Etymotic ER4-XR

These are very impressive earphones. Bought in June 2025 for Amazon sale price of £193. I have not heard as accurate, exciting, detailed sound from any portable source before (in ear or over ear). They reveal everything about the music. I think they have enough bass (the ‘XR’ bit seems to deliver). The isolation is good, not as good as active noise cancellation but with ANC you get strange artefacts and a kind of ‘wash’ over the sound. With these, you just hear less of the world because the fit is so snug. On the fit. If you read some reviews you will probably be a bit scared (I was). In reality, they don’t go extremely deep. A little deeper than usual earphones but not uncomfortable. Takes a small amount of getting used to. Because music sounds so good, I kept putting them back in! So they can’t feel that bad. Soundstage is narrow because of the fit. But you can hear everything in its proper place in the stereo field. I’d 100% recommend. If money was no object, then they are still very much worth it at full price. They have lots of excellent box candy too, including a graph showing how well matched the two individual earphones are. Bravo.

The journey to finding "the perfect" headphone is filled with lessons, hardships, heartaches, loss of income, joys, celebrations and special moments. Truth be told it's all subjective isn't it? Everyone hears sounds differently, and everyones ears are shaped differently. If you didn't cross that rubicon of upgrading the earphones that came with your smartphone, you probably wouldn't know any better what you're missing out on, and probably save a lot of money in the end. But perhaps not your hearing. And protecting my hearing is what led me to the Etymotics ("Etys" hereforth). I will caveat my review for any audiophile reading, I am far too much of an imbecile to understand concepts such as Frequency response, impedence, sensitivity and maximum output. Neither do I have the audiophile vernacular to use terms such dark, bright, sibilance et al. What I am though is a simple man that can recognise something good when he sees it, errr hears it. Speaking of seeing. What you can immediately notice with the Etys, is that they do look impressively built. I received them in the office post, and my workmates (who aren't in any way inclined towards audio) chirped: "They look fancy!". So well done Etymotic on building something that looks top notch. And this is a reassurance, whilst there are definitely a lot more expensive IEMs out there then these. It is still a pretty big outlay for a lot of people. It is therefore somewhat of a comfort, that given the money you have spent, that they will probably outlast you. In terms of hearing. The XR, as the Amazon blurbature will tells you, stands for Extended Response (why they didn't call it ER I have no idea...). The Ety XRs are widely touted on forums galore as the earphone for those who want uncompromising accuracy but appreciate a bit of boom boom pow in the bass department. I listen to a variety of different types of music (cliche, I know) from Jazz, Classical to Hip Hop and EDM. My previous IEMs were Sennheisser IE80s and RHA T20s, which are quite literally bass monsters (if you want them to be), were easy to drive and were quite forgiving of the source material (amp not needed). By all means they aren't bad earphones at all, however I was incessantly annoyed at how mediocre the isolation was. On the tube I would keep having to wack up the volume, and I was worried about inducing early hearing loss. Which was what led me on a quest to find the most isolately isolating IEM of them all, and taking the plunge on hitting the buy button on these. I was slightly worried they may not be able to do justice to some of the commercialised nonsense I listened to, because that simply isn't the Ety way. But I needn't worry they do a stellar job playing Earl Hines as they do Kendrick Lamar. Yes they aren't bass monsters, but if thats what you're after there are a lot better IEMs for that. What these are, are two tiny brain ticklers (they go in very deep) that give you the sound as it was meant to be, but perhaps a bit more fun then their sisters, the SRs. Don't get me wrong these are still very detailed, I remember having a "WOW" moment with these, when listening to a song and noticing rain drops in the background that I had never heard before. And for these wow moments, you will need to use a high quality source of music and hardware to get the absolute best out of these, don't believe forum posts, Spotify extreme still sounds good out of these, but yes something like Tidal HiFi will lead to more magical goosebump moments. I run these via a Topping NX2 amp-dac at home and in the office, for me, this set up is very good (until I can afford an Oppo HA-2SE I assume). Out and about on the streets, on the bus and on the tube, they sound just as good straight from my S7, just for the pure fact they isolate so much more ambient noise than anything else I've had in the past. What about the other stuff? Well off the top of my head, 1) the included tips are crapola. The triple flanges are excellent for noise isolation but ache after a while, and are too much of a hassle to put in and out. I'd recommend these if you're likely to be uninterrupted for a long time (also be prepared to get intimate with ear wax with these). After testing, I can recommend the Shure Olives and SpinFit CP800 as good practical every day useage tips. They block out just as much noise sound as the triple flanges, and sound just as good (the Olives have a wax guard too). Please note, they won't block out 100% of all background noise, but they will dramatically most noise (even more than active noise cancelling); in the office I can't hear much at all apart from the shrillest of people, and on the tube, the annoying low frequency sounds are dramatically reduced, and I can't hear people conversing around me at all. (2) The included carrying case too is crapola. It's far to cumbersome to carry around for practical purposes. Get a smaller case for day to day useage. (3) The wire can be very fiddly, the use of the included shirt clip is a must to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of the cable pulling on your ear canal. Some people have said they've managed to wear it over the ear, I dunno, it feels odd to me. To conclude, as I stated this all very subjective, however from the majority of 5 star reviews on here, it seems a few people feel the same as me too. It's not a small amount to pay for those not deep in the IEM game. However if you are looking at this page, I will assume that you have the moolah, and willing to part with it on an item like this. For me, in my limited IEM experience, whilst the Etys are not without flaws, they delivers on enough fronts to be my best IEM purchase thus far.

