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I’ve been an audiophile (sorta) for a long time. Or at least once upon a time I was..

In the 80’s I guess it was, I had an NAD 3150 integrated amp, Nakamichi BX-1 cassette deck and a Thorens TD-166 turntable with the budget Grado cartridge of the era, and the awesome Allison 6 bookshelf loudspeakers. When I got the NAD amp it was as if a veil had been removed between me and the source material. I was hooked!

As an aside I gotta say the tweeter in the Allisons was amazing, if you could see it, you could hear it full on - no off axis drop off or anything. Amazing!

One of my “dealers” (almost in the drug sense) was The Sound Company in San Diego. I got the Allisons in the old El Cajon store, and the Nak in the Sports Arena store. I picked up the NAD used from Audio Directions (I think it was) in Kearny Mesa, as well as my Thorens turntable which I still have.

I listened to everything on vinyl I could find, Larry Fast, Spirogyra, Ultravox, even the trusty Alan Parsons Project, among many others.
I only outline the gear I had from the old days to give some context to my new headphones - I get older, gear gets better etc.

For my 45th birthday I received a set of Etymotics ER4P in ear headphones. I’m stunned. The sound quality as well as noise isolation is amazing. As I write this I’m listening to Flim and the BBs Tricycle album (well cd I should say). It brings tears to my eyes. I can hear things I never heard before because the noise floor is so low that every little detail can shine.

I started out using the “3 flange” earpieces but tonight I swapped them out for the foam inserts. Big difference! Normally I had a heck of a time getting my left ear to seal right and settle down, not so with the foam inserts. All is imbued with magic now.

To be fair I have a set of Sennheiser 580s, wonderful headphones in their own right. I’ve listened to countless hours of great music through them. However in this modern age, large over the ear headphones are obtrusive, and hard to carry around, unless you want the DJ look (being an older guy with graying hair and beard it just doesn’t work for me). Enter the Etymotics.

Previously I had a handful of different portable headphones - a really old pair of Sonys that were pretty darn good for their price, until I accidentally stepped on them and broke one side. A newer pair of Sony earbuds (sapphire vapor deposited diaphragms etc) that hurt my ears after about an hour of listening and never really gave me accurate bass. Others too. When I bought an Ipod 5G, I gave the earbuds away, not what I wanted to listen through.

So lately I had been reading up on good in ear headphones and wondered about the ER-4Ps. A friend from work had them and said they were pretty good (and he didn’t give praise lightly to things).

So I talked to my wife and ordered them for my birthday present about three weeks early. The deal was I had to give them over until my actual birthday so they would really be a present. It was a long three weeks!

I’m smitten with them. They work great with my iPod, and MacBook Pro laptop. I have yet to reassemble my turntable and Yamaha amp (which has a decent phono section, also purchased from the Sound Company) to try them out against my old vinyl. I can’t wait to do that!

Since this post has really dragged on, let me cut to the chase and just say that if you are in the market for good, portable, amazing sound headphones, buy the ER-4P! The only reason not to would be if you just can’t stand stuff in your ears (like earplugs). Otherwise just do it and be happy. You’ll be amazed. And pleased. Really.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 8:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.