I just posted this in the full headphone forum by mistake. Now I feel a bit of a tit, but here goes:

Hello, I just signed up here because, as the thread says, I've got a few ideas in mind for a new set of in-ear headphones. They might be the idiot ideas of the man who invented the chocolate teapot, or the deodorising spray with built in lighter attachment, but we'll see! Basically, I wanted something fairly decent, noise-cancelling not a necessity, but definitely something with decent bass response. I always hated those tinny little earphones you got with Gameboys and rubbish mp3 players that sounded like the chipmunk's rendition of everything you were listening to. I'd be using them for gaming as well as music. Ideas so far are:

Shure SE102s;
Sennheiser CX95s;
possibly a set of Skullcandy in-ear phones (given their apparent bass response).

Any help would be delightful!

What is your budget and musical taste?

If the Shure SE102's are anything like the old e2c, then I would say avoid them. The bass response is awful. The CX 95 on the other hand has good bass response, so I'll suggest that as a good introduction into the world of canalphones.

Budget, I'd say up to £150 unless I can be tempted by some face-tearing alternative. Musical tastes ranges everything from '70s rock to drum and bass to all forms of metal, which is a bit of a hassle to plan around. I guess a good all-rounder would beat specifics, especially given as they need to handle games/films and so on.

Shure E2c/SCL2/SE102 are all the same earphone, and they all suck.

I'll throw out suggestions for Denon C551K (change the tips though, the stock ones are too thin to seal properly), Sony MDR-EX71 if you can find them. CX95 are good as well.

Denons are probably the best of the lot, but you NEED to change the tips. The stock ones give you a terrible seal, losing all bass and making the treble sound extremely harsh. I'd suggest using UE universal silicones (the same ones used for the super.fi 3 and 5 Pro, etc) or if you are made of money, Comply foam tips.

Edit: 150GBP budget? With that kind of budget you can get some pretty nice IEMs. If you're a basshead (which seems likely) I'd say Atrio M5.

What makes the Demon ones better? And yes, I'm made of money! I'll just tear my money leg off and pay with that.

Edit: I'm not entirely a basshead, I just wanted in-ear phones with solid bass response. I didn't really want to lose any of the other frequencies, just have bass more comparable to full-sized headphones (obviously I know they're not going to touch them in that area).

And moving into the outer limit of my budget here, what would be the next step up for quality bass response and sound in general? If there's a set for £200 which is miles better (or something similar, you get it), I'd happily pay extra.

The Denons I got for $50 on Buy.com and with good tips they sound really quite good, albeit bass-heavy with recessed mids--they have the "loudness curve." They aren't really my cup of tea, but they have a nice sound. Also, the cable isn't terribly long, even with the extension, and the driver housings themselves are made of aluminum, so they're very abuse-resistant.

Hmm, they sound a bit...cack.

Oh you are in the UK, that makes things slightly easier.

The most expensive headphones I've tried is the Super.fi 5 Pro, which I tried in Micro Anvika, Selfridges (London) and found it to be very good sounding. Unfortunately I personally found them too large for my taste, but if you don't mind the size...

Anyway £200 can pretty much get you almost anything though, Custom-3, X10, UE10 etc. even Sennheiser's much touted IE8. Even £150 can get you the previously mentioned Super.fi 5 Pro or Denon 751 with plenty of spare change.

BTW, Klipsch Custom-2 for £49.99 from £106 so you may want to read up about that as well. Impressions are good, and at that price it is hard to beat.

Klipsch Custom 2 - High Performance Noise-Isolating: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

Ahh, even more choices now! I guess it'd be best to actually go out and try some, I live in Manchester though so I'm not sure what big audio places we have up here. All these names, the X10, UE10 etc, I have no idea what any of these are like so I'm a bit more confused now than I was. So far it seems the Atrio M5s would be most up my street because of their notable bassiness, though I'm not sure how that affects the clarity of the sound in general.

Sorry, I was referring to the Klipsch Image X10 and Ultimate Ears Triple Fi 10 Pro. You can probably try UE and Denon stuff at Selfridges (Micro Anvika). I know the one in London has demo units where (if you ask nicely) customers are allowed to try.

well for the money the custom 2's are a really good buy excellent for £50, but if u willing to go up to £200 then thats SE530 t.fi 10 or senn IE8 territory, i have the 530s and i think they are great and plenty of bass the IE8's might be better if u like tons of bass though

E2C can sound nice if paired with amps. I recently tried it with FIIO amps, sounds much better. The bass is more fuller and the treble is not fatiguing. The sounds also comes more and not as recessed as without amp.

Bottom line, E2C sucks if no amps.......