“For the gadget aficionado, Apple’s iPod portable music player is a must have. Simply go to your local Apple store and pick out the color of nano or iPod you like. Done. Enjoy the iPod for what it is — a marketing triumph disguised as a gadget. But headphones for iPods? That’s another story,” Jonathan Blum writes for TheStreet.com. “As much as Steve Jobs has redrawn the digital landscape with his iPod and other Apple products, he has turned a deaf ear to his headphones. iPod headphones, like all things Apple, certainly look cool; those little white earbuds are as ubiquitous as they are iconic. But as headphones, they are a disgrace.”
“The good news is there are excellent aftermarket choices for high-quality headphones for portable music players. These headphones sound better. They fit better,” Blum reports. “[Personal monitors] are not earbuds. They are actually high-quality small speakers that fit inside the outer part of your ear canal and sit flush to your eardrums, providing better sound at lower volumes… The three brands to know for [personal monitors] are Etymotic Research, Shure Electronics and Ultimate Ears. I tested three of the better units from these companies: the Etymotic ER-4 ($330), the Shure E4c ($299) and the UE super.fi 5Pro ($249)… The audio quality in all of these units was solid. Really solid. But even good things are not created equal. For me, audio equipment is like red wine — you can go and on about the stuff, but you know right away what’s best. And the standout in this group was the Ultimate Ears.”
Full article here.
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Related article:
Review: Etymotic Research ER-6i Isolator black earphones – February 04, 2006
The flaw with this review is that the author failed to mention which iPod or other equipment these earphones were tested on and what was the quality of the medium? Was he listening to a 128mHz iTunes download, a 320mHz CD rip or a directly from a CD player? Makes a difference, ya know.
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WOW. I sure wish I had a job that would pay for all my overpriced fun stuff.!!
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Earphones suck. For many reasons. For me, I bought a $ 12 pair of clipons that have a silicone ear tubes that direct the sound into your ear.
The sound quality goes up. The outside noise goes down and for $ 12, I am pretty happy with the results.
Of course you could hire the London Symphony to follow you around and get really rich sound everywhere you go.
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Later,
Norm
To be honest I think that as long as the headphones included with any music device aren’t absolute crap then that’s as good as they should get. Say they included some $50 value buds, if you were the sort of person who wanted really high quality ones then your purchase has been bumped up for no reason. Personally, I use a pre-existing Sony pair which whilst not overtly expensive are better than the default but I use them more because I find them more comfortable for my ears.
I hate ear buds. I gave the ear buds on both my first and second iPods to my wife, and got an ordinary, comfortable pair of lightweight, over-the-top-of-the-head headphones. I can slip them on or take them off in a second. No fiddling around with each individual bud. No uncomfortable sensation of something jammed in my ear. No cleaning gunk off when I take the buds out (my ears make a lot of wax, sue me).
I swear, just give me an ordinary set of headphones any day. (And none of this behind-the-head nonsense.)
I have the Shure E2c, about 100.00, and I would say they are worth the price if you want to spend it. The difference in quality between these phones, the included apple phones, and a 50.00 pair of Sony phones I wasted my money on, was pretty dramatic. Far more dramatic than the difference between MP3 and uncompressed 44.1, 16 bit aiff. And yes I have been a recording studio engineer for over 20 years.
The Apple headphones are okay for what they are but I can’t keep the damn things in my ears! I tried the pair that came with my 3G but left the ones for my Photo and shuffle in the box. But somehow I still see everyone on the el with them staying perfectly in place but I can’t understand how unless you hold your head perfectly still. I’m a big guy with big ears but still can’t get them to fit right. For that, they suck. Now I just use some crappy Sony MDR-G52 model that wraps around my head.
Cubert wrote, “I’ve actually always thought that the iPod headphones sound really good, but they are painful as hell!”
Uhm, stop using them as headphones. They’re much less painful as earbuds.
And to the articles point…
It’s a “disgrace” that Apple sells an $250 iPod with earbuds that doesn’t include earbuds that sound as good as a $330 pair of in-ear monitors?
Sennheiser in-ear phones for me!
IMO, you’re wasting your time replacing the white earbuds for any reason other than comfort or security. What kind of audio response do you think you’re going to get from that tiny little amp in the iPod? The amount of money you’d spend vs. the results you’d get is a total wash. For what the iPod is, it works well enough…
I would rather see Apple finally upping the bitrate of their music on iTMS – than upping the quality of their earphones. Of course the original earphones sound like shite – but it’s easy to pick up better ones. But has anyone encountered a better online shop for music purchases than iTMS? Didn’t think so. Actually, I even believe Apple’s earphones were used to cover up the shitty quality of the iTMS tracks. I mean, listen on one of those tracks on good equipment and tell me you can’t hear the difference to a CD. And no, I don’t mean tiny differences…I mean…it sounds bloody crippled. And I’m not some fancy sound producer.
Sheesh. If you are really interested in good sound, get a tube amp, a turntable and or a reel to reel tape deck and a good set of speakers.
Anything else is compressed including CD’s. All music is compressed nowdays so stop being smug about $400.00 earphones.
I’m not trying to be (mw: mean) but all this discussion about which compression scheme is best is bullshit. Has everyone forgotten about the worry about CD’s having less than perfect audio performance. About the lack of presence. About the loss of sonic fidelity.
Earbuds are a technical/marketing choice based upon cost. They are not the end all solution for every person. They work fine for their purpose as included feature.
