Performance

Etymotic's ER4 series in-ears have always been about precision, and the XR and SR continue where the P and S variants left off. Since the last release of an ER4 earphone from Etymotic, the company has upgraded the housing to metal from plastic, which should remove a lot of known weaknesses in the mechanical design. Also, the cable is changed, which should bode well in terms of durability.


Not much has changed on the acoustic side. The ER4 XR and SR can both be regarded as very neutral and quite natural to listen to as well. The XR focuses on bringing a little more bass, which to my ears is a good thing. The XR is closer to Olive-Welti flat than the SR, whereas the SR would be slightly closer to flat if you did a diffuse field response compensation. For regular listening, the XR is definitely the most natural to listen to, giving you an experience closer to listening to calibrated speakers in a standard listening room. I think most people would prefer the tuning of the XR for most types of music as it perhaps more closely mimics the response of well calibrated speakers in a normal reverberate listening room. The SR does have an edge as they do sound a little cleaner, which makes it easier to pick out issues in recordings, but the bass is to these ears lacking.

Since the ER4s are in-ears, you need to find the proper-sized tip and evaluate the seal before giving them a thorough listen. My medium-sized ears went well with the medium-sized triple flange tips. Insertingly, the earphones can be a bit tricky as they are designed with a deep fit in mind. Etymotic advises you to lift your ear tip to straighten out the outer section of your ear canal when inserting. This definitely eases the insertion process with the triple flange tips, and since the ear canal's geometry returns to normal after you release the tip, there is a little bit of a locking function, but of course, your mileage may vary here as each ear is unique. That being said, you should spend some time in the beginning on testing different tips and insertion methods to extract the most out of the ER4s.


The SR model sounds a bit lean in comparison to most in-ear on the market today because there is no bump in the bass. You do get good extension and pretty good punch with the tip that fits best, but the impact is not that big since the frequency response is devoid of the usual 80 Hz centered bump. The SR is totally neutral in the conventional sense as its frequency response curve follows the diffuse field target response pretty accurately. This does not govern the low end, where Etymotic has chosen to make it flat.

Both the SR and the XR are tuned pretty close to neutral. The XR generally sounds like a slightly more fun SR, which is probably what Etymotic was going for with their tuning. The XR could in my opinion do with a little more 80 Hz energy to make the bass more punchy and engaging, but that would probably be against Etymotic's ethos. The good thing is that the earphones handle equalizing very well, which is most likely due to their flat response.

Going for the objectively flat frequency response does make both the XR and SR fairly treble happy to listen to. The bump at around 3 kHz is sufficiently narrow not to promote big sibilance issues, but it does leave little room for mastering incompetence. The treble is remarkable and consistent and does not suffer from any noticeable dips or peaks, and with perfect extension.

No details are lost or masked in the ER4s and in that sense, they are close to the UE Reference Monitors. The Etymotics SR and the Ultimate Ears Reference Monitors (UERM) are quite differently tuned. The UERM has more bass, perhaps closer to the level you get with monitors in a studio. For listening for extended periods of time, the ER4 SR does become somewhat fatiguing as opposed to the UERM you feel like you can go on with forever. The XR seems closer to the tonal balance of the UERM, but it still lacks a little bass.

Compared to the Sennheiser IE-800, the bass is much lower, and the treble is more in focus. The XR and SR seem less sibilant and have a wider soundstage. The ER4s are, however, put very close to the instruments, making the sound stage a very left / right affair. The lack of depth compared to the IE-800 and UERM is very apparent, but not annoying in anyway as the imaging on the new ER4s is very consistent - there are no holes, but you get the sensation of sitting on the stage rather than in front of it.

The Brainwavz B200 also manages to present the music as being in front of you, although not as well as the UERM or IE-800; it also sounds quite a bit softer when coming from the two ER4s. The bass is tighter on the XR and SR, and the treble is in another league, which also makes the ER4s sound more airy, more precise, and there is a much better representation of room acoustics in the ER4s, which is most likely down to their superior treble performance.