My first in ears. Own two types of Fostex on ear closed backs and Sen. 800s. Out of the box great. Can't wait until they've burned in. Genuinely impressed with them. Really didn't think in ears could sound this good. Playing them via JRiver and Chord Mojo. Don't think I'm going be doing too much talking at work from now on. Just listening to Porcupine Tree Arriving Somewhere.... and really enjoying it as I write this. Great clarity and separation and dare I say it: I'm actually hearing bits and pieces that I haven't heard before even with the above kit. Went for the "X" for the bass extension and it really is very subtle but right on the money. Pleasantly surprised by this. I'll update after further use but out of the box I would recommend this product. Update 17/08/2018 OK so well burnt in now and really happy with these. As stated by previous reviewers of this type of in ear you do need to get the right fit for long term listening comfort, but once you do it's all good. I suspect that detractors have simply not persevered with this aspect of usage. Now using S9+ with 400 gB SD card into my Mojo and out to these. Love it. Here's the thing: I haven't used my on ear cans for months now. Think that's endorsement enough. Haven't told the wife that though. She'd kill me.

(I have revised this review, added a star too, as I was in a foul mood when I posted the original) These are headphones with astonishing tonal accuracy, compared to almost any other IEM, with just a touch of extra warmth. Ety should be congratulated for what they have pulled off here- people on a £500 budget could do a lot worse than these, if you're after sound that isn't "wonky" or coloured. It's really hard to get linear sound with a single broadband BA, so goodness knows what sort of acoustic compensation they've done inside the driver chamber. The downside of a single driver is that it's subject to physical limitations- and can only move so fast. While the frequency response is eerily good, things suffer a bit in the time domain. Sharp transients are dulled a bit, even when driven from a low phase noise source and amp with bags of power. That said, this won't both you unless you're too used to really pristine/fast chains- stuff well out of this price bracket. Driven well, they sound great. However, if accuracy and transparency is your schtick, the UERRs probably get closer- with three drivers per ear, but a fairly clean/simple crossover. They also boast a slightly elevated bass response, but are way more impedance-sensitive than the ER4-*. Being customs, once properly fitted, it's much easier to get them correctly seated in your ears, too (though you can get custom tips for these Etys, too). The headline here is that the ER4s are beaten by headphone at more than twice the price- hardly a shock. If you're used to headphones with a pathologically wonky frequency response (e.g. the "professional" Beyerdynamics with that horrible ringing exaggerated treble that looks like a raised middle finger in FR graphs) it will take a while to dial your perception in to more or less neutral sound like this. It might sound muddy at first while your brain adjusts. After a while, it will all click into place- this is not any nonsense like "burn in", it's just a perceptual effect. Once you get used to flattish sound (if you go for the XR, you get a bit of extra low bass, remember), it's far harder to go back. These might just ruin you for a lot of the wonkier headphones out there. The biggest downside is the fit- they need to go intrusively deep in your ears- deep enough to get a good seal for bass. They also need to be inserted a tiny bit deeper if you want to avoid the "occlusion effect", in the in-canal resonance of the booming of your own footsteps, breathing etc.. This can be a bit of an art to do at first, without