May 28, 2006
Shure e4c in ear headphones!
It's been a bit quiet recently on the blogging side, will work on fixing that soon :)
A few weeks back Torsten and I ordered some new headphones after my (perhaps 10? year) old Sony MDR's gave it in and I got sick of the Apple iPod headphones falling out of my ears and sounding all tinny.
After quite a bit of research the headphones we chose were the E4C's from Shure, and I have to admit, since getting them I haven't been able to put them down. They're by far the best headphones I've ever purchased and have such an awesome, rich and powerful sound.
Shure's headphones are called earphones as they're 'in-ear' headphones. This means rather than having the headphones sit on your head somehow, or on your ears, these earphones are actually inserted into your ear-canal, and this is what gives them such great results as all other sound is blocked out and you only hear what you pump through these phones. Sounds kind of intrusive, but once you're used to putting them into your ears I found them quite comfortable.
As they're in your ear-canal, having a good fit is of the utmost importance, not only for comfort but also for audio quality. If they're not in right, or don't have a tight fit, then you end up with less bass, and a more tinny sound than what these earphones can provide - even just by sliding out of your ear a fraction.
Due to this nature they're best used when you're sitting and not moving around all of the time, unless you're able to find a secure way of wearing them (I've only tried the normal way of wearing headphones but the manual shows a few other ways including wrapping them over your ears which probably gives them more support).
Shure package several different ear phone adaptors that you can easily fit to the phones to get the best fit as everyone has different sized ear canals. I actually found out that both my ear canals have different sizes so my left headphone adaptor is actually a size bigger than the right. If you have these kind of headphones and aren't hearing the kind of quality you'd expect or hear others rave about then my guess would be the fit of the phones - if none of the provided fittings work then get some custom ones made up.
When the phones are in, the sound is awesome. Bass response is great and really deep, clarity and quality of sound is superb. Far better than the Apple iPod headphones, far better than my old Sony's and far better than any other headphone I've used before. Price-wise, the E4C's aren't a low end purchase, they're quite a few hundred dollars depending on where you get them - but what you're paying for is the quality of sound you'll get out of them.
Also, they're great as sound isolators when you want to zone-out for a while and just hear silence.
Looking forward to listening to more top tunes through these little babies! :)