Creative EP-830 durability & Westone UM1 vs. ...?

[Astroquicky]

Hi all,

Once again I'm having durability problems with my CREATIVE EP-830 headphones. I've wasted 3 pairs of these now (though the first two were the EP-630 variant). Once I cut straight through the thin cable when the cord got stuck in my zipper, twice there was a bad connection in the jack connector somewhere at some point. So, while I'm returning the pair to get it repaired within warranty, I've gotten quite fed up with Creative's durability issues. Quite frankly I'm getting kinda terrified that my cables/connectors are going to fail on every pair of headphones I buy now :-S.

Anyway, so I decided to invest in a better pair of headphones that hopefully combines even better sound quality with much better durability. I listen to my headphones anywhere between not at all and 10 hours a day, on average probably about 15 hours per week. About half of that is in my office at university, the other half is when I'm out on my bike, in the train or whatever. Clearly the Creative headphones aren't up for that kind of usage when it comes to durability, or I've just had really bad luck.

I have zero experience with the higher-end headphones, so bear with me when I say that I really like the EP-830's sound quality. It's nothing like my $2000 set of speakers, but it's much better than any non-IEM earphones I've tried. So... I'm not looking to spend $400 or more on some Westone 3's or anything like that. I've been reading great reviews about them but that really is out of my league financially.

Thus I've been concentrating on the $100 price point and the WESTONE UM1 kept popping up on many websites. What I like about them is that

• they're affordable compared with the higher-end's,
• they seem to have great sound quality for the buck,
• they're kinda warm and thus less tiring than some other headphones,
• they are said to be very comfortable and small (unlike e.g. the UE super.fi 3 or the Shure E2C) so I could actually wear them long stretches at a time or even to fall asleep, which I can do with my EP-830's, but not that comfortably,
• they look ok ,
• their bass seems to be having more punch than similar priced IEM's (e.g. Etymotic ER-6i).

My main worries are that:

• I'll be having the same kind of cable/connector durability problems and this time will end up not wasting a $30 pair of headphones, but a $120 pair of headphones,
• the bass won't be as punchy as my current EP-830's. Because most comparisons I read online are the $100 IEM's vs. the $300 IEM's and not the $50 IEM's, the $100 IEM's including the UM1 are usually said to be lacking in bass. Because I have no experience with high-end headphones this leads me to wonder if my Creative EP-830 have even less bass than the UM1's (which I doubt) or have "cheaper" bass OR that the UM1's sacrificed bass for accuracy and I'll thus end up with a pair of headphones with no bass. Since I listen to a lot of electronic music, I do like some bass, and one of the biggest reasons I liked the EP-830's so much is that they actually have bass when compared to most $30 normal headphones.

My questions to you:

• Am I the only one who's been having durability problems with Creative's EP-630 or EP-830's?
• How is the durability of the jacks/connectors/cables in these high-end headphones and the Westone UM1's in particular?
• Does my reasoning in favour of the Westone UM1's make sense, i.e. am I making an informed decision?
• Should I worry about the bass? Or are the Westone UM1's that much better than the EP-830's that the "lacking bass" of the UM1's will still be better than my EP-830's bass?
• EDIT: One other thing I've been wondering about is whether people with glasses experience any annoyances from headphones that have their cords over your ears (like the UM1's)?
• EDIT 2: It has come to my attention that the Sennheiser CX 550 Style II (new version of the CX 95) is only slightly less expensive than the Westone UM1. Any idea how these compare? I can't really find any comparisons...

Thank you so much for your time.
Regards,
Quicky

 

[deadguy99]

durability is supposedly amazing with westones products and you could also look into the Shure se115 the new model they have that has good bass and very comfortable with the black foams.
Ive never seen the Creative brand of earphones but i'd have to guess that anything under 100 dollars is going to yeild a fairly cheap build quality.

Also i wear safety glass's at work which is where i wear my iem's exclusively and i have no comfort issues with over the ear wires, i used to use Shure E2C and SE210's and now Futuresonic Atrio's which i'm in love with. the e2c's which i manhandled too much took 2 years of abuse to ever develop a problem while constantly getting yanked on and taken in and out of my pocket every 15 minutes

so for me i definitely got my moneys worth with my first pair