chad
06-26-2006, 09:10 PM
This may or may not have interest to you guys but I thought I'd share anyway. I really only use headphones for 2 things. Mowing the yard and mixing live (cueing, etc) My live headphones are Sony MDRV700's Although not the pinnacle of accuracy they play low and play loud and don't sound bad at all. In the studio I use Sony 7506's or Sennheiser HD680's.
Last year I talked myself into buying an MP3 player for myself for my birthday. I bought an iRiver H10 20GB (love it, BTW). It came with some Sennheiser ear buds. Although not bad sounding ear buds I found them to make my ears hurt like hell after mowing 3 acres and they were open air designs so I had to play them louder than I wanted to in order to get over the mower. I was getting ringing when done and if I'm tearing up my hearing I'm doing it while doing something I enjoy :) I had contemplated buying some in-ear style headphones since the day i bought it but was afraid to drop the cash. I worked as a monitor engineer for a LONG time and was very spoiled with high end in-ears. I kinda felt that if I did not spend a fortune that I would hate them, the Sensaphonics I used were NOT cheap BTW but sounded AWESOME! So did the Shure E5's that were also my de-facto. I never liked the E1's as they were too middy and really only worked well for guitar players and singers, I always had to EQ the hell out of them to my liking. All the above mentioned were used with custom molds not foamies.
So cutting to the chase. Friday afternoon was the beginning of mowing hell. I woke up Friday morning to find my Sennheiser stock buds in multiple pieces all over the floor. It seems that Punja the War Tiger (my female cat, bitchy) decided that they either tasted good or that I said "huh?" too many times after mowing. This prompted me to do a race inspired research session on affordable in-ears that could be obtained that day. There was no way in hell I was wearing the big Sony's in 90+ degree heat and fish-water like humidity. Best buy sells them for 100 bucks. Hint, MI retailers (music stores) and other pro outlets get a huge discount from Sure for quantity ordering and most of the time Shure sells to them ANYTHING for "end column" Shure is really good at helping the private retailer so calling the local music store scored me them for 85 bucks. Well, an un-disclosed amount less since I worked for them full time for 5 years and still do contract work for them, but, street price.... 85 bucks.
This was money well spent! They sound great! if you aren't used to the style of headphone then you will feel weird putting them in at first but practice makes perfect. On an affordable consumer level these are the best sounding bud-style headphones I have ever heard. Isolation is great even using foamies. I found the plastic ones to be uncomfortable and the silicone is OK but harder to get a seal. Once a good seal is obtained the low end is quite nice. They could use a tad more tippy top end but the more expensive ones provide that. A tickle on the iRiver EQ fixed it right quick, only like a dB or two. They are also quite revealing, more so than I thought they would be. They absolutely SMOKE the older E1's at half the price. The cable is much more durable, a bit heavy but they are built to last. Another nice thing is that you can touch the cable without the sound being transmitted to the ears like a stethoscope (WAY COOL) they are also 16 Ohms so they will play INSANELY loud if need be. I wanged them out and could not get distortion then my common sense said that they were way too loud.
So I mowed the yard, it looks great and was a MUCH more pleasurable experience than rattling my brains with an open air design. If you are looking for a great set of PEM's without breaking the bank I highly recommend them, hit your local music store up, support the local music scene and enjoy!
Chad
Last year I talked myself into buying an MP3 player for myself for my birthday. I bought an iRiver H10 20GB (love it, BTW). It came with some Sennheiser ear buds. Although not bad sounding ear buds I found them to make my ears hurt like hell after mowing 3 acres and they were open air designs so I had to play them louder than I wanted to in order to get over the mower. I was getting ringing when done and if I'm tearing up my hearing I'm doing it while doing something I enjoy :) I had contemplated buying some in-ear style headphones since the day i bought it but was afraid to drop the cash. I worked as a monitor engineer for a LONG time and was very spoiled with high end in-ears. I kinda felt that if I did not spend a fortune that I would hate them, the Sensaphonics I used were NOT cheap BTW but sounded AWESOME! So did the Shure E5's that were also my de-facto. I never liked the E1's as they were too middy and really only worked well for guitar players and singers, I always had to EQ the hell out of them to my liking. All the above mentioned were used with custom molds not foamies.
So cutting to the chase. Friday afternoon was the beginning of mowing hell. I woke up Friday morning to find my Sennheiser stock buds in multiple pieces all over the floor. It seems that Punja the War Tiger (my female cat, bitchy) decided that they either tasted good or that I said "huh?" too many times after mowing. This prompted me to do a race inspired research session on affordable in-ears that could be obtained that day. There was no way in hell I was wearing the big Sony's in 90+ degree heat and fish-water like humidity. Best buy sells them for 100 bucks. Hint, MI retailers (music stores) and other pro outlets get a huge discount from Sure for quantity ordering and most of the time Shure sells to them ANYTHING for "end column" Shure is really good at helping the private retailer so calling the local music store scored me them for 85 bucks. Well, an un-disclosed amount less since I worked for them full time for 5 years and still do contract work for them, but, street price.... 85 bucks.
This was money well spent! They sound great! if you aren't used to the style of headphone then you will feel weird putting them in at first but practice makes perfect. On an affordable consumer level these are the best sounding bud-style headphones I have ever heard. Isolation is great even using foamies. I found the plastic ones to be uncomfortable and the silicone is OK but harder to get a seal. Once a good seal is obtained the low end is quite nice. They could use a tad more tippy top end but the more expensive ones provide that. A tickle on the iRiver EQ fixed it right quick, only like a dB or two. They are also quite revealing, more so than I thought they would be. They absolutely SMOKE the older E1's at half the price. The cable is much more durable, a bit heavy but they are built to last. Another nice thing is that you can touch the cable without the sound being transmitted to the ears like a stethoscope (WAY COOL) they are also 16 Ohms so they will play INSANELY loud if need be. I wanged them out and could not get distortion then my common sense said that they were way too loud.
So I mowed the yard, it looks great and was a MUCH more pleasurable experience than rattling my brains with an open air design. If you are looking for a great set of PEM's without breaking the bank I highly recommend them, hit your local music store up, support the local music scene and enjoy!
Chad