In Ear Headphones

caff · 3 Jul 2007 at 14:20

Yeah fully intend to use the black buds as I've ordered a black pair

I'll compare against my trusty creative EP630's

Margaret · 3 Jul 2007 at 14:23

caff said:
Yeah fully intend to use the black buds as I've ordered a black pair

I'll compare against my trusty creative EP630's

Ah cool I bought the e2g's, gaming edition well they are exactly the same but were a tenner cheaper and in black. :cool:

They came with about 20 different earbuds and a carry case!

benjo plz. · 3 Jul 2007 at 14:28

Sure E3C's are now at ~£50, or the MylarOne X3's which are about £27.

Vegetarian · 3 Jul 2007 at 22:24

Dont go for the shure e2c they are not great and not really an upgrade from your creatives

titaniumx3 · 3 Jul 2007 at 22:54

I know it's out of your price range by a fair bit, but you might want to consider the Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro. I'm currently using these out of an iAudio X5/iPod 5.5g and they sound amazing in my opinion. They're not immensely accurate or clear but they sound incredibly fun with huge amounts of groove, aggressive mids and incredibly deep and punchy bass. The sound stage and 'timbre' of the super.fi's are very realistic, more like full sized circumaural headphones than earbuds; excellent for gaming and movies.

I actually lost my first pair and bought them again just because they sounded so addictive. Honestly, once you hear these babies, everything else will sound dry and lifeless (well apart from the higher end shures and UEs that is).

Bigsy · 3 Jul 2007 at 22:59

Phnom_Penh said:
Sure E3C's are now at ~£50, or the MylarOne X3's which are about £27.

Bingo!!

CrossRoads MylarOne X3's, got mine last week to use in work and for the money they are absolutly amazing, 100 times better than my e2c's and make me feel embarrassed I spent so much on my super.fi 5 Pros.

benjo plz. · 4 Jul 2007 at 09:54

Bigsy said:
Bingo!!

CrossRoads MylarOne X3's, got mine last week to use in work and for the money they are absolutly amazing, 100 times better than my e2c's and make me feel embarrassed I spent so much on my super.fi 5 Pros.

Yeah, got mine about two weeks ago, really good, but haven't got hold of the right tips (UE biflanges) yet, tried them with MD33 tips.... spent about 10 mins fishing the left one out of my left ear

. Thought the presentation was very good for something so cheap.

caff · 4 Jul 2007 at 23:00

Vegetarian said:
Dont go for the shure e2c they are not great and not really an upgrade from your creatives

Well, you're right. Got the Shure E2C's today. If anything they're worse than the creatives as the mid / highs are fairly flat sounding. This is disappointing - but it's helped me realise what I'm looking for now. The bass is tighter but overall they're not much of an improvement. I'll keep the Shure's as a backup as they're not all bad.

I think the sound of the super.fi 5 pro was far better (you could really hear the effect of the dual driver lifting the sound quality) but there was definitely a distortion problem with the pair I had.

I've heard good things about these MylarOne X3's but they only ship from Singapore, right?

benjo plz. · 5 Jul 2007 at 00:53

caff said:
I've heard good things about these MylarOne X3's but they only ship from Singapore, right?

Yep, get them from Uncle Wilson. The XB's have more bass, not sure if they sound as good in general though.

Vegetarian · 5 Jul 2007 at 01:25

caff said:
Well, you're right. Got the Shure E2C's today. If anything they're worse than the creatives as the mid / highs are fairly flat sounding. This is disappointing - but it's helped me realise what I'm looking for now. The bass is tighter but overall they're not much of an improvement. I'll keep the Shure's as a backup as they're not all bad.

I think the sound of the super.fi 5 pro was far better (you could really hear the effect of the dual driver lifting the sound quality) but there was definitely a distortion problem with the pair I had.

I've heard good things about these MylarOne X3's but they only ship from Singapore, right?

If you liked the sound of the Super fi 5 pros then you will love the Westone UM2s... they have the treble that the 5pros lack yet still having the bass.

Bigsy · 5 Jul 2007 at 18:14

Vegetarian said:
If you liked the sound of the Super fi 5 pros then you will love the Westone UM2s... they have the treble that the 5pros lack yet still having the bass.

Being an Ex UM2 Owner this definitely isn't the case imo, yes the UM2's do have an extended top end but certainly do not have the bass of the SF 5pros. But many think the bass of the SF 5 Pros is too overpowering, personally I don't.

