Now $330 is an awful lot of money for a pair of headphones (or anything else for that matter). But then I spend an awful lot of time on trains, and so it's not quite such a mad decision. Still, it wasn't one taken lightly. I may have found the best headphones for me inside of an hour. But I then spent a couple of weeks reading the science behind them, reviews by anyone who had ever tried a pair and compared them to every other brand and type of headphone that I had never heard of, but which apparently someone else had. And then kept looking to make sure I hadn't missed something. When I didn't find anything I finally took the plunge.

Predictably, the US does far better than the UK in terms of price. You can get them from headphone.com for $269. At the time (September 2002) I got them from a company called The Music Shipping Company in the UK who sold a product called "Hearos Audiophile Level Platinum 25 Series" headphones, which Etymotic customer support assured me were just rebadged 4Ps. As 'normal' etymotic ER-4Ps were not available anywhere in the UK (at least that I could find or that Etymotics themselves were aware of). They cost £234 which is a lot! However, price wise they were virtually identical with ordering them direct from headphone.com. Because they would have cost $269, plus $40 shipping, plus a probable 15% import duties ($40.35) making $349.35 equivalent at the time (September 2002) to £224.35 - i.e.£10 cheaper then I actually paid in the UK. (As of today it would be the equivalent of £208) However, at least if there were any problems I figured I could return them to a supplier in the UK.

With hindsight, I have to say that whilst The Music Shipping Company were fine. I would stick to getting the normal Etymotic badged version from the US in future. This is because whilst the core headphones are the same. There are a number of extra foam pads and additional extras (see below for details) that come with the Etymotic's original version that just don't come with the rebadged version. At the time I complained to Etymotic's about this (because they had led me to believe the package was identical to the list on their site, apart from a new name). And to their credit were very quick to immediately sent me the extra foam pads, eartips and filters that would have been in the Etymotic's package.