Spec me some in-ear Headphones

StevenG · 6 Mar 2007 at 09:40

Hi, ive just bought an iPod Nano and i wanted to know what in-ear headphones were best bang for buck these days.. and will they make that much difference over the "Sony MDR-ED21LP" set i have now?

reasonable price... dont want to be paying too much if its just a marginal improvement..

thanks for looking and any advice given.

StevenG

Girdag · 6 Mar 2007 at 11:51

I personally use Shure e3s, which give utterly excellent sound quality, but are expensive (I imported from America and got 'em for £80ish). The smaller brother, the e2, is also pretty good, at about £50/£60, I think. Alternately, if you don't mind losing quite a bit of sound quality, and a lot of build quality, the Sony canalphones aren't too bad, they do have much more bass than the Shures, so if you're a basshead then they're the way to go.

Flibster · 6 Mar 2007 at 14:00

White E3C's are available in the UK for £70.
E2C's can be found for £40.

I'd go for the E3C's tbh. I did.

My E2C's are now at work for use there and the E3C's live with my MP3 player.

Simon/~Flibster

LLBDTiberio · 6 Mar 2007 at 14:08

I personally prefer the Creative EP630, only around 20 pounds but give a great sound and isolates the sound very well.

StevenG · 6 Mar 2007 at 23:18

i really cant justify spending over half to about what i paid for my mp3 player on headphones.. thats a bit rich.. and is it really going to make that much difference to my iPod Nano?

StevenG

elevenseventysix · 7 Mar 2007 at 10:47

StevenG said:
i really cant justify spending over half to about what i paid for my mp3 player on headphones.. thats a bit rich.. and is it really going to make that much difference to my iPod Nano?

StevenG

Yes it definitely will! Once you get in the Shure E3C and upwards bracket, the sound quality can be absolutely amazing.

Vegetarian · 7 Mar 2007 at 10:52

Ive known people spend over £400 for headphones for a nano!

Do not go for Shure e3c with a nano as you be screeming out for more bass.

ok Id go for...

£15 JVC FX33
£25 Creative EP630 (Sennheiser CX300 are the same earphones but have a tad less bass and more treble - but difference is minnimal - EP630's are cheeper)
£30 Sennheiser PX100 ( over the head headphones )
£55 Sony EX90

Beware of getting EP630s and Shure e2c's off the net - as most are fakes. Either get them direct of from a well known online store (such as ocuk) - forget the bay!

MTA99 · 9 Mar 2007 at 13:19

CX300 all the way.

If you look on a popular e-tailer site you can get them for under £20.

As Vegetarian said, beware fakes!!

smsmasters · 10 Mar 2007 at 01:46

I have the Shure E3C: bought for £100
Etymotic ER6i: bought for £70.

Using such earphones reveals more detail and different "levels" in your music.

smsmasters · 10 Mar 2007 at 01:47

StevenG said:
i really cant justify spending over half to about what i paid for my mp3 player on headphones.. thats a bit rich.. and is it really going to make that much difference to my iPod Nano?

StevenG

Just use the stock apple earphones then.

There isn't really any point buying new earphones if all you're going to buy again are those crappy sony earphones, etc.

Once you get into the big boys, such as Shure, Etymotic, it will be worth the extra price. It's just false economy to buy the lower end earphones and expect to hear a lot of difference.

A2Z · 10 Mar 2007 at 23:52

i just ordered some cx300's for £17.88 inc del

i used to have e3c's, still do actually, but i broke one of the earphones sitting on it, will try to compare them

Vegetarian · 11 Mar 2007 at 01:59

A2Z said:
i just ordered some cx300's for £17.88 inc del

i used to have e3c's, still do actually, but i broke one of the earphones sitting on it, will try to compare them

At that price - they prob fake and sound like poo!

A2Z · 11 Mar 2007 at 02:35

Vegetarian said:
At that price - they prob fake and sound like poo!

well it was from that place No mentioning competitors!!! Big Kev i doubt they will be selling fakes

Vegetarian · 11 Mar 2007 at 12:25

A2Z said:
No mentioning competitors!!! Big Kev i doubt they will be selling fakes

Still they sell from private traders - there are some might good looking clones out there for the CX300! You can only really tell from listening to them - either they have flabby over boomy bass or too harsh treble.

kbc · 11 Mar 2007 at 14:24

A2Z said:
i just ordered some cx300's for £17.88 inc del

i used to have e3c's, still do actually, but i broke one of the earphones sitting on it, will try to compare them

Yes, you can get the CX300's pretty cheap for that price. And as long as it's from a proper retailer, they won't be fakes. And there's already plenty of articles detailing how to tell a fake from a genuine item.

I have a pair of CX300s for that sort of price range and they are definitely genuine and very good value for money. No point getting the Sony EX71's because the cabling on those are very, very poor.

benjo plz. · 11 Mar 2007 at 14:28

Vegetarian said:
At that price - they prob fake and sound like poo!

No, you can buy them for about that. But they still sound like poo.

slipd · 12 Mar 2007 at 00:35

Hey guys,

My iPod phones started hissing on one side today, they’re the second pair I’ve had and I’ve been using them for over a year – quite loudly

I think I’ve been quite lucky?

Re: this thread. The general consensus then is that the CX300’s are okay? £20 is about the right kind of price range I was looking for. I’m not really a music connoisseur – mainly listening whilst travelling, gym etc so I usually have a bit a of background noise to contend with anyway.

They’re going be used on a 30GB Video btw.

SW.

dokko · 12 Mar 2007 at 09:20

Fakes?

What would be the point in faking £20 earphones?

The world is crazy.