Gadgetory

for the ultimate no compromises compact gaming PC look no further than the obsidian series 250 d from Corsair click now to learn more welcome to my second premium IEM video the automatic er for PT contrasts sharply with the IE ATS that I looked at last time where the IE ATS are targeted at consumers with their base heavy sound signature great comfort and stylish look the ER fours are targeted at professionals with emphasis on high accuracy sound and exceptional noise isolation that's not to say however that general consumers can't enjoy an accurate in your monitor as much as a professional from any purists out there hearing the music the way the artist intended for it to be heard is more important than pumping up bass or playing around with EQ dials to make it sound better so with that in mind here we go inside the plastic hard box that has everything inside of it we find an accessory package that really looks more like equipment you'd find in an audiologists office than something you'd expect to find in a consumer product box everything appears to be designed with practicality in mind but you do get a lot of stuff with the ER for pts including a shirt clip an airline adapter an 8 inch to quarter inch adapter two sets of large and one set of small three flange ear tips two sets of glider ear tips two sets of medium foam ear tips a filter removal tool and four filters to help smooth frequency response and prevent wax buildup and ER for PT ter 4's adapter cable that improves sound accuracy but also increases impedance so it might not be optimal to use with your phone or other mp3 player a user's manual a warning and finally oh yeah a carrying case and finally the earphones themselves there is one more thing and it's actually a little bit unique this is a signed channel matching compliance graph showing that one of a domotics technicians personally checked to ensure that both of the balanced armature Accu drivers behaved the same way then signed off on it before packaging your product and shipping it to you a very nice touch now it's time to focus on the earphones themselves they look like a piece of equipment and feel like a piece of equipment the R and L indicators are simply a red dot for the one that goes in your right ear which is fine if you're in a recording studio but a pain in the butt if you're on a dimly lit bus each earphone has a unique thin twisted wire lead that goes back to a bulky heavy join and then a much thicker heavier four-foot wire while the overall length is four feet that the gauge of the wire is much thicker here it's unfortunate that it's so long and heavy because particularly with the three flange tips which sounded best for me the weight pulled on my ears in a way that was pretty uncomfortable the included clip is an inelegant solution at best and instead I opted to wear them upside down and run the wires over my ear like this they aren't designed to be worn that way but it worked reasonably well and saved me at least once from having the flanges uncomfortably jerked from my ears although there was a time when it didn't save me and that was when I decided to wear it that way comfort wise I'm not going to beat around the bush these are the most uncomfortable earphones I've ever used your mileage may vary of course but when the user's manual simply says moistening eases insertion for the flanges that's a pretty strong indicator that a domotic is aware of the situation lube up because you ain't going to like it much otherwise the foam your tips don't hurt but like all foam ear tips they wear out relatively quickly so that's not really an option for me I don't want to be ordering new ones all the time and the gliders weren't an option for me either because they don't seal as well so they're noise isolation isn't as good as the others and the base response is not as strong as the others okay so thanks Linus they feel like a tool rather than a toy and they're uncomfortable so why do they have the right to exist do they have any redeeming qualities the answer is yes let's start with their passive noise isolation I don't have the equipment to validate their 35 to 42 decibel claim so all I can do is describe the experience for you once you get them inserted they're so deep that even yawning doesn't affect the sound the feeling of your surroundings shifts it's like walking from a crowded ski lodge out into an empty forest after a fresh snowfall the entire world just has a muffled and subdued feel to them the only thing left is the sound of your own thoughts except instead of it being your own thoughts that you hear it's your music without needing to turn up the volume to compensate for environmental noise everything sounds as crystal clear as if the sounds were being beamed by magic into your head every instrument is easily discernible from the others to agree that I've never experienced before the difference in clarity is noticeable when I compare the ear for PT s to the entire rest of my stable of headphones which includes several other products in this price range and more interestingly the difference is noticeable with sources that ranged from listening to music on YouTube all the way to uncompressed files of songs that I know very very well there are some caveats though with accurate sound comes to some people boring sound there is no emphasis on bass to speak of and a domotic has optimized for isolation rather than soundstage one of the things that stood out to me about the IE ATS was how relatively open they sounded for an IM whoops there goes my phone the ER fors take me right back to that traditional between your ears sound that is characteristic of IMS something else I noticed was that switching between the IE 80s and the ER force felt like changing the lights in a room from from a warm glow to a cool glow either is fine once I'm used to it and after 15 minutes I'm completely adjusted but side-by-side listening tests were actually a little bit unpleasant because the sound signatures of these two products contrast so starkly going from ie ad to ER for makes the ER for sound bland and uninteresting while going from the ER for to the IE 80s make them sound bass heavy and muddled by comparison so what's the takeaway from all of this bottom line they're just not comfortable enough for me to use them as my daily drivers during the day the heavy cable was a bigger for me then I actually expected and when they snag on something accidentally they're very painful even with them wrapped around my ears and at night not being able to tell left from right without turning on a flashlight is a pain and then the fact that I normally sleep in my IMS which is not happening with these is a showstopper there as well but they weren't designed to be daily drivers for general consumers just look at the website I mean it's functional sure you can get replacement parts order custom ear molds for a hundred bucks which is actually really cool custom ear molds will fit you perfectly so comfort problem goes away and you can learn about the product but it looks like a hearing aid store or something they're catering to a different crowd and comfort aside for me they sound amazing I could listen to them with zero fatigue for hours and I have so if the objective is not to be fashionable but rather to get precise sound delivered to your eardrums with as little outside interference as possible then the ER fors get a big thumbs up for me thank you for watching let me know in the comments or better yet on the Linus tech tips forum which will be linked in the video description if you prefer a flat sound signature or a more fun signature knowing that you're not getting you know the music delivered to you the way that the artists necessarily intended like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it guys I'm totally open to your feedback and as always don't forget to subscribe to Linus tech tips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos you