Looking for <$50 ear "buds"?
Sep 6, 2009 at 7:01 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 6

towelie

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Hello head-fi, this may be my first thread in the several years since I've been registered here.

First of all, I'll say that the members here have guided me right in my (few) can purchases. My latest and most recent purchase, the JVC HARX700, definitely delivered in every aspect they were praised upon. If anything (here comes the "grass is greener" part my wallet hates), I feel that they could definitely handle the bass a little bit better, and in a cleaner fashion, than they do. This is especially evident and true when I'm listening to to "underground" hip hop tracks, like live freestyle recordings for instance; the bass sounds muddy and I can actually hear the rattle from the cans.

At any rate, I am more than pleased with the SQ I receive for the ~$30 I spent on these cans, and I am grateful for all the review threads I was able to find on these forums with a quick search. My need now has shifted to ultra-portable ear "buds" though, now that I spend most of my time at the uni in front of a computer. I did skim through the IEM thread and concluded that the literal "In ear" part was not for me. I'll say right off the bat that I was satisfied with the SQ I received from my old Creative Zen V+ stock ear buds when I had them, but I passed them, along with the player, on to my father. It makes perfect sense that they would provide a "truer" and larger factor of noise isolation, but from what I could tell, the Zen stock earphones provided just about enough sound isolation. Sound quality, again, was perfectly acceptable.

creative-zen-earphones.jpg


I'm anticipating some of you will tell me to simply go to Walmart and pick up the first $20 pair of earbuds I see since the Zen's stock earbuds were satisfactory enough for me, but I'm interested in what kind of improvement I can achieve within that price range for portable earphones.

I should mention that I "know" of In-ear phones, where you actually have to twist the device to fully insert it in there, but I'm not very familiar with "In-canal" phones. Again, the ear buds pictured above were good enough for me, so I'm inclined to believe that anything more intrusive than that would be uncomfortable for me.

One last thing: the only really important factor for me here would be the chord length. I would be plugging these earphones in a PC tower, which are typically located on the floor, so I would need a relatively long chord length (or extension) to work comfortably. The design/color of the earphones don't concern me. I will be carrying the earphones around inside my laptop bag which will fit in any 3x3 sq. inch area.



[Very] Long story short, recommend me some better-than-stock-mp3-player ear phones for under $50.
 
Sep 6, 2009 at 4:28 PM Post #3 of 6
The Sennheiser MX760 would have been an excellent option to fulfill your needs. Unfortunately, Sennheiser thought it was prudent to discontinue their great sounding earbud here in the States, and they're no longer available on eBay. (Not sure if the ones listed now are authentic or not.)

Anyway, here's a review that may point you in the right direction: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f103/e...und-up-441400/
 
Sep 6, 2009 at 7:18 PM Post #4 of 6
Quote:

Originally Posted by kjk1281 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
The Sennheiser MX760 would have been an excellent option to fulfill your needs. Unfortunately, Sennheiser thought it was prudent to discontinue their great sounding earbud here in the States, and they're no longer available on eBay. (Not sure if the ones listed now are authentic or not.)

Anyway, here's a review that may point you in the right direction: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f103/e...und-up-441400/



Thanks for the link. Seems that the Yuin PK3's are the winner; at least in the sub $50 range. Shame newegg doesn't carry them though, never really ordered from anywhere else. Head-direct a reputable source? Amazon has them for twice the price.
 
Sep 6, 2009 at 7:45 PM Post #6 of 6
Quote:

Originally Posted by kjk1281 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Head-Direct is great, and a Head-Fi sponsor to boot. I purchased my RE2s from them and it arrived in three days.


I'm going to give it a couple of days before I order because, at this point, even $40 makes me cringe a little.

Thanks a bunch for the help.
 

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