I am looking to get some half decent headphones for portable music. I have the "rest in the ear" type phones at the moment and was thinking about replacing them with either some better quality "rest in the ear" type or some in ear bud types. From a purely sound quality point of view, which type gives the better sound generally?

Also, recommendations welcome. Am looking at Sennheiser CX400, Sennheiser MX760, Goldring GX200, Shure E2C and a few others.

Chris

Sound for pound, you can't beat Skullcandy Hesh. Cost me the princely sum of £18 on play.com

Sound for pound, you can't beat Skullcandy Hesh. Cost me the princely sum of £18 on play.com

Smokin buds are on my short list too.

Chris

I'm really pleased with my CX400 but apparently Denon do some nice buds too. About £90 IIRC so you'll have to really want them!

Personally, I wouldn't shove anything other than Shure SE210's in my lugs.

Pricey at £70-80, but really clear and deep bass. Also works rather well for sound isolation.

Sennheiser get my vote - still using CX300s and love them for the bass response and sound isolation, although it's uncanny at first when you can hear your own footsteps so clearly, and even the cable rubbing against your clothes

Frequency response and results you'll hear depend on age - amplifiers /speakers/headphones can advertise frequency range as 100 -25k - but even at 18 ,you'll never hear the extremes ( have tried it in practice with broadcast equipment ) -but you will notice the effects .Best expert for you is bit of equipment on side of head - things called "EARS" - go out and find what you like best .Strangely enough ,EARS are no respector of price .

Frequency response and results you'll hear depend on age - amplifiers /speakers/headphones can advertise frequency range as 100 -25k - but even at 18 ,you'll never hear the extremes ( have tried it in practice with broadcast equipment ) -but you will notice the effects .Best expert for you is bit of equipment on side of head - things called "EARS" - go out and find what you like best .Strangely enough ,EARS are no respector of price .

I have reference level sound quality at home and can still hear up to nearly 20KHz and down to below 17Hz. Auditioning Hi-Fi is easy enough, cobble a brief short list together, leave debit card details with shop and bring home demo equipment for a few weeks to see how well comparative bits sit in the system. In ear headphones are not something you can do this with, hence my choice will be based on consensus.

Price wise, I am listening to MP3 files, so nothing is going to sound particularly impressive. Budget is limited to £40.

Chris

I bought some JVC HA-FX34-S from Asda for my Ipod. They isolate sound pretty well and sound pretty good once there sat in the right position.

They didn't cost the earth either.

Gone for the Sennheiser CX400 II. Well recommended by quite a few folks and importantly they come with a good selection of different bungs and are generally highly rated. I liked the idea of getting something more expensive, Shure and Beyerdynamic were looking good too. But ultimately these are only for occasional use (hotel nights, beach lounging, underground travel etc) and it seemed a bit of a waste spending more. Got them from a place called Sound Bites for £28. Will check they are not fakes before opening them

Chris

Always used, always will use and highly recommend Shure.

I have had Shure E2C's for over 3 years now and they are fantastic, a great range of sound with thumping base. They are the only "in ear" type I have ever been able to get on with.

So the Sennheiser CX400 II Precision? A few days of listening has given me a feel for these now. Supplied with EDIT 6 pairs of buds, 3 sizes of double waisted types and three sizes of single waisted buds EDIT, I found the pre fitted bud pretty much perfect for my ears. As with any of the in ear canal type headphones, positioning of the bud is critical. Push it in too far and you get overblown wooly bass, not far enough and you get almost no bass, but a happy medium is easy to achieve and once in place, they stay there. Listening was done with MP3 files ripped from CD at 320 kb/s

Hilliard Ensemble and Jan Garbarek "Parce Mihi Domine" was conveyed with reasonable accuracy, the saxophone suffering a little brittleness in crescendos. The music was however completely robbed of its venue and ambience. Much of this is down to the MP3 process, but both the original phones that were supplied with the mobile and the studio cans I have worked better here. Similar applied to Ralph Vaugh Williams "Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis". Here the music got congested and orchestral work is not IMO the preserve of these 'phones.

Turin Brakes "Feeling Oblivion" worked so much better. Subtle and stunning vocal harmonies were nicely conveyed with separation from the instruments and a nice lightness of touch. Good imaging too.

