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Product: Bluetooth high-fidelity noise-isolating earphones
Developer: Etymotic Research
Requirements: 1G or 2G iPod nano, 5G iPod.
Retail Price: $299 with iPod adapter, $199 earphones only.

In your ear is the best way to listen to music. It is, truly. The ety8 (think of a custom license plate and sound it out) earphones are the first Bluetooth earphones for the iPod. They do provide excellent sound and wonderful isolation. Ironically, these two issues need to be weighed carefully when selecting earphones, and there are other issues one must weigh before choosing these earphones.

The first thing you need to get past is the Star Trek Uhura ambiance of the ety8. The ety8 are nowhere near as large as the communicator device from Star Trek, but invariably you are likely to think of them when you first see the ety8.

When you open the box, there is a definitive "classiness" to their presentation.

Included in the box are the two earphones, connected by a heavy cord, the iPod adapter, a charging USB cable for the ety8's battery (not shown), and a leather case to carry the component pieces. When you open the leather case you will find a variety of ear pieces to let you play with the various options to find the best fit/sound for your ear, as well as two filters and a filter changing tool. (The iPod is not included and is shown for size comparison only.)

After opening the box, you need to charge the earphones. You will find a special USB connector inside the box to attach to the right ear piece to your computer or any charged USB port. Thus, the first thing to do after receiving your new earphones is to wait, but only for a couple of hours. You only need to charge the earphones, the iPod adapter (the Bluetooth broadcaster) takes its power directly from the iPod. This also means you do not want to leave the adapter in the iPod when not in use, as it will provide a constant drain on the iPod's battery whether you are listening or not—it has no on/off switch.

Once the unit is charged, you need to set the ety8 with the best eartips for your ears. My ear canal is fairly large, so I was only able to get the best sound with the foam rubber eartips. None of the other flanged ear pieces fit appropriately in my ear, and therefore tend to leak the base notes, causing the sound to be a bit "tinny." You know you have the right ear pieces because the sound will suddenly get glorious.

Once you get the best sound, the next issue is what you listen to. The first piece of music I chose to listen to was Il Trovatore (by Verdi), a sad mistake. The mistake has nothing to do with the choice of music, but with this recording (RCA 74321-39504-2). It turned out to be a dreadful recording with many sections suffering from over impedance and peaking, and sections of music that just sounded bad. At first, I didn't know if it was the earphones or what. I then put on my Sennheiser (PX 100) headphones, which I consider good headphones, and this presented the profound difference between headphones and earphones. The headphones give a softness to the music, and it was easy to miss or overlook the bad sections. I could hear them, but the softness of the sound tended to glide over the bad sections. But earphones stick in your ear, so there is no opportunity for the sound to slide by. There was no way to avoid the dreadful recording.

So, I then moved over to Lakme (by Delibes), which was well recorded, and it sounded glorious. Nora Jones...having her smoky voice in your ear is such a pleasure, gosh. When it gets right down to it, if you have a good quality recording, the best way to listen to music is when it's in your ear.

But this does lead to another issue. There are two ways to decrease the amount of noise around you. There are acoustic noise canceling headphones which work on the principal that if there is a continuous and consistent sound wave around you (like the sound of an airplane) ANC headphones create an equal but opposite sound wave. When the two are combined, the combination of the original sound wave when mixed with the created sound wave flatten out the volume. That is, as shown in my crude drawing below, if the sound wave (blue) is countered by a copy but 1/2 of a wave off (red), they balance each other and the resulting sound wave (green) is lower volume.

The catch about this is that this works best with a continuous soundwave. If you are listening to music or talking, there is too much variation and the headphone can't "guess" where the sound will be so it can't flatten the noise. However, for something very repetitive like an airplane noise, they can do a decent job. One of the benefits of ANC headphones is that when wearing them you can easily hear conversations.

Earphones, on the other hand, are in your ear, and therefore extremely limit the amount of noise getting into the ear. As a result, much cannot be heard.

There are two considerations about this. The first is that ambient noise around you is significantly blocked. The ety8's noise isolation is rated at 35-40 dB. That means you should never ever use earphones when driving, bicycling, or even jogging; you have to be able to hear for safety. Likewise, if you are waiting for someone to call or arrive at your door, you need to make sure you can hear the phone and/or the doorbell. Consider: you have music playing in your ear, and there is a barrier (the eartip) sealing off the world outside of your ear canal. You can hear loud noises, but you can't hear small noises. When I'm sitting at my computer at home, my back is to the door. If my wife or son come up behind me, they have to call out before I'm aware of their presence.

