These at the time were the second product of Shure’s that I had heard and they have really secured my love for Shure’s products. They are a good set of headphones that sound decent
I found my-self needing a set of over-ear headphones for every day use and decided to get these based on a few video reviews. One of the things that surprised me with these headphones is the sheer number of accessories that you get with the package. Shure, give you:
-2* MMCX connector rubber coated cables both of which the same length
-2 sets of Alcantara ear cups. (the cups themselves are stitched together at the seams not glued)
-1* 3.5mm to 1/4 ‘’ Gold plated adapter
-And a hard carry case with compartments to store everything in.
 
Now the accessories that they give you really makes a feature of the headphones stand out (and possibly one of the best things about Shure’s products) they feel solid, Very Sturdy. These are a set of cans that are designed to last. The Alcantara pads that they give you, a feature I pointed out earlier, are sewn up so they are robust and don’t come unstuck with oil (from skin). This seems to have been inevitable and a major point of failure in other brands such as, my Bose QC15 where the two sets of cups I had lasted a year of use (each) before coming unglued. the cups themselves feel so so good on the ears. When you first get them out of the box they are fresh and crisp after a few days of use the Alcantara softens up and feels exactly like a soft leather. The cups inside are filled with memory foam so they are comfortable for extended listening periods and sort of blend in after a while. Many a time I have forgotten I have had them on and ripped the cables from the headphones. Very well thought out from Shure and a huge advantage with MMCX. Onto the cables, they feel beefy and thick, however not at all stiff. They are made of a hard-wearing rubber so I find they get caught on items of clothing. The strain relief on the cables is on every joint and once again I don’t see it getting broken any time soon.
 
The headphones are padded with more memory foam on the head rest for more comfort and as of this point 2 years into owning them, is the only part showing any sign of wear. They are hinged with metal bars that are also used to fit them to your ears. The 1540s could be a little tighter on the against my head, not saying they are hanging loosely on my head but, they could certainly benefit from, and get away with it, because the cups are so soft. This could just be my head and others might not feel that. Despite the srh1540s being so durable in construction they don’t feel heavy in hand or feel heavy on the head. After a few hours of listening they can get a little uncomfortable on the top of the head and this is where I feel them being tightened on the around the head fit would help.
For me, these headphones have been perfect. The sound isn’t amazing but that’s only my opinion as I love bass. They have been perfect because I’m tough on my gear. I don’t believe in having things just to gather dust. These are a serious set of durable cans. I’m not the most careful person in the world and I’ve dropped them a lot, knocked them off my desk countless times, thrown them in my bag (the case is ridiculously huge), ran over the cables almost daily with my chair, ripped them out of the socket of both the MMCX and the 3.5mm side and still, they have stood up to my everyday life. I can seriously say these are some phenomenal headphones. Not because they sound the best but because they are built so so well. In a world now where almost everything is disposable engineered to fail these Shurely(heh heh) stand out to last the test of time, thankyou Shure for making these.
 
 
Is there anything I don’t like about these headphones?
          Yeah, definitely. The ear cups after a while collect grease from your head and if you then put it on paper it makes a huge oil print. Many practice exam papers of mine have this on the front page. They creek slightly when you first put them on as the hinges aren’t oiled. The case they give you is cumbersome and only good for storing all the accessories and the headphones for long periods of time. They also have high impedance in comparison to most of my gear so I have to pump it up a bit but none of that is a real deal breaker for me.
 
Now onto the sound.
from what I can hear, my reference being Arctic monkeys vinyl played on a project turntable, the mids are the most pronounced part of the spectrum i can hear with the lows and highs taking only a slight back-seat.
The bass is detailed and present but not forward and rampant I like bass so this isn’t the best sounding set of headphones for me in terms of sound. In particularly bassy songs such as limit to your love from James Blake there is ample bass and sub bass that rumbles, hits hard and makes my skull reverberate as it should. So, the bass isn’t anywhere near as bad as the qc15s and the bass Is certainly there, I just feel like its hiding. The Mids are clear and slightly pronounced, I feel that they can be in your face at some points in songs such as in atmospheres sugar some of the instruments feel too loud in comparison to everything else. The highs are also to emphasised for my liking and this is probably the worst part as they are very present and sometimes painful James Blake retrograde stands out as probably one of the worst as he really hits some painful high notes which I am a tad sensitive to.
Now I know I’m not the best at describing how things sound in general so ill describe specifics in retrograde at 2:40 the high notes of his voice singing “ooo” is very overwhelming despite this I can still separate all of the instruments well everything sounds in its place and it still sounds clear.
 
