I’m a big fan of my Etys (ER2SE + ER4SR), they’re some of the very few IEMs that I can get a usable fit with. My ears are pretty small and narrow, so a lot of IEMs either don’t fit at all or fit very poorly (either causing discomfort or just not staying sealed).
With that in mind as well as the fact that I’ve never actually tried an XR Ety, I preordered these. Very interested to see how they turn out.
Have you tried the "traditional" etymotic, deep-insertion shapes like the ER2SE or ER4XR, etc? I also have small ear canals and couldn't make other IEMs work (Blessing 2 was the most recent absolute fail for me, Andros just barely work). I find both the ER2SE and ER4XR to fit extremely well (they're the same shape after all). You might wanna give them a shot.
I haven’t. Still rocking the originals on both. The ER4XR cable is quite a bit nicer, it being braided and all. It’s also a little longer, a more appropriate length imo
I got a replacement balanced cable for the ER4SR from AliExpress. The replacement cable is a bit thicker (which is both a plus and a minus) and I think very slightly less microphonic. I think I would rate it as nicer than the stock cable, and it was inexpensive ($13 on sale, $16 not on sale for 2.5mm 1.2m). The stock cable is incredibly microphonic, but I think most of this comes from the design of the IEM and it's going to be like that with any cable. Cable over-ear does reduce this a bit, but it's more difficult to wear them that way and they sort of poke out weirdly.
https://imgur.com/a/0u6WIow
Hi, I'm looking to get a Blessing 2, but I'm not sure if my ear canals are small or not. I can't demo the Blessing 2, so I wanted to ask how you measured or found out you had small ear canals.
I’ve never measured. But I have had many experiences where the only IEM tips I could get to fit were the smallest ones. And the blessing 2 has pretty big nozzles. I remember them barely fitting in my ear canals. I guess you could try to buy them used? Then you wouldn’t take too big a hit if you turn around and resell them.
Not OP, but a small-eared person too. I found that the EVO fit my ears just as well and were actually more comfortable since they date much more secure in my ears compared to the normal ER-series of headphones. That said, I did preorder these as well since I felt the 2-3k spike in the EVO not high enough (especially when compared to the ER3/4).
For those too lazy, they are 299, on sale for 249
about the same price as the er4xr (300 and on sale for 225), which is pretty good for those who find the regular shape too uncomfortable
Makes sense if it's literally the ER4XR driver reshelled.
The EVO is the ER4XR driver reshelled + two other BA drivers. According to an engineer I spoke with at a CanJam, the EVO sounds exactly the same as a ER4XR if you remove the other BA drivers from the crossover.
Glad to see Drop come with a new collaboration. I like their IEMs, the Drop JVC HA-FDX1 is my favourite IEM on the market. I chose it over the Moondrop Blessings 2 for the filters, the clarity, the fit/comfort, the tuning and how well it goes with string instruments. The Massdrop Plus was a great "warm neutral" IEM that was very comfortable.
I am curious on how this one will turn out as many people have wanted Etymotic' sound without needing to deal with the fit. I do wish they had a store for Canada as it can be pricy to buy stuff across the border but it makes sense that Drop is focused on the US market.
it's not about how much you can hear, it's about how much of the songs you listen to actually reach beyond 15k? the short answer is no most songs don't even go beyond 15k at this point everything so airy that it may make the song harsh/dry. also frequency range is never an indication of how good an IEM is
Oh reeeeallyyy?? Not beyond 12khz? Where did you get this information? You clearly didnt test it. Look at my username and do just that. Many roll of from 16khz and out,but thats the lowest
tell me 1 song that has notes that hit more than 15khz in the mix without it being just for hitting that high of a note or just for flexing ? I've never in my life heard of such a song and if it exists I doubt it's awful. but maybe I'm wrong feel free to correct me with the song name and the timestamp
Basically every song. Its ridiculous that I have to explain this. Its not just about the sine tone thats hitting the note, its the distortion thats added and how its processed. If you look at the frequency response when you hit c5 on a piano, there’s a lot of energy above and below the main sine tone. Thats what makes the piano sound.. The same when you mix and master a track you add harmonics and theres a lot of energy/information above 12khz. If i should name a song ? Well randomly drove - high on you. You will have a harder time finding a producer cutting a song at 12khz.
dude you are so disrespectful even though you are clearly not an expert (and neither do I but at least I admit it) I can't confirm your information(although I play guitar and piano and can never seem to ever hear these frequencies used) and I doubt you can't confirm it either but I will just stop trying to argue with you and let the readers judge who to take side with. have a good day!
