Wow. That’s all I can say. Julie and Paul were kind enough to give me a pair of Etymotic earphones for Christmas (thank you very much!), and I fired them up on my most recent trip to Seattle. How’d they sound? Marvelous. They offer 41dB of noise reduction, well above what my old Sony folding active noise reduction (ANR) headset provides. They did a great job of blocking the (excessive) noise of Delta’s CRJs on my trip, and they did it without giving me a headache like the Sonys do. That’s partly because of the lower volume level, and partly because these are passive headphones.
The ER-4 comes in a nice box with a set of accessories that include some disposable foam earplugs, some really nice flanged silicone eartips (that are too small for my huge ear canals, sad to say), a zipper case, and a pack of replacement filters. Assembly was easy, and the cabling and drivers are well constructed and seem fairly sturdy.
On to the big question: how do they sound? The sound quality is astonishingly good. Put it this way: this week, as I’ve been working, I’ve had iTunes busy re-ripping a big stack of my CDs from MP3 at 128Kbps to AAC at 160Kbps. I’ve always scoffed at the hoity-toity audiophiles who claim that MP3/128 sounds crappy, because in a car, office, or any other semi-noisy environment they sound OK to me. (Of course, that may be due to a misspent youth passed in the company of Marine Corps helicopters and too much Led Zeppelin.) However, with these headphones, you know what? I really can hear the difference. Highly recommended if you’re an audiophile or want to act like one.
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