Etymotic ER-4S headphone test

The Etymotic ER-4S could be said to be the progenitor of a whole family of in-ear headphones: It was created in the early nineties by Etimotyc Research and was the first intra-aural model. Many other manufacturers of in-ear headphones have subsequently sought out Etymotic Research’s expertise in developing their own models.

The first of its kind

In more than twenty years of its existence, the Etymotic ER-4S has gained popularity among music lovers and people who work with sound professionally. And what’s more – they got three “brothers”, names – ER4B, ER4P, and ER4PT.

The ER4B differs from the “original” with enhanced high-frequency response and is designed for binaural listening. The ER-4P and ER-4PT models have lowered resistance 24 ohms and adapted for portable players – the original ER4S, with a hundred ohms of resistance and 90dB sensitivity is too heavy a load for the amplifiers of most portable players.

Ergonomics

The Etymotic ER4 series headphones are known for their extremely deep fit – if properly placed in the middle-sized ear, only a couple of millimeters of the headphone body and the cord should be visible, in order for the listener to get the sound that the manufacturer intended for these headphones.

A nice “bonus” of such a deep fit is excellent isolation from outside noise, but not every user will find this fit comfortable.

Sound

After experiencing the sound of the Etymotic ER-4S, we got the impression that these headphones were used as a “reference” in the creation of the Hifiman RE0. In the sound of these two models there is one ideology, their creators obviously tried to achieve the most accurate, smooth and uncolored sound.

And if the engineers who worked on Hifiman RE0 almost succeeded, then… the engineers from Etymotic came even closer to the goal and did it much earlier ! . If we believe the information on the manufacturer’s web-site, AFC deviation of Etymotic ER-4S from the ideal is about eight percent!

Of course, these eight percent were obtained on the test bench, but the situation can be different for the real user because of the individual shape of the ear canal, as the manufacturer himself says. However, even if the above eight percent figure is an inaccurate “to check” figure, the sound of Etymotyc ER-4S turns out to be the most neutral, smooth and honest, of all the headphones we tested.

Unlike Hifiman RE0 they have no problems with quantity and quality of high frequencies – but if you listen carefully you can notice quite small “splash” of frequency response in the high-frequency range. Also, compared to the RE0, the ER-4S has a much higher resolution.

And if the RE0s could compete with the full-size headphones in intelligibility and abundance of various small nuances in sound, the Etymotic ER-4S surpasses them in this matter too, being simply “invincible monsters”! And they can be compared with only a few models of armature headphones, the number of which can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

The maximum resolution, maximum precision and no embellishments – without being too evasive, that’s how we can describe the sound of the “top” headphones from Etymotic.