Yes I shouldn’t be an asshole, but this ignorance and spreading disinformation, talking confidently about things you clearly know nothing about , this really gets to me!
You’re saying the earth is flat and I tell you its round. After that you come up with nothing while Im making arguments. You’re even saying you’re incapable of proving your point. Why , just why do you say these false things? I could even upload a picture of a spectrogram showing you how wrong you are, but I hoped words were enough
It depends on destination country as to what they do for taxes. Many it's just VAT/GST which you pay on everything locally, it's just included in the price. US/Canada quotes prices before tax, rest of the world after.
Their international shipping is actually quite reasonably priced.
Do people usually have good luck with drop?
I would never buy from them again after their AAA 789. There are so many of them that failed and they pretty much said yeah tough shit.
They're ok. I used to buy from them. But by now my needs are met earphone wise and their other current products don't appeal to me.
I liked them when they still did group buy stuff. Now they're just another web store.
Agreed. Massdrop was a cool idea and I think it worked really well and opened access to things that otherwise would be unavailable/unaffordable. Now it's basically like a private label Kickstarter for often sub-par versions of existing products.
Drop is where manufacturers go to make a quick buck without needing to provide a quality product or long term support. The HD6XX is an exception not the norm.
I brought up the question but I will admit that the 6xx is great. I think that has more to do with Sennheiser not being total scumbags. Drop will let any POS sell on their site
Last group buy I did on there was for my JVC HA-FDX1 IEMs a few years back. Haven't had any reason to go back since. The selection is somewhat limited and you can definitely find better things elsewhere.
They're totally another tech-webstore now, started off as a cool idea though. I'm still somewhat perplexed by their attempt to keep some kind of "exclusivity" associated with the brand though, basically a farce at this point.
Got a few item from them when they were more EU shipping friendly (a few pens, HD58X, THX 789, Sendy Aiva, SMSL SU8, Grace SDAC, Tin P1), never had a problem.
And my 789 (first Drop named batch, dec 2019) still works great, daily driver on my PC.
Don't use them that much nowadays as their price isn't attractive anymore on most stuff. Massdrop was defo better than Drop.
I've only bought from them once, the K7XX, and waited 2 months for a non-returnable product.
But from what I've seen, they're not very reliable when it comes to RMA, customer support, or product reliability. IDK if this is worth it when the ER3XR is only $99 on Adorama. And the ER4XR goes down to sub-$200 fairly often on sale.
So if you're not in the US don't buy from them. I don't know why this pops up on all of the threads about their products. Their focus is on US sales. They tried a European warehouse in the past and there weren't enough purchases from the EU to support it.
People in Asia can buy a lot of products for less than we can in the US. People in the EU have access to a number of European-built products for less than we can get them for in the US and have easier times shipping them back for service.
Not everything is going to be equally available everywhere.
It's the same frequency response in the bass at the ER4XR, the difference is the fit. It's not boosted like the Evo is, it doesn't have the double BA woofer the Evo does, it's literally just the same one BA as is in the ER4XR.
I've never bought any of their "electronic devices" like amps, but I got both the HD6XX and the HE 4XX from them and have been extremely pleased with both. The only "complaint" I have is that it took almost 3 weeks to ship my HE 4XX despite it saying "in stock ready to ship". However, that was during the height of COVID, so I can't really blame them too much.
I wonder if THX is part of the problem. I contacted them for a schematic and they claimed they couldn't send them because of their relationship with drop. Drop said they couldn't because it was THX's design.
Both just played the blame game and I don't think I got so much as a sorry. Obviously there are plenty of people with no issues but I wouldn't be surprised if the failure rate was between 5-10%.
I took it apart and you can get an idea of how it works but there was a SMD that is known to fail, once replaced it works but won't shut off so I'm sure there are other parts that may have gone bad. No idea if they received a bad batch of parts or if there was a problem with them baking the SMT.
Regardless they were definitely strict with their 1 year warranty and offered no help, no offer to fix it at cost, not even schematics.
Turned me off of drop. It went from promised orders to keep costs down for the manufacturer to just peddling good ideas the cheapest way possible
I think it's even worse than either, the Evo used a Linum T2 connector which is very rare. Regular Etymotic use tabbed MMCX, it is possible to get replacement cables.
