Etymotic Research Inc., while not as well known as some of the other manufacturers such as Bose and Ultrasone, has been catering to the needs of audiophiles for a long time. Headphones and earphones are the latest trend in the audio world and thankfully manufacturers are able to keep up with the standards that many users are now used to. Currently produced headphones and earphones are just as comparable to the stand alone speaker units, which is a delight, but what is not appreciating is their tremendously high prices. Let’s face it; such high prices for headphones and earphones are completely justifiable. After all, the more you research and improve technologies in a smaller form factor, the more the users will have to pay to cope up with higher production costs, but when will these technologies become affordable to everyday users? Sure enough, a common user who is planning to listen to music for an hour or so per day will probably pass on sub $100 price tags and only the die-hard music fan will invest in an expensive pair of earphones.

Recently we featured an in-depth analysis of the ER-6 model and now we have its predecessors in our lab – ER-6i, ER-4P and ER-4S models. The unfortunate aspect of all of these earphones is the fact that they move up the price line, but show fewer and fewer differences in both performance and features.  In the world of high-end headphones and earphones, there comes a time when the user has to pay more for slight performance increases; we are talking about performance (audio quality) increase of no higher than 15 percent.  In other words, the value of earphones tends to become irrational and only audiophiles with excessive budget and lust for the ultimate audio quality will seek the more expensive and professional models. 

Surely enough, your ears must be trained enough to measure the sound quality differences between the high-end models, which everyone cannot do.  This is where stand-alone amplifiers enter the overall picture.  The subtle frequency differences can be dissected with an amplifier.  Even the slightly underdog earphones or headphones can sound better with a desired amplifier - so - our question for purchasing high-end earphones and headphones still stands?  Is the price justifiable for the final performance gains?

Since this is a round up of three high-end models from Etymotic, we have decided to present a full-featured analysis of all pairs.  Throughout this round up, we will touch on the many similarities and fewer differences that these models have in common.  Our subjective testing methodology will remain the same for the most part, but we have decided to do something a little differently in order to correctly measure the audio quality between the three pairs (you will see what we mean once you get to the performance comparison part in the following pages).  Like our other analysis, each pair of earphones will have a dedicated performance summary page and we will finish this analysis with the overview of these high-end earphones, their performance to price ratio, and our final recommendation.       

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