I really don't think you can say one is better than the other, their just different, I prefer the 'fun' sound and larger soundstage of the SF pros, but could easily see how the flat EQ brigade would side with the UM2's.

Vegetarian · 6 Jul 2007 at 01:09

Bigsy said:
Being an Ex UM2 Owner this definitely isn't the case imo, yes the UM2's do have an extended top end but certainly do not have the bass of the SF 5pros. But many think the bass of the SF 5 Pros is too overpowering, personally I don't.

I really don't think you can say one is better than the other, their just different, I prefer the 'fun' sound and larger soundstage of the SF pros, but could easily see how the flat EQ brigade would side with the UM2's.

I think you must be thinking of the SF 5 EB's which are very bassy if too much.

Bigsy · 6 Jul 2007 at 17:07

I'm not.

M0t0r0la · 8 Jul 2007 at 12:11

As stated if your using rubbish Mp3's then spending £50 odd quid on a pair of headphones is somewhat pointless!

I have tried dozens of headphones in the £10-£30 range and personally found that the Sony MDR-ED21LP's to be among the best!
The frequency range and definition when playing FLAC's, APE's on my PDA is superb and whats even better is I found somewhere that sold them for £8.79 delivered :eek:

Seems Bens Audio has put them up but at £9.99 their still pound 4 pound the best in-ear headphones money can buy imho! Way better than the generic ones that come with iPods and most players, buy a pair and hear the difference!

http://bigbenaudio.co.uk/p753/Sony-...udio-Headphones-(MDRED21LP)/product_info.html

caff · 13 Jul 2007 at 00:43

Phnom_Penh said:
Yep, get them from Uncle Wilson. The XB's have more bass, not sure if they sound as good in general though.

Just a small update - I received my Crossroads Mylarone X3's from Jaben network yesterday and they are flipping amazing. Really stunning - far better than any Creative or Sony I've tried, and possibly up there with the super.fi 5's I tried previously. They still don't come near my Sennheiser HD650's that I use with my hifi/PC setup, but I seriously doubt that many portable IEMs will.

Some of my music literally sounds like it is playing inside my head. This was quite a bizarre feeling as I was waiting for a train trying them out for the first time. I had to take a headphone out to stop myself feeling a bit crazy!

I have listened to a wide variety of stuff, from bass heavy drum+bass to complex Rachmaninov piano concertos and the fidelity of the sound is incredible. Bass is absolutely bang on, perfectly reproduced. The treble I'm not totally sure about yet, particularly with complex patterns, but I think it is accurate enough and I will probably grow to like it. I think my Creative's over-accenuated the treble, making it sound a little tinny / forced at the top end, which I've become used to.

At £30 delivered I would recommend these to anyone thinking of getting the stick-inside-your-head-style canal headphones.

robj20 · 13 Jul 2007 at 07:55

Iv got a pair of Shure E4c best earphones by a long shot, great bass as long as you get a good fit in the ear, i had some custom ear buds made for mine totally transformed them, the best ones that come with them have to be the yellow foam.

p4radox · 13 Jul 2007 at 10:50

Those MylarOne X3s seem tempting going on peoples' recent opinions.

robj - how long did you wait for delivery?

robj20 · 13 Jul 2007 at 11:35

Next day for the headphones, the custom buds took about a month in total cant remember where i got them from though, it involved me leaving a foam thing in my ears for half an hour then sending them back then my buds arrived in about 2 weeks.

Antecer · 15 Jul 2007 at 19:03

I want a real nice pair of ear-phones, so from this thread I have seen that the best bang for buck is these sony ex-85/90's right?

can someone link me to a place where i can buy these online please? I've done a fair few searches but they arent bringing up and reputable stores.

Did I get the right idea that this UM2's are so good that it's the difference between normal phones and ex85's again?

Hen_Dawg · 16 Jul 2007 at 11:59

p4radox said:
Those MylarOne X3s seem tempting going on peoples' recent opinions.

robj - how long did you wait for delivery?

The MylarOnes seem to take 8-10 days to reach the UK. I'm probably gonna get myself a pair. I think you can get Wilson to give you some UE Double Flange buds to go with them because tips can make quite a difference

Antecer - not allowed to link i'm afraid. However the sony ex-85/90's wouldn't go down as the best if you listen to www.head-fi.org