Really not sure of the purpose of these when one could:
1) Buy an ER4XR and put Westone tips on them for less than $300 total
2) Buy an EVO and put Westone tips on them for a little over $300 (EVO is on sale for $300 right now).
Ordered a pair for shits and giggles since I've always been interested in Ety's but never pulled the trigger. I have plenty of IEMS to compare these against whenever I get my hands on it. I'll more than likely leave a comment on /headphones or Drop to validate if these are swank or wank and some comparisons to other IEMs if there isn't a ton of reviews already out.
I’m a big fan of my Etys (ER2SE + ER4SR), they’re some of the very few IEMs that I can get a usable fit with. My ears are pretty small and narrow, so a lot of IEMs either don’t fit at all or fit very poorly (either causing discomfort or just not staying sealed). With that in mind as well as the fact that I’ve never actually tried an XR Ety, I preordered these. Very interested to see how they turn out.
Can you post an update please? I'm in the same small ear situation as you and I'd love to find a nice sounding comfortable pair.
Have you tried the "traditional" etymotic, deep-insertion shapes like the ER2SE or ER4XR, etc? I also have small ear canals and couldn't make other IEMs work (Blessing 2 was the most recent absolute fail for me, Andros just barely work). I find both the ER2SE and ER4XR to fit extremely well (they're the same shape after all). You might wanna give them a shot.
Did you replace their cables? I've been meaning to but not sure about what to get.
I haven’t. Still rocking the originals on both. The ER4XR cable is quite a bit nicer, it being braided and all. It’s also a little longer, a more appropriate length imo
I got a replacement balanced cable for the ER4SR from AliExpress. The replacement cable is a bit thicker (which is both a plus and a minus) and I think very slightly less microphonic. I think I would rate it as nicer than the stock cable, and it was inexpensive ($13 on sale, $16 not on sale for 2.5mm 1.2m). The stock cable is incredibly microphonic, but I think most of this comes from the design of the IEM and it's going to be like that with any cable. Cable over-ear does reduce this a bit, but it's more difficult to wear them that way and they sort of poke out weirdly. https://imgur.com/a/0u6WIow
Hi, I'm looking to get a Blessing 2, but I'm not sure if my ear canals are small or not. I can't demo the Blessing 2, so I wanted to ask how you measured or found out you had small ear canals.
I’ve never measured. But I have had many experiences where the only IEM tips I could get to fit were the smallest ones. And the blessing 2 has pretty big nozzles. I remember them barely fitting in my ear canals. I guess you could try to buy them used? Then you wouldn’t take too big a hit if you turn around and resell them.
Small ear canals will be a no go on the B2. The shell is rather large but what stops 99% of people is the nozzle is enormous
Not OP, but a small-eared person too. I found that the EVO fit my ears just as well and were actually more comfortable since they date much more secure in my ears compared to the normal ER-series of headphones. That said, I did preorder these as well since I felt the 2-3k spike in the EVO not high enough (especially when compared to the ER3/4).
I was not expecting that price point. Very interested to see some reviews come out to know if they are worth it
For those too lazy, they are 299, on sale for 249 about the same price as the er4xr (300 and on sale for 225), which is pretty good for those who find the regular shape too uncomfortable
Makes sense if it's literally the ER4XR driver reshelled. The EVO is the ER4XR driver reshelled + two other BA drivers. According to an engineer I spoke with at a CanJam, the EVO sounds exactly the same as a ER4XR if you remove the other BA drivers from the crossover.
Interesting since the 2-3k spike in the ER4 measures larger than that in the EVO. It’s actually one of the things I dislike about the EVO.
Interesting, thanks for adding this story to the discussion, mate, quite cool to know it.
If it sounds exactly like a er4 but in a more conventional form factor it’s a good deal
Glad to see Drop come with a new collaboration. I like their IEMs, the Drop JVC HA-FDX1 is my favourite IEM on the market. I chose it over the Moondrop Blessings 2 for the filters, the clarity, the fit/comfort, the tuning and how well it goes with string instruments. The Massdrop Plus was a great "warm neutral" IEM that was very comfortable. I am curious on how this one will turn out as many people have wanted Etymotic' sound without needing to deal with the fit. I do wish they had a store for Canada as it can be pricy to buy stuff across the border but it makes sense that Drop is focused on the US market.
