[Ghostfit]

Quote:

 
That, and the confirmation from Phillips that they are exactly the same earphone. 
 
JB, I believe you went into this thread with noble intentions, and I agree that the SHE3*** punches well above its price point, but you need to reflect on the FOTM effect on Head-Fi. I would also note that several custom IEM manufacturers report that they lose demo models at every trade show/meet they attend - in many cases, the housings are cut away from the cable. The implication is that their competitors are trying to reverse-engineer their earphones - dissing Etymotic in favour of these Phillips cheapies is effectively saying that R&D is wasted effort. God knows that the Chinese have had plenty of years to disassemble something like the ER4P and analyse those aspects of the sound which can be cheaply replicated. I'm a little stunned that I haven't seen Grado clones in Asia yet - would seem like a slam dunk if we are to believe the claims made here that the component parts are cheap to manufacture. 

 
You seems to be implying  that Philips is another chinese company who'll rippped off custom IEM manufacturers.
 
I'm sorry, but last time I checked, Philips is a large company from the Netherlands with a HUGE R&D in Lifestyles, Healthcare and Lighting, I can't possibly imagine them ripping anyone off.
 
I don't know what your beef is with this thread, I read the reviews and because it a <$15 IEM, was willing to risk it and try a pair out for myself, knowing full well that it's not gonna knock the $200 king of the hill off the throne, but guess what, I found that they can actually put SOME $200 IEMs to shame. I can only thanks guys like JB (and Dsnuts) for sharing and potentially saving me some money.
 
If only high end IEMs costing >$200 can be given rave reviews here, then I think Head-Fi would be a poorer place/forum reserved only for snobbish audiophiles, i.e: casual listeners/beginners are not welcomed.
 
Sorry for my rant.

 

[H20Fidelity]

Phillips SHE3580 offer a sound that you usually cannot find for $15, that's what this thread is about.

Many people who have tried this IEM also own many high tier products. Not only do many others own higher priced IEM's, a large majority agree these are fantastic value for money. It takes people that have heard high end gear to let the rookies know they're in for a treat. I may not use mine all day everyday compared with my selection, However I find the SH33580 an easy one to suggest for new comers. I tried many cheap alternatives in my early days here without any real success, no-one pointed me in the right direction.

Then I found these, which may not be ultimate but if the signature is preferred they do as above take out some competitors easily in the $100 $150 range. I won't name and shame IEM's I feel SHE3580 take out the park but I will say they're out there in my tried / bought list and a few come to mind. Once you see repetition in a thread you can make judgment for yourself on whether they're all it seems.

Too many people including myself have enjoyed SHE3580 over such a small, small, majority who haven't.

 

[estreeter]

You seem to have completely driven around the points I was trying to make, then freaked out at what you saw in the rear view mirror .... do you even know what a 'Chinese OEM manufacturer' is ?? 
 
As for not being able to imagine a 'huge multinational' being incapable of ripping anyone off, I'm afraid your naivety is in truly scary territory with that one. They might be headquartered in the Netherlands, but they will do whatever it takes at the manufacturing level to beat their competitors - thats called  'business'. As the Apple/Foxconn debacle illustrates, the brand on the gadget you buy only has to have 'plausible deniability' to be able to ignore whatever the Chinese are doing at the production end of the business. I'm not accusing Phillips of anything, and I'm sure their legal team have form letters ready to go in the event that someone raises any such allegation in the future. 

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Look, I really doubt these 3580 have ripped off any advanced tech from anybody or that indeed they are anything but mass produced Chinese phones using well proven tech that's cheap to realize. And I don't doubt that the etys are measurably better than the 3580 in some ways other than frequency response. But the thing is, I can't hear the difference besides the difference in FR (for which neither the 3580 nor the etys come close to my ideal).

As for ripping off poor Chinese workers, do you know that the Foxconn suicides are related to working conditions? Do you know that the OEM for Philips treats its workers badly? More importantly, are such working conditions the norm or the exception in China? Heck if you have to close down any place where a suicide or a killing takes place most schools and highrise residences would be closed by now.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

And should we just close our minds to all cheap products blindly trusting that all $100+ phones are NOT made in Chinese sweatshops?

Anyway I think I've earned the right to diss etys after how they broke down on me repeatedly. The last breakdown was simply inexplicable. How can I NOT diss them when the $10 phones last longer, are more comfortable and sound just as good for my purposes??

 

[kmhaynes]

Quote:

Phillips SHE3580 offer a sound that you usually cannot find for $15, that's what this thread is about.