M83 "Moonchild" gave the CX400s problems. The dense midband has a huge amount of texture from multiple synths that were reduced somewhat in detail by comparison to the both the studio cans and original headphones, however the CX400s gave the music realistic weight.

Future Sound of London "Her Face Forms in Summertime" has a complex but less dense set of sounds and was really well presented by the CX400s. Here they comfortably bettered the studio cans in all respects. Dimensionality and imaging were good. Also noteworthy, they demonstrated bass extension here too, with stuff in the mix down in the 20Hz region coming through nicely.

Nusrat Fate Ali Khan "Fualt Lines" made good use of the bass end of the CX400s while allowing the vocal work to shine, again, with decent sound stage. The studio cans get cluttered in the lower registers here and the supplied earphones don't even try.

Pixies "Monkey gone to heaven" steps the pace up. Here the relatively sparse rock mix keeps some of the anger intact (though not all of it) and the general presentation is pleasant enough, but something is not quite right. Move on to..

Radiohead "Just" The savage jagged ferocity of the guitars seems to have gone mostly awol here, which seems at odds with the amount of high frequency energy the CX400s reproduce generally. It is not particularly challenging material, but it is dense and the studio cans convey more of the essence, the anger of the track.

Finally, I checked out 3 of the brother in laws dance tracks. These are funky, slightly retro numbers with driving bouncy bass and a mix done with consideration to keeping everything moving along quickly and keeping it uncluttered. Bingo! It is immediately apparent that this is what the CX400s are best at.

Bass goes pretty deep. It can get a bit ponderous at times though, not exactly taut, but entertaining most of the time. The midband is a bit of an oddball. It can create a really crisp and well defined acoustic, but throw a dense mix at it and the middle frequencies can start to lose cohesion quite markedly. The is aptly demonstrated by the loss of ferocity in "Just" but superb performance in sparser material. Top end is energetic and generally accurate. There are no obvious prominences across the frequency range. Initially, I thought there was a bit of a recessed mid band, but further listening shows this to be a loss of texture and detail when things get too busy.

Generally, the CX400s are pretty enjoyable to listen to. There are reservations with MP3 files and orchestral music with these phones because they reveal MP3 artefacting with ease, but muddle complex orchestral combinations of sound quite a bit. I had reservations about the quality of the phone that is working as the MP3 player, but plugging them into a mates I-pod showed no improvement sonically. Should I have stretched to the Shures at over double the money? If I listened a lot on the phone, then yes, I may have had better results from the more expensive kit, but I cannot shake off the feeling that these already resolve too much for use with MP3 files if you are used to serious sound quality. What my listening test have revealed is that MP3 format is really bloody grim in terms of sound quality (it is the first time I have seriously auditioned MP3 format music). Wonder how these would sound on a Walkman Pro cassette player?

Chris

Edited 24 March, 201016 yr by Chris GB

My vote is for the Sennheiser CX 400's

Can't fault them, good sound quality and I got them for about £25 ish.

Ben

Etymotic Research ER6i for me! I paid about £70 for them IIRC and worth every penny. Go on www.ilounge.com and they review most makes and models of headphones and their reviews are pretty accurate too.

Shure are very good too and if you can afford them ultimate ears and fantastic. I personally do not rate senheiser. I have heard some good things about the new monster beats stuff, but again they are expensive! But Etymotic Research get my vote every time, customer service is also fantastic, they have sent me countless free bits when I have asked for them too! I am a performing musician and VERY fussy about sound quality!

I have read and heard good things about the Shure ear phones, but they are pretty expensive (I think I saw them on the Gadget show). If you want HiFi "on the ear" type then I would recommend ones made by Grado. We have a pair of Grado SR-80s bought for about £100 and they give excellent sound Quality.

Have a look in the Headphone section of this forum to see what people recommend. AV Forums

I really did not want to spend too much on these. I liked the idea of Shure et al, but considering they are for very occasional listening to MP3 files, they did not need to be that good. In fact, the CX400s reveal many MP3 artefacts anyway, so better sound may not be too desirable.

Chris

Shure E2C's for me, best I have ever had, they are now over 5 years old and still going strong. They never fail to impress.

I've got Shure E110s but I just can't seem to get on with them. None of the supplied earbuds seem to be right for my ears and I can't get them seated correctly everytime. They do sound very good when I do manage to seat them properly.