One of the things the headphones do very well is imaging, they have a very large tight feeling soundstage which you can pick off specific instruments on the stage. In brohemian rhapsody, for example, everyone can be picked out and placed. If you had your eyes closed, you could point out exactly where things are.
There is no part of the spectrum that I can say sounds particularly bad but also there is nothing astounding in the sound. I’m not saying that they sound awful, not at all but they don’t like £500 which is the RRP or the £450 that I paid for them. I do wholeheartedly recommend them however. I feel that what they lack in sound they make up for in their construction and their accessories.
 
For this review I have used a range of sources and components
Astell and Kern AK100 with a range of m4a, flac, and, mp3 files.
Samsung S6 edge with Google play music
Project debut carbon turntable with pro-jects own amp

I wanted to go up to a high grade of earphone so I looked on head-fi and saw the IE 80s and purchased them from amazon.

    Fresh out of the box they were amazing and some of the best canal-phones I have heard. They felt solid and well-built and the case they come with was very sleek and closes with a satisfying shhhhclick*

 

Firstly the bad,

    Unfortunately that didn't continue as one of the ear hooks fell off and was lost after a week. They are not secured on very tight and pull off with ease. A few weeks after that the silicone tips split and were unusable and the final nail in the coffin for these earphones was that the right ear cable split and stopped working.

Admittedly I have used them continuously for 5 months but i really expected better from a high end top brand of earphones.

 

The ear hooks are quite comfortable and keep some strain off of the cable however they are removable and can be removed. In some ways this is nice as you can wear them as a normal pair of earphones however, the microphonics increase dramatically as expected. I had a little trouble making them fit my ears as they have a core of stiff wire which wouldn't bend easier than my ear. This also meant when I finally made them fit they fitted perfectly, comfortably and were secured brilliantly. Unfortunately they do separate and they don't fit snug up to the body of the earphone so they do little to protect the wire itself form strain unlike the ue900s ear hook which covers the whole piece. As I previously mentioned they also come off very easily so I lost one of them early on.

 

The cables

They were nice to begin with but, without the hooks I found they tugged and pulled at my ears and thus were uncomfortable and irritating to wear over ear. They are the standard Senheiser cables as seen in the IE 8 and IE 60.  Personally I feel that the cables would be of a little higher quality and that they are a major limiting factor of these earphones. Inside the cable appears to be made of copper and the jack I’m unsure of what it’s made from however I know it’s not gold plated (I don’t know if it makes a difference truly) the plastic joins around the IEMs themselves have no strain relief which is my suspicion of why they failed so early on.

 

The box

Oh my, the box (although seen to be paired with their other cheaper earphones) is the best I've seen mainly because the brushed aluminium plates look amazing but the sound, feel and click of the magnetic mechanism inside was smooth and could be compared as the mechanical keyboards of cases. The metal plates are easily dented and this effects the aesthetics of the case but had no effect on the performance of the case or the smoothness of closing the box.

   Inside the box there is a small space for both earphones to be placed with no tips or the tips they give you. This meant when I had to replace the ear tips I had to disregard the box completely as the comply TX500 tips wouldn't fit in the box without ripping the tips or taking them off which was very impractical. I found wrapping the cable in this box difficult to do as the 3.5 mm jack would usually stick out just a little too far to fit neatly.

 

The ear tips

they are very good as they give you a large selection of them allowing them to fit many people’s ears. The isolation of the tips were very good and the ones that fitted were comfortable, especially for listening over long journeys such as the train. The foam tips provided were not very comfortable and I found them to irritate the inside of my ears when taking them in and out over time so I quickly disregarded them.

 

The sound.

These earphones although as short lived as they were, sounded amazing, they sound similar to my Logitech speakers (aka my preferred sound) with a little more bass.

They most certainly have a large bass hump. From my ears the mids and highs sounded crisp and clear but not too emphasized nor too little. The bass is something definitely to experience if you are a bass head its deep and pounding especially if (as with all earphones) you get them in just right.

 
I gave these a 3/5 purely because of the sound quality and the box they came in. unfortunately the value of these earphones I felt was low because of the faults in the quality and production.
The gear I have been using to test these earphones is the ak100 with a range of different qualities of music. Some of the best I found was dust clears –clean bandit, flight –Tristam. & Braken, This is our time -miles Malone and Grab her! – Disclosure