erm sorry to be a headphone snob but apples earbuds are about as worse as you get, they are truley awfull and it takes a special effort to find a headphone that sounds worse then them.
The apple offerings are well overpriced for what they do. The JVC marshmallows are nice to use. Big headphones are a different story. For those with audiophillic tendencies, I'd suggest Shure, Seinheisser or Sony. Music producers might like Pioneer or if they're serious AKG. And those who care more about style might prefer Skullcandy.
I ahve EXACTLY the same problem as you, and I agree on the wole canal-phones situation, my current earphones are MX360's slightly classier than the MX300 (in my opinion) and have lasted a few months, but can't guareentee they wont go the same way as every set I've ever owned, and Sony are sooo the worst, they ALWAYS break
Now here's a question; is there any point using fantastically expensive, oxygen free, liquid gold earphones with magnets driven by the tears of angles... if you're listening to mp3s on an iPod? I was just thinking, it is an iPod. Perhaps just string and yoghurt pots would be better
Bear in mind with expensive players you're paying for storage and other features that are nothing to do with the audio quality. Change "at least 10%" to "at least £15" and it's a more sensible figure. I don't like canal-type because of noise pickup from cable-movement. swallowing, etc., the earphone equivalent of someone with a bad cough at a concert. So, to get back to the original question, just what is there in the non-canal in-ear design that are worth looking at? So far I've found the Yuin range and a few Sennheiser eg, MX90VC. They also often get damned with faint praise, eg
Well obviously there are limits, but not much below £50 is going to be limited by the mp3 format, if anything. And if one ever feels they are being limited, one can always switch to lossless. There's a hell of a difference between bog standard earphones and some decent ones though - even on 256kbit mp3's from an Ipod (which, by the way, given a good file to play can sound pretty damn good). edit: There's not a lot in it, but I think 20% is about right. If you're going to spend £250 on a player spending £25 on some earphones at a minimum is probably about right really. I had MX500's a few years back, they went the same route as all my other earphones have. They weren't bad sound quality wise, but nothing to write home about. They were better than Apple's freephones, but not by a massive ammount. My Yuin PK3's were lovely, but since if this pair were anything to go by they run at over £10 a month, I think I'll be avoiding further pairs Anyone have any idea whether the extra few bob are worth it as far as the difference between Senny MX500's and the lower ranges go?
My argument was that if you've only spent £25 on a basic player (eg, 2Gb storage, a minimal display) you still need the same better earphones. An example, many reviewers put the iPod Shuffle sound quality above the much more expensive iPod HD models.
spec maybe you should stop spending money on headphones and take care of the ones youve got... get ones with a windy case thing, or leave them hanging round your neck under your shirt when youre not using them rather than scrunching them into your pocket... and yeah the px series from sennheiser are pretty decent, but if you dont use the rather chunky case (which is a fair bit bigger than most mp3 players) for them they will probably break quicker than the mx series...
Yeah, fair enough. Mine stems pretty much from the fact that people buy high end players but don't bother buying any better earphones than the ones that come with them. Which is stupid. We agree in principle I think at least. Haz, I do try to leave them around my neck mostly, but that isn't always desirable. Taking care of them in general, well I do make a little effort - but I just reckon that earphones should be able to stand up to being shoved in a pocket. It can't be that complicated to make a durable inner cable.
thing is in any moden well designed audio player the limitation is primerily the mechanical transducer, they genrate the greatest amount of distortion. You should always buy as good headphones/speakers as you can afford. As for skull candy they are nasty almost as bad as the apple buds with the problems at the bloated bass freqancies. Also they don't make you stylish they make you look like a prat that lights glittery things in their ears to show how much money they have.
QFT, very annoying girl who is much too proud of her stupid Skullcandy headphones, raving on as if they invented the concept of closed back headphones
I find the worst culprit tends to be any right angled 3.5mm connector, they always seem to break on one channel and leave you wigglling them around to get two Its not in the manufacturers interests to make stuff that lasts ten years they want you to buy more and more, just like certain laptops which seem to have a built in self destruct sequence set to 12 months and 1 day after you buy it
I don't quite understand why you're breaking headphones all the time. I've got several pairs that have seen daily use over the years and I've only broken one set (see below). I don't rate Sennheiser at all, having bought some mx510s which are very average SQ-wise and really uncomfortable to boot. My current favourites are actually the Sony ones that came with a walkman phone (w810i). I'm sure they're not supposed to be good, but they sound better than the Sennheisers and are ten times more comfortable I should probably try some ~£50 in-ear phones before I can comment though. I don't find that at all. The only headphones I have ever broken have been straight-plugged ones - and I took out the headphone jack of my MP3 player at the same time (Fell off bike and landed hard with it in my pocket...). I like the right angle
Alrite..i use these earphones myself, they've got good bass, nice quality finish and really sleek look..i love these. I've been using these for a year, and i put them in my pocket and i run with them. here's a picture showing it. this one is my own NW-A608 is the model number. YES..several of my friends want it soo bad.