Many people who have tried this IEM also own many high tier products. Not only do many others own higher priced IEM's, a large majority agree these are fantastic value for money. It takes people that have heard high end gear to let the rookies know they're in for a treat. I may not use mine all day everyday compared with my selection, However I find the SH33580 an easy one to suggest for new comers. I tried many cheap alternatives in my early days here without any real success, no-one pointed me in the right direction.
 

 
Very well said.  I fit that category exactly.  It took me about 4 years of buying/selling to work my way up to an excellent used Etymotic ER-4P.  When I first heard it, I knew I had found the earphone worth keeping for a long time.  But I still check out cheap bargains, and when I saw the title of this thread, I had a feeling the OP was not going to stake all he owned that the SHE3580 would actually beat the ER-4P in a controlled audio comparison.  But they are fantastic for $15, and yes for newcomers looking for a great all-rounder that they don't have to guard with kid gloves (because they can buy another set at Walmart, CVS, wherever), these will give you a really good sound -- not ER-4P detail level of course -- but very balanced, comfortable and enjoyable.

 

[qwertasdfg24]

Quote:

 
Very well said.  I fit that category exactly.  It took me about 4 years of buying/selling to work my way up to an excellent used Etymotic ER-4P.  When I first heard it, I knew I had found the earphone worth keeping for a long time.  But I still check out cheap bargains, and when I saw the title of this thread, I had a feeling the OP was not going to stake all he owned that the SHE3580 would actually beat the ER-4P in a controlled audio comparison.  But they are fantastic for $15, and yes for newcomers looking for a great all-rounder that they don't have to guard with kid gloves (because they can buy another set at Walmart, CVS, wherever), these will give you a really good sound -- not ER-4P detail level of course -- but very balanced, comfortable and enjoyable.

+1 for me. I started browsing this forum back in 2007, bought my very first pair of Ety ER6i based on user reviews, numerous discussion, used it until cable broke(my own abuse), then replaced it with a pair of Ety HF2(i love the sound signature of Ety's). Had the good fortune of getting  MTPC for a cheap Christmas deal, thought i was set for life. As much as i love listening to my high-end sets, i need something cheap, and decent quality, so i can afford to use it on a daily basis during my work day. I don't want to replace another $75 Ety ER6i every 6 months, however, a reasonable $10 SHE3580 is something i'm perfectly happy to listen to regularly. Thanks JB!
 
I'm still waiting for my Sony Hybrid to arrive, and have Equaliser app purchased on my iPhone, can't wait to try out JB's EQ samples!

 

[estreeter]

Joe, I raised Foxconn as an example of  'plausible deniability', not in an attempt to smear Phillips directly although I admit that it came off that way. My objections have little to do with suicides in the Chinese workforce - workers have died at their desks in Sony offices in Japan and no-one would accuse the Japanese of running third-world sweatshops domestically. The current trend in China is for large manufacturers to build factories in places like Vietnam and Bangladesh where labor is even cheaper, but thats a topic for another thread. 
 
What I am trying to say (and failing to get across, apparently) is that Phillips is just another giant corporation and any attempt to imbue them with an ethos that puts people before profits is, at best, misguided and (potentially) dangerous. When someone in that giant conglomerate decided to release a range of earphones, the sales projections would have been signed off by someone who has little or no interest in audio, and that person (or department) would have been looking very closely at the bottom line : unit cost vs projected sales. Phillips may just be big enough to be able to dedicate some R&D to their range of cheap audio, but being able to outsource all of that to a Chinese OEM and say to management 'This is *exactly* what it will cost us to put 100K units on the dock in Shenzhen' has to be extremely attractive to product managers and beancounters alike. We do have large organisations who put people before profits - Head-Fiers who wish to support one such organisation need only click on this link:
 
http://www.worldvision.com.au/Home.aspx
 
Corporations live and die on the expectations of shareholders - I don't doubt that there are some very good people working at Phillips, but for them to make money on a product which lands on the shelf for 10-15 USD, I sincerely doubt that includes any R&D at European labor rates, Audio simply isn't their core business (yes, I know about their CD/DVD transports and the Fidelio) - why would we expect them to allocate a large chunk of their budget on a relatively low-tech segment when they clearly have much bigger fish to fry ? 
 