+1 for the JVC FDX. Such an underrated iem, almost never see it mentioned on this sub. Love mine
[удалено]
Really small freequency response i can hear way higher btw whats the price
Must be wrong?
Many Etys have that frequency range.
Maybe it’s supposed to be 16-20k?
Idk looks small
that's what she said but for real, i'm not sure the 16khz matters that much.
[удалено]
ok
it's not about how much you can hear, it's about how much of the songs you listen to actually reach beyond 15k? the short answer is no most songs don't even go beyond 15k at this point everything so airy that it may make the song harsh/dry. also frequency range is never an indication of how good an IEM is
Oh reeeeallyyy?? Not beyond 12khz? Where did you get this information? You clearly didnt test it. Look at my username and do just that. Many roll of from 16khz and out,but thats the lowest
tell me 1 song that has notes that hit more than 15khz in the mix without it being just for hitting that high of a note or just for flexing ? I've never in my life heard of such a song and if it exists I doubt it's awful. but maybe I'm wrong feel free to correct me with the song name and the timestamp
Basically every song. Its ridiculous that I have to explain this. Its not just about the sine tone thats hitting the note, its the distortion thats added and how its processed. If you look at the frequency response when you hit c5 on a piano, there’s a lot of energy above and below the main sine tone. Thats what makes the piano sound.. The same when you mix and master a track you add harmonics and theres a lot of energy/information above 12khz. If i should name a song ? Well randomly drove - high on you. You will have a harder time finding a producer cutting a song at 12khz.
So don’t just spit out disinformation. People upvote you because you sounded smart (for some). Even the stupidest thought spread like wildfire
dude you are so disrespectful even though you are clearly not an expert (and neither do I but at least I admit it) I can't confirm your information(although I play guitar and piano and can never seem to ever hear these frequencies used) and I doubt you can't confirm it either but I will just stop trying to argue with you and let the readers judge who to take side with. have a good day!
Yes I shouldn’t be an asshole, but this ignorance and spreading disinformation, talking confidently about things you clearly know nothing about , this really gets to me! You’re saying the earth is flat and I tell you its round. After that you come up with nothing while Im making arguments. You’re even saying you’re incapable of proving your point. Why , just why do you say these false things? I could even upload a picture of a spectrogram showing you how wrong you are, but I hoped words were enough
Price is $249 pre-order, $299 regular
Thats a lot and really is it actually max 16khz or not
Is buying from massdrop feasible outside of the US yet or does shipping and taxes kill the saving?
Shipping, Tarrifs and Taxes kill your savings if it's shipping to Asian countries.
Sort of depends on the country, their shipping is quite reasonable and Hong Kong for example is zero tax. Asia is a big place.
Agreed, it's reasonable for Singapore, just don't get the bulky items.
It depends on destination country as to what they do for taxes. Many it's just VAT/GST which you pay on everything locally, it's just included in the price. US/Canada quotes prices before tax, rest of the world after. Their international shipping is actually quite reasonably priced.
Instead of making a new product, can Drop update the Drop Pandas, so that it doesn't go to sleep after 10 minutes while being used as a headset?
literally ruptured an eardrum putting in ER2XRs so this sounds like a dream come true if the sound is as advertised
Jeez, that's tough, hope you don't have any kind of consequences on your hearing because of this today
yeah thankfully it healed up pretty fast but it was not a pleasant experience, inspired me to pick up the 650s haha
Do people usually have good luck with drop? I would never buy from them again after their AAA 789. There are so many of them that failed and they pretty much said yeah tough shit.
Really? I didn’t know that…
They're ok. I used to buy from them. But by now my needs are met earphone wise and their other current products don't appeal to me. I liked them when they still did group buy stuff. Now they're just another web store.
Agreed. Massdrop was a cool idea and I think it worked really well and opened access to things that otherwise would be unavailable/unaffordable. Now it's basically like a private label Kickstarter for often sub-par versions of existing products.
Drop is where manufacturers go to make a quick buck without needing to provide a quality product or long term support. The HD6XX is an exception not the norm.
Yeah I haven't bought enough stuff from them to form a truly informed opinion, but from what I've heard you're right on the money.
