Bose In-Ear Headphones
Mar 23, 2009 at 6:57 PM Post #31 of 43
Quote:

Originally Posted by dweaver /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Hello Skeptic, I agree with your assessment of the Bose headphones completely. They fit easy, sound open, have huge bass and are not bad especially for free. I am also glad that you feel the NE-7M's are a better set of phones as it helps ease my concern on spending hard to come by cash on them.

Have you perchance had any experience with Klipsch Custom 1's, if so how have you found they compare to the NE-7M's. Just curious as I have a chance to buy the C1's on sale in Canada at London Drugs for about the same price as I'm paying for the NE-7M's after dollar difference and shipping costs. The bit of reviews/experience I'm reading about the C1's would seem to suggest I may appreciate the NE-7M's more due to more bass and larger sound stage but since I can not test the C1's, any clues from people who have used both are very welcome.

I know I would love some of these balanced armature phones people keep talking about which is why I have avoided trying to find some to listen to. So long as I don't find out what I'm missing I won't be tempted to throw $300-400 in to something my wife will kill me on LOL. If these NE-7M's are even close to as nice as every that raves about them say, I think I may have a nice winning set of phones to last me until my financial situation gets more stable. If I REALLY LIKE THEM, I may not ever bother to go higher as I am not a true blue audiophile (all my Head-fi reading may change that though, given time...) and am more just looking for that Holy Grail match in regards to a headphone that has the bass, midrange, and treble I would like, along with nice detail, a good sound stage, and nice left to right separation.



dweaver - I haven't heard the C1's, so I'm afraid I can't offer any basis for comparison. But assuming you get a good fit and seal, I'm pretty confident you are going to enjoy the 7m's.

In fact, I don't think there's any reason to assume you would prefer a more expensive balanced armature iem to the 7m's. Dynamic drivers have their benefits, and a fair number of us actually prefer them to the sound of ba's. [In terms of higher tier IEM's, this would mean sennheiser IE8's (dynamics) > Etymotics/ Shures/ and Westones (ba's).]

To further elaborate, my Etymotic ER-6i's are ba's, but I far prefer the 7m's. The 6i's are more articulate (a crisper, faster, more distinct start to each note) but to my ears, they lack realistic resonance, sustain, and decay, particularly in the lows. Some people love this sort of sound signature, and advocate for "tight" bass. But to me, the 6i's just don't sound realistic, even when listening to bass light music like classical and choral. By contrast, the 7m's are a bit less detailed (although far more detailed than the Bose), but more transparent, and they have the sort of resonant bass and decay that I need for fulfillment. In all candor, had I not had an opportunity to jump on the ncix super bargain price on the IE8's a while back, I probably wouldn't have bothered to upgrade for quite a while.

Anyway, hope you enjoy them! If you ever want to invest a little more to take them a step or two forward - I do agree with Headphoneaddict that the Shure e2c silicone tips improve the 7m's over the pre-packaged tips.
 
Mar 23, 2009 at 7:09 PM Post #32 of 43
Quote:

Originally Posted by skeptic /img/forum/go_quote.gif

Anyway, hope you enjoy them! If you ever want to invest a little more to take them a step or two forward - I do agree with Headphoneaddict that the Shure e2c silicone tips improve the 7m's over the pre-packaged tips.



Thanks Skeptic, I am looking forward to hearing these new phones in fact the wait for them to arrive is driving me crazy! I will price out the Shure Tips and see whats left in the piggy bank. I have a couple pairs of Comply T400 tips at home now that my wife and I are sharing/consuming, how would they compare to the Shure tips other than my not having to throw them away when they get yucky?

For shure tips which ones should I be looking at:
Black Soft Flex Sleeves
or
Clear Flex Sleeves
 
Mar 23, 2009 at 7:31 PM Post #34 of 43
The problem with BOSE is they are bad, for their price range.

But if the "price" of the BOSE is FREE, then it's fantastic!! Anything other than cheap, stock earbuds for free is a win!
biggrin.gif


And jonathanjong is right, sell them and buy something better. You can probably make a good profit by selling them to someone who thinks "BOSE is the best". Buy a better headphone, or two, or an amp!!
 
Mar 23, 2009 at 7:44 PM Post #35 of 43
Quote:

Originally Posted by dweaver /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Thanks Skeptic, I am looking forward to hearing these new phones in fact the wait for them to arrive is driving me crazy! I will price out the Shure Tips and see whats left in the piggy bank. I have a couple pairs of Comply T400 tips at home now that my wife and I are sharing/consuming, how would they compare to the Shure tips other than my not having to throw them away when they get yucky?

For shure tips which ones should I be looking at:
Black Soft Flex Sleeves
or
Clear Flex Sleeves



I haven't tried them, but the T-400's reportedly work very well with the 7m's. Probably makes sense to hold off and see how they sound before bothering with the Shure tips. As far as cleaning them goes - I wish I could recall the specific thread - but someone did post a solution in this forum that reportedly restored them to as new condition without degrading the foam... you might search around.