Getting back to the SHE3*** - I agree that its an excellent introduction to 'better sound for minimal bucks' - I just think there are a few Head-Fiers who have mistakenly read that as 'OMG - why would anyone pay $300 for IEMs when these are clearly da bomb !?!'.  I admit that there is a point where this IEM thing gets very silly - the K3003 and various FAD models seem crazy to my way of thinking - but I'm not going to draw a line through everything under $500 simple because the Phillips sound very good for their asking price. 

 

[Max F]

These are only giant killers with the proper parametric EQ.  They EQ like champs because the bass is already powerful and flat down to the 20s.  The treble peaks can also be tamed.
 
Straight out of the box, they have a fun sound (V-shape FR) with some serious deep bass.  A true bargin.
 
Not sure why this thread derailed into Chinese worker conditions, lol!

 

[qwertasdfg24]

Quote:

... I just think there are a few Head-Fiers who have mistakenly read that as 'OMG - why would anyone pay $300 for IEMs when these are clearly da bomb !?!'. ...

 
You might be right about that, but honestly, do we need to worry about people who can not process logical thinking that is going to think that OMG $300 IEM are useless because these SHE3*** exist! I do believe majority of the reply in this thread, are just happy to have learned about a cheap alternative beater, while still enjoying their own high-end gear.

 

[JVineaux]

I have a friend who always used to put a board up on the back of his smaller valve guitar amps as he said they gave the sound a lot more low-oomph. I wonder if the reason these headphones sound the way they do is because of the tiny, completely enclosed casing.

 

[Ghostfit]

Quote:

You seem to have completely driven around the points I was trying to make, then freaked out at what you saw in the rear view mirror .... do you even know what a 'Chinese OEM manufacturer' is ?? 
 
As for not being able to imagine a 'huge multinational' being incapable of ripping anyone off, I'm afraid your naivety is in truly scary territory with that one. They might be headquartered in the Netherlands, but they will do whatever it takes at the manufacturing level to beat their competitors - thats called  'business'. As the Apple/Foxconn debacle illustrates, the brand on the gadget you buy only has to have 'plausible deniability' to be able to ignore whatever the Chinese are doing at the production end of the business. I'm not accusing Phillips of anything, and I'm sure their legal team have form letters ready to go in the event that someone raises any such allegation in the future. 

 
Take a good look around you !   ...tell me what is NOT made in China these days ?
 
I've been on intimate visits to the local Philips factory as well as several Chinese factories in Shenzhen and Guandong, they're nowhere near the level of "sweatshops" some quarters have made them out to be. ....I wonder who is the naive one here.
 
PS: I like your signature, it's really apt !

 
Anyway, I'm done with the Off Topic discussion, back to the SHE3580, anybody tried the free Android app - "Audio player with built-in eq" by Alexander Kazakevich with the Philips ?
the 25 band graphic and parametric EQ looks impressive.
 
...I'm ready to take my SHE3580 up to the next level !

  

 

[estreeter]

Quote:

As for ripping off poor Chinese workers, do you know that the Foxconn suicides are related to working conditions? Do you know that the OEM for Philips treats its workers badly? More importantly, are such working conditions the norm or the exception in China? Heck if you have to close down any place where a suicide or a killing takes place most schools and highrise residences would be closed by now.

 
The sentence I have quoted is the first mention of Chinese workers in the last two pages of this thread - I previously referred to the 'Apple/Foxconn debacle' as an example of a multinational trying to deny responsibility for the actions of their Chinese OEM - AT NO STAGE DID I MENTION ANYTHING ABOUT 'poor Chinese workers' BEING EXPLOITED. 
 
History will prove me right on each of my arguments.  Apologies for the derailment. 

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Then... what do you find objectionable about Foxconn??

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Quote:

 
Take a good look around you !   ...tell me what is NOT made in China these days ?
 
I've been on intimate visits to the local Philips factory as well as several Chinese factories in Shenzhen and Guandong, they're nowhere near the level of "sweatshops" some quarters have made them out to be. ....I wonder who is the naive one here.
 
PS: I like your signature, it's really apt !

 
Anyway, I'm done with the Off Topic discussion, back to the SHE3580, anybody tried the free Android app - "Audio player with built-in eq" by Alexander Kazakevich with the Philips ?
the 25 band graphic and parametric EQ looks impressive.
 
...I'm ready to take my SHE3580 up to the next level !

  

Check out my new thread on equalization
http://www.head-fi.org/t/615417/how-to-equalize-your-headphones-advanced-tutorial-in-progress
 
In which I will reveal my full methodology for equalizing my headphones, step by step