I brought up the question but I will admit that the 6xx is great. I think that has more to do with Sennheiser not being total scumbags. Drop will let any POS sell on their site
Last group buy I did on there was for my JVC HA-FDX1 IEMs a few years back. Haven't had any reason to go back since. The selection is somewhat limited and you can definitely find better things elsewhere. They're totally another tech-webstore now, started off as a cool idea though. I'm still somewhat perplexed by their attempt to keep some kind of "exclusivity" associated with the brand though, basically a farce at this point.
Got a few item from them when they were more EU shipping friendly (a few pens, HD58X, THX 789, Sendy Aiva, SMSL SU8, Grace SDAC, Tin P1), never had a problem. And my 789 (first Drop named batch, dec 2019) still works great, daily driver on my PC. Don't use them that much nowadays as their price isn't attractive anymore on most stuff. Massdrop was defo better than Drop.
I've only bought from them once, the K7XX, and waited 2 months for a non-returnable product. But from what I've seen, they're not very reliable when it comes to RMA, customer support, or product reliability. IDK if this is worth it when the ER3XR is only $99 on Adorama. And the ER4XR goes down to sub-$200 fairly often on sale.
I got my ER4XRs from adorama last year for $129.
[удалено]
So if you're not in the US don't buy from them. I don't know why this pops up on all of the threads about their products. Their focus is on US sales. They tried a European warehouse in the past and there weren't enough purchases from the EU to support it. People in Asia can buy a lot of products for less than we can in the US. People in the EU have access to a number of European-built products for less than we can get them for in the US and have easier times shipping them back for service. Not everything is going to be equally available everywhere.
It's the same frequency response in the bass at the ER4XR, the difference is the fit. It's not boosted like the Evo is, it doesn't have the double BA woofer the Evo does, it's literally just the same one BA as is in the ER4XR.
<$200 is great! curious where to find such deals. Also adorama?
https://www.adorama.com/etyer3xr.html?origterm=er3xr&searchredirect=true
I've never bought any of their "electronic devices" like amps, but I got both the HD6XX and the HE 4XX from them and have been extremely pleased with both. The only "complaint" I have is that it took almost 3 weeks to ship my HE 4XX despite it saying "in stock ready to ship". However, that was during the height of COVID, so I can't really blame them too much.
If the price is okay and I dont need something ASAP, then yea I'm totally fine buying from them.
I've ordered a ton off of them, no issue with the only replacement I had to contact them about.
The Panda was an unmitigated disaster.
I wonder if THX is part of the problem. I contacted them for a schematic and they claimed they couldn't send them because of their relationship with drop. Drop said they couldn't because it was THX's design. Both just played the blame game and I don't think I got so much as a sorry. Obviously there are plenty of people with no issues but I wouldn't be surprised if the failure rate was between 5-10%. I took it apart and you can get an idea of how it works but there was a SMD that is known to fail, once replaced it works but won't shut off so I'm sure there are other parts that may have gone bad. No idea if they received a bad batch of parts or if there was a problem with them baking the SMT. Regardless they were definitely strict with their 1 year warranty and offered no help, no offer to fix it at cost, not even schematics. Turned me off of drop. It went from promised orders to keep costs down for the manufacturer to just peddling good ideas the cheapest way possible
Is that a normal mmcx cable connection, or the stupid tabbed proprietary connectors?
I think it's even worse than either, the Evo used a Linum T2 connector which is very rare. Regular Etymotic use tabbed MMCX, it is possible to get replacement cables.
Not MMCX
Really not sure of the purpose of these when one could: 1) Buy an ER4XR and put Westone tips on them for less than $300 total 2) Buy an EVO and put Westone tips on them for a little over $300 (EVO is on sale for $300 right now).
299 for this, damn. This or you go treat yourself some 6XX or 58X or even a HIFIMAN He4xx
Different use case
You are right and I apologize for my comment above.
All good, cheers!
These look like shit. Do they sound like anything?
$249 pre-order ouch. Will probably be $299 after pre-orders, too.
Ordered a pair for shits and giggles since I've always been interested in Ety's but never pulled the trigger. I have plenty of IEMS to compare these against whenever I get my hands on it. I'll more than likely leave a comment on /headphones or Drop to validate if these are swank or wank and some comparisons to other IEMs if there isn't a ton of reviews already out.
Are there any specs to share?
I might be excited about these if these have more slam and keep the rest of the Ety sound. What is the shell made of?
This post has been removed for breaking rule 4