CX500 or UE Metro.Fi 170?

[RollerBall]

My CX500s broke as the one ear has gone really muddy and quiet so I need to get an upgrade.

I don't want to spend more than £20 because I tend to break my IEMs a lot from screwing them up in my pocket and have to replace them every 6 months (done this with CX300, CX500 and many randoms before)

So I'm looking at the CX500 off play again for £16 or the UE Metro.Fi 170s for about the same price off play.

I'm planning on using it on my Zune 80gig and I listen to a range of music, but mostly punk and rock.

Imput?

 

[sknight]

Ok, my review is extremely preliminary, and like everything else, subjective, and also highly dependent on the player I'm using. I use an iaudio 7 and an x5, so I'm able to not only get relatively high outputs, but there are lots of soundshaping options between them (more on the 7).

Only got the metros today, as I couldn't handle my Denon c252's that I've had only for a couple weeks and put Shure tips on. The sound was just pure garbage, though they profited greatly from burn in. I bought the metro 170's because I didn't want to spend a fortune on getting another pair of Denons (5 series, whatever, and then the 7 series), as the prices weren't that great. They also had Sennheiser's IE series, again with poor prices. Also the upper end Sonys. The other options were Bose, AKG, lower end Panasonics, a 9800 series Philips, and most of the UE line. So I got the 170's and was so pleasantly surprised at their out of the box performance, even compared to my Shure e3. Lots more bass. Isolation is not as good.

I can't speak of much more, as they are new and I have to go through my music to get a full scope, plus burn them in more. As a value, these are great. Even in and of themselves, they do perform well. Just prep to turn the bass down a bit, unless you like that. The Denons were pure garbage.

 

[nikp]

The Metro fi's are junk. Get the UE500s!