To get on a high horse and proclaim they are not the best is a waste of time. If Apple included more expensive headphones, the price would go up.
hagar57:
No, no one HAS to spend $300 on headphones. But some insane music lovers, like myself, don’t mind spending $300 on headphones if they sound as good as the Ety’s.
Scott:
I totally disagree with you. The Ety’s made me realize just how relatively good the iPod’s output is. There is nothing wrong with compressed audio. Sure, 128kbps iTunes files don’t sound that great—the high end starts getting “swishy”, there’s a diminished dynamic range, etc, and for those reasons I rarey purchase online music. But I challenge anyone here to tell the difference between a 256 or 320 kbps AAC file and an uncompressed AIFF in a blind test. Unless you have seriously high-end equipment.
I can’t use in-ear systems because they hurt my ears. I have the Sennheiser folding headphones for my iPod (they’re available in black and white, so they’ll coordinate with whichever iPod you’ve got), and they’ve got decent sound as well as being comfortable. I’d love to spring for Bluetooth headphones if I could find some that work with the iPod — I get tired of the cord getting tangled in everything….
Serious question: How are you guys testing your earphones or earbuds before you buy them?
Do they actually let you try them out in-store before purchase? Is this even possible?
Or do I just have to rely on the reviews of the various models that are out there?
Don’t forget that all of these wonderful in-ear headphones blocking out all the external noise do just that…block out the external noise.
Don’t go jogging, bike riding or any other activity that requires more than a modicum of situational awareness with them…
Sure. Next $1000 I have to spend. Sure
I’m not sure what’s worse:
1. The white iPod ear buds that scream “Mug me, I’m a dork!”.
2. Bluetooth headsets (the ones that clamp onto your ear). They’re the modern taped-together Coke bottle glasses. They scream “Nerd!” AND make you look like a half-ass-imilated Borg.
If music is more than just background noise for your activities and you appreciate good sound, it’s well worth investing in decent ‘phones, even if you’re listening to 128kbps AAC. Despite what the audio snobs say, you don’t need a $10,000 stereo system to get appreciably better sound than the noise produced by most cheap earbuds and headphones. And, you don’t have to break the bank.
Long before iPods, I bought a pair of Koss PortaPros for my minidisk player. They’re $40, offer very deep bass and clean sound, and are very portable and durable – I’ve had mine 7 years. They’re far better than anything else under $100 except Grado SR-80s ($80) and have gotten great reviews. The Grados offer better sound than some $200 cans, but are not particularly portable. They’re widely hailed by the audiophile press as a steal.
Happy though I was with the Kosses, I needed to seal out the noise of the NYC subways, so I bought a pair of Shure E3c in-ears, open-box on eBay for $80. They retail for $170 and are well worth it. They seal out the ambient noise and produce very balanced, detailed sound – better than the Kosses, just a little thin in the bass. I also find them more comfortable than the Etymotics, as they don’t need to be inserted as deep into the ear canal.
As a reference, I have an $800 pair of Stax Lambda Pro electrostatic headphones and a $2,500 pair of Martin Logan Aerius i electrostatic speakers in my living room. So, I know and appreciate good sound. Anyone who suggests that it’s not worth the effort to get good sound from an iPod either hasn’t tried or doesn’t listen to music on the go much. My Shure E3cs give me quite good sound from 320kbps AACs, and they save my ears from all the city noise, too.
What is this? Racism?
At least they didn’t say trash the white ear buds…
None of y’all gonna be able to hear a darn thing in a few years. Human ears were only designed to have tongues stuck in them.
Majikthize:
Holy crap man, I hear those Stax phones are fantastic. How do you like them? Those are the really flat ones, correct?
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I enjoy my iPod nano (4Gb) with my sony mdr-v700 head phones, ok so they set me back about 200 us $ (in Sweden) but I’ve had them for six years so what?
I LOVE my nano, partly because it playes great(trance) music and again because it’s a joy to use!!!
mudflapper-
The Staxes are incredible. The Lambda Pros are a bit on the bright side and absolutely unforgiving of bad recordings. I hear the newer Lambda Novas are better. Still, you’ve never really heard all the detail that’s in a good recording until you’ve heard it on a pair of Lambdas. Once you get hooked on electrostatics, there’s no going back.
I wasn’t as keen on Stax’ little portable in-ear units, though. I wanted to like them, but they were a bit uncomfortable, and it was hard to get a good seal. That’s why I went with the Shure E3cs.
I got my Staxes when I lived in Japan in the late ’80s for about $350, less than half what they were selling for in the US. You can occasionally find a pair of Lambdas on eBay for around $300-$500, which is still a steal considering that you’d have to spend at least $3,000 to get comparable performance from speakers.
Some other headphones get equally high marks from reviewers, notably the top-end Sennheisers and Grados. The $80 Grado SR-80s I auditioned very briefly were astounding for the price. I have never liked the Sennheiser sound – too up-front and boxed-in. I feel like I’m stuck in a phone booth with the band. The Staxes and Grados sound very open and spacious but not distant like the otherwise excellent AKGs.
For $40, the Koss PortaPros are very livable. For $80, the Grado SR-80s are superb. For $170, the Shure E3cs are no better than the Grados, but probably the best of the <$200 in-ear isolators. But, for >$300 home ‘phones, the Staxes are a very special treat.
Stereo absolutely SUCKS, get a 5.1 or 7.1 quality system, hardwood floors and cry from joy.
“Stereo absolutely SUCKS, get a 5.1 or 7.1 quality system, hardwood floors and cry from joy.” yes because music sounds soo much better with that center speaker making all the difference!
God damn it, get a clue you n00b!