Bits Shure SE110 earphones

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2007/10/28/shure_se110_earphones/1

We try out Shure's new entry-level in-ear headphones, which come in at just under £55. Are they worth the cost considering you'll just cover them in wax? We find out by testing them out on some slammin' tunes!

 

Is it me or is Joe just reviewing everything now and Tim just sits there with a pint of Irish Cider laughing?

And Bat out of Hell??

 

You see, this is one occasion when a half deaf person like me wins, I've got adaptors which rig my hearing aids up as proper moulded earphones. Cost about the same as those Shure headphones, so not too bad.

Of course, that's not really an option for most people. So feel free to ignore that ramble.

On another note regarding the forced bass, was that at standard equalizer settings etc? Maybe a bit of tweaking could help?

Edit - Meatloaf is awesome, I'll be seeing him this friday at the NEC. Even more reason to like Joe!

 

That's with standard equalizer settings yeah, tweaking could probably help a little bit I suppose, but so would better earphones.

Meatloaf is awesome, I saw him live a year or two ago and it was an ace show!

He does occasionally stop to shout at Hiren to carry on whipping me.

Uh, actually that gives a different impression to the one I was going for...

 

So that's what Hiren meant when he said he was the office whipping boy!

May be a different impression, but probably more accurate.

 

I've been using in-ear headphones ever since I've used headphones. Although I'm using a £30 pair of Philips buds and quite frankly I've been very impressed by the quality.

And meatloaf is definitely awesome, but he could be a bit more original with album names.

 

I'm working on... errr... some "stuff" that I can't talk about at the moment. You'll see on the site very soon if I don't fall asleep at my keyboard.

 

Penryn by any chance Tim?

Please let it be Penryn, and tomorrow. Otherwise it's going to be another boring day for me...

 

Oh, there's more than that... I've been working long and hard for about three weeks on a couple of things.

 

I'm guessing this is an original photo:
http://www.bit-tech.net/content_images/2007/10/shure_se110_earphones/b09.jpg
If so: you're wearing them incorrectly I believe The Shure phones are bend back slightly, the idea is to loop them over your ear and then in 'from behind'. In this demo you can see it:
http://www.shure.com/groups/public/...ts/web_resource/us_pa_sefull_html_wrapper.htm
They'll be a lot more comfortable then.
The cheaper end of the line, ie the e110, will generally fit when used incorrectly, but the higher grade ones will simply stick out.

I agree that the foam bits are irritating, after those I used the clear (medium-hard) plastic ones which are much more comfy.

 

Aye, that is an original photo. It's actually my girlfriends ear. I wore the headphones like that though too and never really found the shape uncomfortable. Still, my bad - if the headphones had come with the correct array of tips and packaging then no doubt I would have figured that out though.

 

I tried a pair of generally-recommended budget in-ears (Sony MDR-EX71SL) and, apart from some sound quality issues, just couldn't get on with microphony effects. Distracting noise was picked up from both the cable moving against stuff and bodily functions like swallowing. Not so bad with loud pop but no good for subtle classical. Any effects with the Shure?

There is a tendency for earphones aimed at the yob culture mass-market to boost the bass, sometimes grossly so.

http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCo...603&graphID[]=351&graphID[]=501&graphID[]=681

The Shure 210 look very good at the bottom end, with a sensible fall-off at the top; no graph available for the 110.

 

Hm, can't help but notice the shot of the box was pinched from a certain review site in the network. Ah Bit, how you've gone.

Nice review, though, and it seems a certain writer is a touch of a hipster at heart.

 

Borrowed with permission is more like it - I did try to avoid using that pic, but there's only so many photos you can take of a set of headphones...

 

How is it compared to the E2Cs?

 

^beat me to it, I was just about to ask that. I would be interested to know, as you can get the e2cs very cheaply now as they are discontinued apparently.

 

Having never used the E2Cs, I can't honestly offer a comparison I'm afraid!

 

This is just something that you will always get to some extent with in-ear headphones and is certainly a good argument for not paying audiophile money for them (a nice dual driver set, for around £150-200 is about my considered limit). However, there are ways that this can be reduced. Firstly, using foam tips rather than rubber ones helps to deaden noise transfer from the cable. Also, Shure use thick insulating cables that also reduce this affect. There's not much you can do about noise from bodily functions, as you so nicely put it, because this is simply a consequence of shutting out external noise. Then again, unless you constantly swallow, burp, chew, etc. then it's only going to be as bad as the regular occasional coughing you get at live concerts.

The SE110s don't have anything in the way of a boosted lower end, at least not to my ears. Rather, I think Joe was pertaining to the fact that having the phones properly sealed in the ear creates an illusion of bass. When you actually listen properly or crank the volume up, though, there's nothing there to really fill out the soundscape. All a bit vague, I know, but I think you'll get the idea.

 

That'd make sense, it's one of the first things that is examined by Audiologists for example. If you don't have a hearing loss in the lower frequencies, you get given a skeletal ear mould. Basically it has a hole in it that allows some of the natural air flow in and out of the ear canal you normally get with sound. Sealing that up creates what you could call occlusion, whereby bass is artificially boosted.

In this case the bass isn't actually being produced by the earphone drivers at that level, it just seems that way to the brain due to the limited movement of air in a sealed system.

At least that's how I understand it to work.

 

I have a pair of Etymotic ER6i http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er6i.aspx I got off ebay fairly cheaply and I love them. They sound great too(bass isn't great but it's not bad either considering the type of headphones they are). The best thing is if you are on a plane and use the foam tips you can turn the volume up less than half way on an ipod you can't hear anything but your music, I need to get an amp and see if that makes any difference