I hope you’ll share your impression even if I’m the only interested/curious person still here to read it.

This is just an initial opinion as I only got my Sennheiser CX 300’s yesterday. Also, I didn’t take the train today, so wasn’t able to test them in that environment. However I did test them out a bit at home. In short, these ear-canal phones do sound better than the Etymotic ER6i’s, but they are also far from perfect. Perhaps it is unfair to compare to on-the-ear, open-ear headphones such as the Sennheiser PX-100’s, but then the PX-100’s are relatively low end. The PX-100’s sound *much* better than the CX-300’s, which have a bit of a disjointed sound to them. The treble is there (albeit sounding a bit harsh - the ER6i’s have somewhat harsh treble too), the bass is there and the mids, but somehow they all seem slightly detached from each other. I’m not really sure how to describe it. Still, compared to the ER6i’s they are much more enjoyable to listen to. The bass is much stronger than the ER6i’s, but that isn’t difficult. Indeed, and unfortunately, it is too strong. Like the Sony’s, I get the impression they are boosting the bass within the headset, perhaps because people tend to complain about bass with this type of headset. Unfortunately the bass is overwhelming as a result and that’s definitely disappointing. They sound better if you set your iPod or equivalent to reduce bass mode (on the iPod, set the EQ to “reduce bass” but then also turn the volume up a bit as this setting also reduces volume slightly, and you might initially then think it sounds worse - give it a touch more volume and I think you’ll be pretty happy.) I wish they’d just made the bass normal. I don’t wish to harp too much on the sound quality, though, as definitely they are more satisfying than the ER6i’s, and they are cheaper, a bit more comfortable and less of a fuss too.

I haven’t yet done a direct comparison to the Sony ear-canal phones, but from what I recall, the CX 300’s sound a lot better. The Sony’s are pretty much all bass and nothing else. The CX 300’s have over-boosted bass too, as noted, but the midrange and treble is there too.

They are similar in design to the Sony ear-canal phones in that they use a thin, rounded, silicon insert that is comfortable, but does block less outside noise than the Etymotics. It still blocks a fair amount, but no where near as much as the Etymotics. On the other hand they seem a lot more tolerant with regard to fit -just jam them in and go. Also no fuss to take them out. I’ll see how they fair on the train tomorrow.

It comes with three sizes of inserts. I found the large to be best for my ears. They are in no way near as large as the large foam inserts available (separately) for the ER6i’s, so if you need those, you may find even the largest CX 300 inserts too small. I’m wondering if there are a set of foam inserts that might fit the CX 300’s - it would be interesting to see how that affected their sound. I don’t think the inserts for the ER6i will work as I believe the hole is smaller on those. Then again, I also wonder if part of the problem with the Etymotic’s is precisely that they block so much ambient noise - of on and over-the-ear type headphones, ones that are open-ear generally sound much better and from what I’ve read there is reason for that. Could something similar be at play here? I don’t know.

In any case, while I was initially disappointed in these earphones due to them not sounding nearly as good as my PX 100’s, I think that for use on the train and in other noisy environments, these are going to be a lot more satisfying than the Etymotic ER6i’s. I wish I’d caught them at the $40 initial price, but even at $60 I think these were a good purchase for me. I’m also, though, more curious than ever to know if a headphone amp would have helped the ER6i’s. In retrospect, I guess all I need to do is buy a mini-jack to full size headphone jack adapter and plug the ER6i’s into my home stereo. That should be similar to a headphone amp, yes? I plan to try this out soon - just need to find time to get to Radio Shack.

One last note: the CX 300’s don’t come with any kind of case or pouch. As it happens, of course, I have the pouch for my ER6i’s and I’ll use that, and store the ER6i’s in a plastic bag. If you don’t have any kind of pouch or case you’re going to want to get one, so factor that into their cost.

I got my order of Ultimate Ears foam eartips in. As it turns out, they don’t fit as designed. I believe the narrower end should go onto the headphone so that the lip prevents the foam eartip from coming off. This smaller diameter hole is much too small for the CX 300 earphone. It is impossible to put it on this way. I do find, however, that if I turn the foam eartip backward, then it fits on and seems to hold pretty snugly in spite of not using the lip to secure it. At least it takes some effort to get it back off again. Still, doing it this way I do run the risk of an eartip coming off inside my ear, and that would be no fun, but it does seem to fit quite snugly. I will have to make it routine to check that the eartip is on all the way and is snug before inserting them.

I may also try modifying one set, stretching or perhaps trimming somehow, the narrow-end opening, so that it can fit on properly. The foam eartips do seem to improve the sound quality of the CX 300’s, even though, being on backward, there is that narrower lip slightly blocking the path from the driver. In fact, they may actually slightly reduce the bass, but in the case of these headphones that’s a good thing. I’m not 100% sure they are doing that - it may just be that I’ve gotten use to the bass level. On the down side, they don’t block as much more outside noise as I’d hoped. My ears could use a large size foam insert, something more akin to the medium Etymotic inserts. I wish there were a set of foam inserts made for these headphones, but these will have to do unless I can find something better that works.

I also order an Etymotic (black) shirt clip which I definitely recommend adding to the CX 300. It’s cheap, works with the CX 300 cable and quite effectively gets rid of, or at least minimizes, ear-canal phone “cable rustle”.

Really a good experience: spatialization of instruments and voices is really good. Size of headphones is ok to listen to when you are laying on the pillow and isolation plays good for my wife just beside (Apple’s genuine headphones let the music be heard and was therefore disturbing).