Choosing in-ear headphones

[oc_mania]

Hello everyone

Before a week my previous Sony in-ear headphones stopped working after 2 years of use and I`ve decided to buy some new ones.

These are the ones that seem good and are available in my city :

SONY MDR-EX10LPB 13$
PHILIPS SHE3570WT 17$
SONY MDR-EX50LPR 26$
BLAUPUNKT PURE-111 TALK 33$
PHILIPS SHE8000 40$
PHILIPS SHE9000 47$

I would like to ask you - will there be a difference worthy of the price difference between the Philips SHE9000 and the Sony MDR-EX10LPB ? I mean, I don't want to throw money if there isn`t a huge difference and I will never know when will I damage the cables and need to buy new ones.

And another question - are Philips really better that Sony ? I had this argument with a friend and he said that Sony aren`t good and Philips are better, although I used mine for almost 3 years and they made some awesome sound. Also I have no idea how good are Blaupunkt at making headphones so I would appreciate it if you give me some info

 

[ssddx]

i prefer my studio headphones but when situations dictate earbuds (travel, exercise) i stick with either ipod buds or more commonly cheap gummy brand. at $9 a pair for gummy i can replace them every few months when they get nasty from ear goop. i do suggest this methodology.

sony vs phillips... hard to say. this is like asking ford or chevy? each has their own good and bad models. for instance i owned an in ear set from sony and it was great except they wouldnt stay in my ear during workouts. on the other hand, the one sony extra bass around the ear headphones sounded like crap.

for high end headphones i've heard some good things about the klipsch ones. perhaps look at sennheiser as well. not sure if audiotechnica makes any but i love their studio headphones.

 

[blackhawk1928]

If you want high-end headphones, you really need some sort of an amp. I have an iPhone 4S and the headphone amplifier in it is horrific. The iPad 2 for example has a great improvement.

My point is that from my experience, most mobile devices have pretty bad headphone amps to complement high end headphones. It often leads to very distorted low frequency playback. There are fairly inexpensive and very effective amps you can get that connect through Line-in connections on mobile devices that improve sound greatly, so before buying, I would consider an investment into one of those. Just me $0.02

 

[ssddx]

@bh

the stock amp on my android phone works just fine. my ipod classic also works fine.

i have heard that the iphone amp sucked though.

keep in mind that if you take a bad amp and stack another amp ontop of it... you are just going to make things worse, not better.

 

[blackhawk1928]

I know that a bad amp and another amp won't makes thing better. But the Line-In connection is different from the 3.5mm jack. The line-in is digital (I believe) and just transmits signal to an amplifier which then has its OWN 3.5mm jack for the headphones.

 

[ssddx]

in that case then yes it would be a better solution.