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No-Context5479 t1_j99wm00 wrote

Reply to comment by smalg2 in ER2XR way too dark? by smalg2

Well from the graph your Yamaha has a worse case called having peaks because there's so much depression in a range... Makes the next highest point sound peaky... If you look at the ER2XR it's a gradual descent so it gradually gets dark whilst your Yamaha has that hole in the upper mids but gets increadly sharp at 7.9kHz approximately... Yeah that's dark but bright at the same time...

The Etymotic isn't that way it's gradual downward slope with zero peaks so there's no brightness sticking out from the dark. So yeah that can make the Yamaha sound dark and bright at the same time whilst the ER2XR will sound dark all the way to 20kHz because there's no unevenness in the treble... It's purely a slow glide

If you don't like the Etymotic get rid of it... And get another neutral set... The FATfreq Reference or the VSonic GR07 Classic is a good neutral set to get

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smalg2 OP t1_j99zezo wrote

What's puzzling me is that what I hear doesn't match those FR charts. My Yamahas sound a bit weird but are still fun, they were my only pair for almost a decade and I didn't feel the need to upgrade until they developed a channel imbalance. But to me the Etymotics sound bad, almost phone-like, and I have a hard time understanding how what I hear could get any praise, much less the cult following they seem to have... It feels like a lot of $20 chifi IEMs could do better, and the 7Hz Zero actually do, hands down. Which is why I suspect some ear canal shape incompatibility (given their unusual insertion depth), a faulty unit, or something along those lines. I'm seeing an audio nerd friend soon, I'll ask her what she thinks about them, but at that point it would take some "Eureka moment" for me to keep them. Thank you for spending the time trying to help me though...

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