I went with the black soft flex sleeves you linked above, although I sort of doubt that there would be much of a sonic difference between the two colors.
 
Mar 23, 2009 at 7:51 PM Post #36 of 43
Thanks Skeptic, I will search for the thread on cleaning the T400's as I do own 5 pairs and if I can keep them clean to boot they might last me a year :)
 
Mar 23, 2009 at 8:12 PM Post #37 of 43
hey OP, nice to see another member from Toronto on head-fi. enjoy the bose IEMs! dont worry about playing certain kinds of sounds for burning in. just listen to your music at your regular volume. enjoy
dt880smile.png
 
Mar 23, 2009 at 8:36 PM Post #38 of 43
Quote:

Originally Posted by d.n.d. /img/forum/go_quote.gif
hey OP, nice to see another member from Toronto on head-fi. enjoy the bose IEMs! dont worry about playing certain kinds of sounds for burning in. just listen to your music at your regular volume. enjoy
dt880smile.png



there's no way he could enjoy the music at regular volume esp if he commutes with his Bose IE.. that's one of the shortcomings I've found
 
Mar 24, 2009 at 4:23 AM Post #39 of 43
Quote:

Originally Posted by ah_long /img/forum/go_quote.gif
there's no way he could enjoy the music at regular volume esp if he commutes with his Bose IE.. that's one of the shortcomings I've found


i meant in terms of burning in lol. i have read how some people think playing pink/white noise at a higher volume helps with burning in.

in any case, yea your point is valid.
 
Mar 24, 2009 at 7:09 AM Post #40 of 43
Quote:

Originally Posted by d.n.d. /img/forum/go_quote.gif
i meant in terms of burning in lol. i have read how some people think playing pink/white noise at a higher volume helps with burning in.

in any case, yea your point is valid.



sry for the misunderstanding..
but ya.. the Bose does respond to burn in.. but not a lot.. i think there's more of a psychological factor..
 
Mar 24, 2009 at 12:28 PM Post #41 of 43
Until last thursday I owned a pair of the BOSE IEM's, I had them for almost two years but traded them for a pair of IE8. I must say I always enjoyed them quite alot (though being a bit ignorant about what real IEMs can produce). Now with my 5-days sennheiser IE8 experience, although they haven't fully burned it yet, I still dont regret sticking with the BOSE IEM's for so long.

Only thing you certainly have to do is tune up your equalizer for treble or otherwise its just a big bass mudpool, once done they sound quite decent to be honest! Don't expect a very theatrical and realistic sound but its certainly enjoyable and fun.
 
Mar 24, 2009 at 8:08 PM Post #42 of 43
Skeptic, thanks for the advice about the NE-7M's. The comply tips work great and the mention of the fact they could be cleaned helped. I found the thread on this and a combination using hydrogen peroxide, rinsing, and then swishing them in boiling hot water for 10-15 second worked like a charm.

I found that while I liked the comply tips I was wishing they wouldn't make the headphones stick out so much so I could lie down easier with my headphones in. So I played around with the mountain of tips I've got with all the various headphones I have bought and found a pair of mystery tips that are really sealing my ears (almost to well!!) and they have almost the same audio signature as the comply's.
 
Mar 24, 2009 at 8:34 PM Post #43 of 43
Blu-Ray as promised, here is what my take is having recieved my NE-7M's.

The NE-7M's have very similar volume levels as the Bose, in this I mean I get nearly the same volume level at the same setting from my Ipod with both headphones. The NE-7M's are very easy to drive. They have EXCELLENT isolation and I find them to be very comfortable although not quite as comfortable as the Bose because they go into my ear canal whereas the Bose do not, the flip of this is they will not fall out or slide around like the Bose do.

Now to their audio quality...

They simply BLOW AWAY THE BOSE! They have about 3/4s of the bass of the Bose which I actually think is better. The bass it tighter and is not as bloated in the midbass, the midrange is very nice, and the treble sounds wonderfull with no sibilince (as compared to my Panasonic RP-HJE550 phones, or the heavily muted treble of the Bose). They have a wonderfull sound signature that is like the Bose in some respects but way more refined. I was thinking I would use these for the daytime and the Bose at night when going to sleep (I listen to special music designed to help me sleep using Binaural beat technology) but these are comfortable enough and sound so much better I am going to use them for both day and night I think.

I feel very confident I will be using these same phones a year from now and not feel any need to buy more expensive ones. They do all I could ask for, sound quality wise. The fact that I can stop my music and skip tracks etc with the mic button is just added gravy.

If you can sell your Bose phones for the cost or near cost of the NE-7M's I would highly recommend doing so, if not the Bose are still fine phones.

It really is to bad NuForce does not have a large retailer selling their product in Canada they simply put about 90% of the sub $100 earphone market to shame and while I can not compare them to other $150 phones, suspect they would compete well against most of them.
 

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