The other issue is sound conductance. I don't know if it's still done, but when I was a kid, my friends and I would take a pair of empty tin cans, place a string through a small hole on the bottom of each can and string it between the two cans, and over a considerable distance we could talk back and forth either by talking into the can or alternatively placing the can over our ear. When you have earphones in your ear, you can hear yourself breathe. If the cable that connects the two ety8 earpieces brushes against your collar, you can hear it drag back and forth, when you walk across the floor, you can hear your body go "flump flump" depending on how heavy is your step. You can accommodate, but the catch is you find you have to accommodate.

However, both of these two issues are issues with any earphone. What's unique about the ety8 is that, as they are Bluetooth earphones, you do not have to be attached to your iPod. Etymotic Research claims you can use your ety8s within 10 meters (about 30 feet) of your iPod. That's only true if there is a line of sight between your right ear and the iPod. It seems that your head can block the radio frequencies of Bluetooth, so, at a short distance of about 8 feet, if your head is in the way, you will start blocking the signal. However, if you are puttering around your (say) kitchen, if you keep your iPod on your right, you'll be OK.

But the question does come up, if you are not near your iPod, can you control the music? Sure, if you have a reasonable memory of the right earpiece. As seen below, there is an on/off/stop/start button on the top right. If you hold this button for a few seconds, the green light turns on and your ety8s are on. Same with turning them off, unless your iPod stops, as after a short time of no sound they will turn off by themselves.

Below the on/off-play/pause button are the volume and next/previous track buttons. While it may seem hard to navigate, it really isn't. I found I could guess when I first started using these, and I was right most of the time. In a short while, controlling the iPod via the ety8's controls was completely natural.

Since the sound is excellent, how else can these be rated? For one, there's the issue that not only do the earpieces need to be charged, but the iPod adapter that sends the Bluetooth signal quickens the speed of your iPod losing its charge. Etymotic estimates your earpieces will last between 6-9 hours between charges. I have not had that length of non-interrupted time to verify that estimate. What it does mean is that if you are flying across country, hope for a direct flight. If you don't have a direct flight, see if you can find a wall outlet in an airport because you can charge your earpieces up to 80% within an hour. You can purchase a wall outlet USB port for charging iPods or things like these earphones from Apple or even Radio Shack. However, you may need two, as you will also need to charge your iPod as the battery life will be shorter due to the extra power required to run the Bluetooth signal from the adapter.

There's no doubt that Bluetooth is particularly valuable when coupled with cell phones. Having a wire between your ear and your cell phone is (by itself) not horrible in general, but when getting in and out of your car's seat belt, the wire will always be in the way. However, that's not an issue with these because you should never drive with them. (Ahem.) In fact, when all is said and done, you can't be too mobile with these earphones because you can't get "that" far from your iPod. In fact, if you plan on walking around, you are probably better off to place your iPod into your pocket. But, if your iPod is there by your side, the lack of a wire to your iPod is a convenience, but not essential.

Some technical data from Etymotic:

• Transducer Type: Balanced armature
• Frequency Response Accuracy: 50 Hz -6 kHz ± 3 dB; 20 Hz -15 kHz ± 6 dB
• Noise Isolation:
  • 35 dB with flanged eartip, deeply inserted
  • 40 dB with foam eartip, deeply inserted
• Max Output: 110 dB SPL
• Weight: < 14 gms each earphone
• Range: >10 meters in free space
  Body absorption: The body blocks transmission.
  Use the music player on the same side of the body as the R earphone.
• Volume Control Range (iPod): 50 dB
• Total Harmonic Distortion: < 4% at 1 kHz at a nominal output of 100 dB SPL
• Sampling Rate: 44.1 kHz, 16 bit resolution

In short, the sound from the ety8 earphones is excellent. When using earphones, you do have the added dynamics of wanting the best quality recordings you can get. That, coupled with the extra internal noises you have to work around because of the conductance of sound around the body. However, the dynamics of Bluetooth do add one extra consideration: do you want the features and benefits of Bluetooth at the cost of needing to charge your earphones (at all) and needing to charge your iPod more often?

___________ Gary Coyne has been a scientific glassblower for over 30 years. He's been using Macs since 1985 (his first was a fat Mac) and has been writing reviews of Mac software and hardware since 1995.