Deal Alert: Sennheiser IE8 for $233 at Ecost.com

Is this legit?

The price on ecost fluctuates a lot. Sometimes its at MSRP and sometimes its around the price it is at now. It's legit however. Whether they are authorized I don't know but you can check.

I have emailed sennheiser, and they told me ecost.com is authorized. But I didn't have a good experience buying with ecost. When I got my IE8, the box missed the flip cover (hope you know which part I mean). They said it is new and the sennheiser might have change their design, but how can it be.....

Here is the email from sennheiser FYI

Yes, ecost is an authorized retailer.  The thing to be wary of
is if they have a marketplace, the marketplace sellers are often not
authorized, so make sure that you are purchasing directly from
ecost.
 
 
Regards,
 
Service Department
Phone  860-434-9190, ext. 2
Fax   860-434-1759
Sennheiser Electronic Corp/NeumannUSA
One Enterprise Drive
Old Lyme CT 06371

Don't worry, it doesn't even worth 133$

I can't understand how people do like this...

Because it's a good earphone.  Personal preference always plays a big roll though.  I'm big on finding faults of a product and highlighting weaknesses.  It's the only decent way to absolutely define one product as being worse than another.  I have come to see faults with products less on a preferential role and more on a capability role as in it either can or can not perform the task. In this sense, a product can recreate sound appropriately, be it in a colored way, or it has specific limitations of recreation of sound that prevents it from doing certain things.  It's good to see a product for what it can and can not do absolutely.  This is raw, unbiased capability, and pretty much the only unbiased method to rank products.  Stepping beyond this, all we have is personal preference, and that starts becoming a matter of opinion.  When a product has minimal faults, it is a good product regardless of how it sounds.  Coloration is desirable by most people.

The IE8 offers a lot.  There are a few faults, but I haven't listened to an earphone that doesn't have any.  The driver is sluggish enough at high frequencies to blur together smaller details.  The sensitivity is there, but the bass geared driver has inherent limitations.  It's not bad really, but it isn't perfect either.  The sound stage is massive in sense of distancing.  It's great for that big sound, but it means close stuff sounds far away.  There's basically no sense of proximity and subsequently layering and space between sounds in a 3-dimensional sense.  Those are the only two "serious" faults of the earphone.  Everything else is fixable or a matter of personal preference.

You own the CK10 and value that highly.  The CK10 is another earphone that offers a lot.  The micro detail in the high frequencies is basically unmatched.  It has an excellent sense of realism of sound.  It does a lot of things right.  However, there are also limitations of that earphone too.  The sound stage is a little limited in being able to place a sound in a pinpoint spot in a virtual space and depth of field is a little limited.  Bass on the CK10 can be a little muddlied in the lower frequencies too.  Frequencies response is fixable, and everything else is a matter of personal preference.

I can say something like the CK10 is one of the better devices out there, but the IE8 is a top level product too.  They're geared very different from each other, and certain "likable" characteristics of each will depend upon personal preference.  I liked the IE8 when I owned it.  I still miss it a little bit, but I also understand my preferences well and know I tend to favor other options a little more, not because they are holistically better but because they fit my preferences better.

I read all your post. I wholeheartedly understand and agree with your thoughts including those about Ck10. I respect you.

As you see in my sign, I come from Cks70, also tried Cks90 and many other like Ortofon, Re252, MTPG's. And you know what, I really liked AT Cks90 more than IE8. Admittedly on high frequencies IE8 produce sounds TRUER, however it's more fun to listen AT's. This is just one reason why I wouldn't chose IE8 - btw, I'm not a fanboy of AT.

"Perfectness, preferences..." are both easy and complicated side of matter. I mean none of these are perfect, but really tough to make a choice among "top-tiers". However, the matter I strongly oppose to is how it costs as much as this. If it would perform anywhere near MTPG or W3, I could understand a bit, but not with that hammering bass and a price tag over 350$! Sorry but my 1/3 priced Cks70's were doing the same job, want something better? Then go up to Cks90 or Atrio M8.

OK, I might wrote an exagerrated sentence above for someone else chillin out here, maybe including you, but I confess that it's not that easy to persuade me to accept IE8 as a top-tier, especially with this price tag. Hope you can see my point as well.

I just see it as a matter of the IE8 not doing enough wrong to be tossed out of the top level bunch.  I am more inclined to toss out the SE530 because it does more wrong.  I can say in terms of personal preference that the IE8 is not my favorite.  There are other options that I prefer to listen to on a normal basis.  I just can't judge against an earphone using personal preference.  I prefer to simply state that it can or can't do certain things or it presents sound in "these" sorts of ways, although that's still preferential based on my own perceptive scales(perceived dynamic range, note thickness, articulation, level of detail, etc.).  In the end preference rules.  For example, you liked the CK10 more than the RE252.  I actually liked the RE252 a little more than the CK10, although I could argue that the CK10 offers a little more from a purely functional standpoint.  They are products at a similar level, but each our preferences favored the other.  The IE8 is a product that is geared towards one end of the spectrum in various categories like bass and sound stage distancing.  Some people will absolutely love those aspects.  Others will not.  Like most earphones, I preferred the IE8 with a little EQing.  I tend to find that I can make almost any earphone a little, or a lot, better with good EQing, at least a very flexible, robust EQ.  In this light, I do have the option to make many of the very good but less than ideal earphones out there better.  For example, the V shaped Triple.Fi 10 sounds dramatically different once balanced out.  I can also fix the wide midbass hump on the IE8 or the narrow but significant treble peak on the CK10 and not compromise with either earphone, sort of the same product in a new light.

As for price tag, you should look at used.  There are also deals from time to time on various models.  I think I got my IE8 for $240, a far cry from their more retail $350 price tag.