causing discomfort. Take it slowly, and don't try to pull them backwards without removing them, as the rubber flanged tips act like barbs when you do that, and get uncomfortable. Nail the fit, and you'll have great sound and pretty good isolation. On isolation- it's pretty good, but not as good as proper custom IEM. This is simply because there's less material in the way. Blocking your ear canal and beating occlusion gets rid of most low frequencies, but higher frequency stuff like people constantly crinkling crisp packets will still get through. Pretty good, but not up there with the absolute best. You do get a fair bit of attenuation of external noise though, which is nice. The cable is long and no-nonsense. It should be worn up over the ears and cinched loosely under the chin. This lets the top of your ears take the weight rather than applying torque to your ear canals, as well as minimising any cable handling noise. I'm giving these four stars, they lose one for the weirdness of the fit and the slight time-domain sluggishness. However, that doesn't mean that I don't think they're a massive achievement, and won't be a great fallback while my CIEMs are being reshelled. For the price, they're pretty much unbeatable.

I don't think I can add much to the reviews already posted. The earphones are, of course, superb. The sound is absolutely clear, you can hear everything across the range. Bass is emphasised enough for me (I want to be able to hear everything and not be in pain whilst doing it!), but, if you're looking for eardrum shattering beats, these may not be for you. I did not get a 'wow' moment when I first used these (they're not designed with that in mind), what I did do was smile. I smiled for a full 40 minutes, while I listened to one of my favourite albums burst into life in my ears. I could hear EVERYTHING without straining and the vocals sounded as though the singer was standing next to me. Priceless. Each subsequent experience has been the same. They can be uncomfortable as they sit so far into the ear canal (and the supplied ear buds are a swine), but, if you're looking for sublime listening, don't want oodles of bass and are prepared to search for alternative buds, these might be for you.

So, these In Ear Montiors are every bit as good as the best reviews people have posted. I guess it comes down to the question of whether they're worth the ridiculous asking price. That's totally subjective; have you really heard the wonderful guitar solo at the end of Wuthering Heights? Sparks's Number One Song in Heaven is a huge laugh. A few songs reveal no more detail over good headphones - Debaser, Springsteen's The River until the title track. That said, theese IEMs generally let you appreciate the effort of the artist and mixer involved, be it bass, drums, vocals or synthesiser. Do I have regrets about buying these? Yes. I wish I'd bought them sooner. They are ridiculously good.

I’ve owned Etymotics for 14 years, and these sound the best. Crystal clear across the spectrum, even on noisy train rides through London’s underworld. Only one minor gripe: they tangle easily, so store them away carefully.

It’s been noted in other reviews that these are designed to sit deep in the ear. I found that the sound quality depended greatly on the position achieved in the ear. Any slight movement of an earpiece dramatically changed the sound quality. In terms of comfort, I found that they were not comfortable after 10 minutes or so. Some have commented that one becomes accustomed to the feeling. I wasn’t that patient. As for sound quality, if the position in the ear is just right, the sound was good. Achieving this position was too random for me. A caveat is that experienced ‘audiophiles’ suggest that earphones improve after extended use. Again, I lack the patience for this.