in-ear headphones
i recently got a pair of shure e2c headphones, on the recommendations of people i know and from researching on my own. and damn, they're good.
i haven't mastered the sound insulation part yet. i'm still not used to shoving it down my ear canal. for the moment, i use the softest tip in the smallest size. it's the only one i find tolerable. but it doesn't completely block out noise. i'll probably have to use bigger tips to plug out everything. (which might take some getting used to.)
anyway, i was listening to my ipod with those for the first time last
night. i could hear a lot more detail from the songs i thought i was
familiar with. everything was clearer and crisper. i could hear background chords i didn't know were there! i could hear singers'
voices shake when they're trying to hold a long note. for the first
time i realized some notes were really two notes strummed/slurred together. what i thought were regular beats i could now hear kicks in between. when i was listening to barenaked ladies' "one week", i heard them enuciate every fricking syllable with clarity.
holy crap! it's like i was listening to my own music collection for
the first time.
for reference, my music is mostly ripped from my own CDs, using AAC encoding at 128kbps. i previously used the standard ipod headphones. (decent by all accounts.) i had no idea i was missing so much. with the ipod headphones, i figured the limit to sound quality was the bitrate. this is definitely NOT true.
if you're looking to buy earbuds, i definitely recommend the shure
e2c. i bought mine from amazon for $65. shure also offers higher end models e3c and e4c. the form factor is pretty much the same, but the speakers are supposed to even better. another reputable brand is etymotic. their er6i is supposed to be comparable to e2c or e3c.
posted by ct @ 9:04 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I've heard of these. They're those canal earphones, right? I was looking into them a few months back but realized they were damn expensive especially when my main intended use for them was to be on airplanes when I have to crank the volume on my player to hear anything. I fly once a year if that. Still though, sound interesting. Charles you think that detail you hear is inaudible using full-on headphones in a perfectly quiet room?
i think there are 4 main types of headphones:
1. the phones that sit against your whole ear. (think airline provided headphones.)
2. the regular ear phones that sit in your ear opening.
3. the wrap around your whole ear half dome things. (think djs at clubs, musicians in studios, etc.)
4. the in-ear-canal phones that i was talking about. these are fairly new. i heard that musicians have been using these for years. (when they perform on stage.) but they've only just become popular as consumer products.
before the ear-canal phones, i think pro-quality headphones tend to come in the wrap-around-the-ear phones. i guess they're mostly for audiophiles.
i don't claim to be an audiophile. but i now know that you can hear a lot more with higher quality phones or speakers. i imagine i could've had the same experience with these.
as for my new headphones, i'll say this: best $65 i ever spent.
i imagine the extra quality was in the speakers and not in the sound insulation. with my standard ipod headphones i usually listened to music at home where it's pretty quite anyway.
the reason i bought these was for air travel. i have some upcoming trips and i usually have the luck of sitting close to screaming babies so i decided to get these.
i didn't expect to hear all that extra detail but when i did, i was totally blown away.
another unexpected benefit was that with my ipod, i can now turn the volume down to the lowest notch. presumably this lengthens playing time between charges.
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