Weird Etymotics (impressions + suspect measurements)

No NDAs were violated in this post. I made sure to check because consent and confidentiality matter. Also, I'm not that much of an idiot.

All measurements made using MiniDSP EARS with shallow insertion (the "ear canal" has its limitations) and no compensation curve, so do not compare to other measurements. Only source I have to listen out of right now is my mobile, unable to test out of other amps/DACs/DAPs at the moment and the one other person who's gotten to try these only got to do so so long ago that impressions may be unreliable.


TL;DR for Sound:
Okay imaging directionality but poor layering with pronounced hole-in-the-middle effect. Surprisingly large headstage, slightly better than Galaxy Buds. Absolute smooth texture all throughout frequency range, difficult to hear low-level information. Dynamic range is mediocre, about comparable to Apple Airpods? Taut bass, doesn't fall over itself, but lacking extension. Some vocals sound like coming through a layer of paper while others have an uncanny out-of-head effect (could be acclimation); treble is glassy and brittle-sounding despite being persistently lower in level than ideal regardless of insertion depth. Isolation is ridiculously good unless you tap the tubes when not properly coupled with side of head; this is obnoxiously loud. Fitting these securely is a massive pain, but once you get a decent seal they work well as earplugs.

Midrange on whole skews "clear"-sounding, but there's a definite haze and hollowness to instruments that just bollixes the presentation. Lyrics on busy passages are actually surprisingly intelligible relative to budget IEMs but, from memory, fall short of the InTime Soras and similar price-peers. Impact is like getting slapped in the face with a damp cloth— there is some, but it seems this form exacerbates the typical BA lack of strength. The glassy highs do add some enjoyment to falsetto singing or high head voices, but the lack of focus and coherence down low just detracts from that. It's like there's two different transducers for vocalists and bands almost, and they were playing simultaneously. Weird effect.

Drums have a boing-y, bouncy quality to them while guitar, electric or acoustic, just sounds muted. It's just really a very disinteresting performer, though I can see how this would work for... podcasts or lectures on Zoom. Background voices somehow get pushed to the forefront even as other microdetail gets shoved into murk.

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NON-SOUND STUFF + MEASUREMENTS:
Over a year ago a good friend of mine working towards a degree at Northwestern Uni who knew I was into audio gear came into the possession of some weird prototype IEMs that Etymotic founder/CTO and guy who definitely looks like he owns a steampunk dirigible Mead Killion was, in their words, "giving away to people in their department like Oprah did cars". I may be paraphrasing but only very slightly.

Didn't know that Dr. Killion was an adjunct professor there, which means that the above occurrence wouldn't be all that strange in retrospect, but there you go.

For the cost of shipping these across the Pacific and a promise to return subjective evaluations in a wide assortment of settings (because they said their department could use input and I allegedly had some experience with audio junk) I would be able to get my hands on something that, frankly, looked cool and was novel. Easy decision, and even if they were a poor fit for my use case or sounded like butts I had no IEMs of my own at the time and could have used a pair.

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When I first saw blurry Universe Ice-style phone pics of these I thought Ety was actually stepping away from in-ears and developing something more akin to earbud style fit, and that the weird black tube was something along the lines of those bone-conduction rods older wireless headsets implemented. When I finally got the package I realised that, nope, sound actually just comes out of the nozzle at the end. I noticed that the shells were marked"ER-6i" so made a status update asking if anyone had gotten ears on that specific model before; I figured that even with the weird H.R. Giger tentacle-looking nozzles affixed I might be able to calibrate impressions against them. I did ask my friend whether or not these were just ER-6is that'd undergone a nose job but they informed me that no, this is a newer design that just uses older shells because... prototype. They also pointed out that these'd started life in development as hearing aids.

That latter bit certainly explains the midrange elevation:

GREEN: Samsung S10 Stock IEMs; RED: Ety Protos

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I was asked to listen to these without tips, i.e. just the tubes shoved into my ear canal (careful not to poke your eardrum!). As you'd expect that was a thoroughly unpleasant experience considering I was asked to demo in noisy environments as well as quiet ones. I bought a bunch of IEM tips that fit off a local enthusiast friend just so I'd not hate myself, paying a surprising amount of money in the process (some IEM tips can cost WHAT???). At the end of the day I ended up settling on SpinFit Twinblades for best sound and Final E-type tips for when dealing with multi-flanged tips is a hassle— something about my ears makes it easy to break seal on multi-flanged tips if I so much as smile. Also got some Sony tips but they're not a particularly good fit on the nozzle, ergo no measurements.

Tips don't sit very securely on the nozzle so it's not an uncommon occurrence for the tube to pop out and leave me digging for tips stuck in my ears.

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Final E-type tips don't really make an appreciable difference insofar as fixing the lack of air goes, and the slightly improved isolation of SpinFits makes it a no-brainer pick for me despite the difficulties with fit. Measurements below with nozzle at similar insertion depth, or at least as close as I can manage:

GREEN: SpinFit TwinBlades; BLUE: Final E-types​

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I consider distortion measurements and impulse responses in my setting to be highly suspect, but the highish D3 well into midrange and sub-bass creeping into two digits all coincide with my impressions, as does the weird bounciness of the Etys. Appending S10 IEMs for comparison purposes:

ETYMOTIC PROTO:

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SAMSUNG S10 STOCK IEMs:​

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The tubes are made of a stiff rubber-like (but not ebonite) material and have a piece of wire that's folded on either end so that it doesn't just slip out of the nozzle. I often make small adjustments trying to form the nozzle around the side of my skull to keep the chassis from flopping about and it shows no sign of breaking yet, so at least the wire used is pretty malleable. It looks pretty discreet, if vaguely secret service-ish:

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The cable is typical of Etymotic, from what I can see, though it's just too short for me to be able to use unless I store my phone in a breast pocket. Might work if I get a clip-on cheapo Bluetooth adapter, but I'm frankly unsure if that'll be worth the investment, haha.

No idea if these will ever make it to production, but I wanted to make this because... I was curious what you guys make of a form factor like this. It seems like a good compromise for people who have trouble getting conventional IEMs to fit, though the challenge of getting "clean" sound through a ~3in or 7.6cm-long tube with a length of unidentified wire through it may be physically insurmountable.

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(I also got a nice leather Ety case with these, which was a pleasant gesture).​