Steve’s Stuff

I recently purchased a set of ER-4Ps and while the glowing reviews presented on Amazon.com are pretty much justified, I must take issue with a few points. In my experience, these earphones do not have the bass presence that so many reviews mention. I would definitely describe it as anemic. Even bass-heavy music such as drum ‘n bass or jungle comes across incredibly weak. It’s as if listening to music through a high-pass filter. As a composer/producer, I’ve listened to a lot of audio transducers and I trust my ears. I am not one of those guys who turns the “bass knob” all the way up and such. I believe in flat frequency reproduction to yield the most accurate representation of the composer’s creation.

That said, these largely depend on the style of music you enjoy. I find listening to acoustic music very rewarding with these earphones. Bartok’s “Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celeste” has never had such amazing clarity. Bartok’s dense weave of strings each find a space in the mix and the dynamic range is quite good. Feldman’s “Rothko Chapel” is also particularly nice with its haunting mixture of small, delicate sounds. However, if you’re a fan of electronic music (or any music that has a strong bass component), these are going to disappoint. You’re much better off with a pair of headphones (such as the Grado SR60s) than the ER-4Ps.

I know the idea of the 4Ps is to work well without a dedicated headphone amp (are they are much more efficient than the 4Ss), but I’m not satisfied using them with my iPod nano. While I’ve never thought the iPods had amazing sound quality, the 4P/nano combination is particularly bad. I’m sure part of it has to do with the use of MP3s instead of uncompressed WAV or AIFF files, but since most people load their iPods up with MP3s only, this is an important point. If your music is compressed, these earphones will only exacerbate the problems. A lot of people still claim they can’t tell the difference between compressed and uncompressed audio, but with these earphones, you surely will. The sound is just a little too analytical to make a bad recording (or a compressed recording) sound good. Where other headphones, such as the Grados, provide a very smooth, rich sound that glosses over imperfections, the 4Ps simply reproduce the audio with painful accuracy. Again, this is invaluable for a lot of occasions, but if you’re planning to use MP3, ACC, or whatever, these will not sound as good.

Finally, nobody has sufficiently stated the annoyance of the cable sound. Of course, when you stick something this far in your ear, any motion in any part of the cable is amplified substantially. It really is a big problem. You simply can’t move when you’re using these. Sure, you get a shirt clip with the set, but that doesn’t come close to eliminating it. It’s very distracting and sometimes painful. If you’re going to use these, plan on sitting still.

I don’t mean for this to be a negative review. Not at all. These are some of the finest audio transducers that I’ve ever heard. The midrange is flawless. I just wanted to bring up a few points that I would have liked to know before I bought them myself. The ER-4Ps are not perfect, but they’re worth the money.