Seeking Comment from the Engineering Crowd...

[Honclfibr]

Are they in-the-ear-canal? That's really the only way I've found to get clean low frequency excursion in an earbud-sized headphone.

Take a look at the Etymotic series. See how the frequency response of the apple ipod earbud starts to roll off sharply at about 100hz? I'm sure the B&A are a bit better than the ipod phones, but you can see they still spec their frequency response as 50-20000, whereas you can see that the etys are linear down to 20. Traditional earbuds don't have the cone area/excursion required to reproduce low frequencies properly, whereas an in-the-ear-canal design can overcome this limitation because it requires much less output to acheive the same perception of loudness.

As a nice advantage, both the ER4 and the ER6 function as earplugs too, with the ER4 about as isolative as a standard plug (28db) and the ER6 slightly less isolative (20db).

I had a chance to sample the ER4 once and I can tell you, aside from the price, it is the world's perfect headphone IMO. If the ER6 is half as good, it should beat any traditional phone hands down, and it's $30 less than your B&A phones. Unfortunately, I don't know anywhere locally that you'd be able to try either...

[ssg]

The engineering types that I know have the ER's only. I have a set of Sony's I dig cause they cost less then my mp3 player

[hohum]

OK, while what Honclfibr said about frequency response is very important for sound quality, IMO what matters most for a quality listening experience while riding a motorcycle is that

a) the headphones provide adequate noise exclusion (this is most important to me, since without this the sound just gets muddled in with the road noise, and part of the reason I enjoy riding and listening is to block out some of that ambient noise, much like riding with ear plugs)

and

b) the headphones stay in place when I put my helmet on and off. I have pretty big hands and trying to wedge them in around the sides of my helmet to make sure an ear bud stays in just isn't happening. The best of the breed for staying in while putting helmet on and off are the in the ear canal speakers and the speakers with ear cages, like the squid posted. The worst are the plain earbuds like the stock iPod buds.

My setup is as follows:
iPod -> Boosteroo -> ER6

While frequency response is important, especially when you are listening in a relatively quiet environment, its just not as important as noise exclusion and ease of use under a helmet (when considering earphones for riding anyhow)

Get the ER6. For nearly the same money as the B&O you get a much nicer pair of earbuds, with MUCH better noise exclusion (speakers with noise exclusion on par with foam ear plugs), which you will really enjoy both on and off the bike. You can buy em from www.aerostich.com (they sell the boosteroo too, take a look at that as well)

Cheers,
Chris

[Honclfibr]

Damn this thread! I couldn't resist, finally bit the bullet and bought the ER-4P. $200 earbuds, wtf is wrong with me

[hohum]

DUDE! Where did you find those for $200? If they had been $200 when I got my ER6's I would have got those instead!!!!

edit: althouth I do dig the 15 - 20db sound exclusion of the ER6 over the ER4p's 12dbs...

[Honclfibr]

Originally posted by hohum
DUDE! Where did you find those for $200? If they had been $200 when I got my ER6's I would have got those instead!!!!

edit: althouth I do dig the 15 - 20db sound exclusion of the ER6 over the ER4p's 12dbs...

Why, www.discountheadphones.com of course, where else?

Hmm, this has possibilities...

www.freebeer.com

www.loosewomen.com

damn, guess it doesn't work all the time

[hohum]

DAMN IT!

Holy crap I got raped on those!

Stupid me

/me pulls out the hemheroid cream

You don't wanna know how much more I paid for my ER-6's than that site has em for...

[00SprintRS]

Here's another positive vote for the Ety ER-4's. I absolutely love them on or off the bike. The block out a complaining GF pretty well too....

The cost factor kinda hurts, but it's worth it.

Nate
00SprintRS

[00SprintRS]

edit: althouth I do dig the 15 - 20db sound exclusion of the ER6 over the ER4p's 12dbs...

Not sure where you got this info, but from Etymotic's site you should be able to get more isolation from the 4's than the 6's. But really they are basically capapble of similar noise reduction amounts.

Just trying to get more good info out there.

Nate
00SprintRS

[hohum]

My info came from the aerostich site. They said 12db for the 4's and 15 - 20 for the 6's.

However Et's own site quotes way more noise reduction than 12db, although I am not sure I believe the amount they claim.

All good plugs, Miss Tree Squid, you'll absolutely love em, the ROCK!

[hohum]

Originally posted by Mystery Squid
I'm giddy with excitement too! Many of the articles I've read about them flat out say that once you get the taste for these, all else is becomes way sub-par... Supposedly, it's a day and night kinda thing....

It absolutely is a day and night sort of thing. Just play the same track through those and through a pair of iPod buds (which incidentally are pretty good sound quality for cheapo buds), and I promise you'll never go back. Its like the difference between a set of JBL el cheapo speakers and a set of Infinity Reference Standard V speakers (go look em up if you don't know what they are, and drool over the amount of money some people can spend on speakers, can you say $50K per? *cough*).

If you really like these after you have tried em out for a bit, you may want to consider a high quality headphone amp (the output power of most small devices is *cough* limited, to say the least)