TheMessiah
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can you guys help me out in my thread?
Recommendation Needed for IEM's. And music.
- Thread starter shrimants
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scannon18
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That's a shame, we hate losing people to $30 headphones. . . or Bose. . .
shrimants
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I just feel overwhelmed. I dont have the money to spend on one pair after another trying to find that perfect fit for my ears.... If I was going out with about 300-500 bucks dedicated solely to a pair of IEM's for full time use, I'd have very little problem because pretty much no matter what I buy it will sound rather good. Over here theres just the chance of overpowering bass, overpowering treble, and all these other tiny little things that I had never even bothered taking into consideration before. Sure, I notice things like soundstage, but only barely. Bose on-ear's and a pair of outdated headphones that are now distributed as one of those "comes with the player" pairs doesnt give me much room to compare.
Really the big problem here is that I have no reference to go off of (because the reference costs 1000 bucks from westone or ultimate ears, or 1500 for a pair of senn. HD800's or similar). The reason I cant decide is because I am coming from basically shi* headphones and trying to bust into the nice sounding pairs without actually having any experience. What advice is there for a first timer? I cant keep ordering and returning pairs from amazon because I lose 5 bucks in shipping each way every time. Test driving 5 or 6 sets of earbuds would end up costing me half my budget... im just so confused....
The only other foray into audio I've had is listening to a pair of Audioengine A5 speakers. They sound great but theres a large chunk in the low to mid section where it is overbearingly loud at those frequencies. It must be my room's acoustics or something, but I dont know what i can do about that, if anything. Also I've got a Creative Soundblaster X-fi-notebook. That thing sucks so much I never bother using it. Not compatible with windows 7 or vista, unsupported by creative a mere 1 year after launch, no hardware acceleration, didnt come with any added cabling....basically 80 bucks wasted on getting 5.1 output via optical toslink to my logitech z5500 speakers.....
If I had an actual job and was making 1000 bucks worth of disposable income every other month, I'd have no problem buying a pair of super expensive custom fit in ear monitors and never buying another set of headphones ever again. Unfortunately, I'm a full time student and cant really do much in the way of cash apart from a 30 dollar weekly allowance....and I have to fund dates with my equally unemployed yet allowanceless girlfriend too.
Theres a little more info about me. I have no problem buying a used set of phones off of someone on the forum or some other similar transaction via paypal or something, I would hope that they clean the phones before handing them to me though. That could be another source of recommendations. Keep them coming though. Even if I cant afford half of this stuff I can at least learn about what the sound is like.
One other question: how do I figure out what my preferences are in terms of soundstage, low, middle, high range, etc if all I have is a set of bose on ears and some Koss Plugs (11 bucks, good noise isolation, abysmal everywhere else. used for lawnmowing back in the day)?
Really the big problem here is that I have no reference to go off of (because the reference costs 1000 bucks from westone or ultimate ears, or 1500 for a pair of senn. HD800's or similar). The reason I cant decide is because I am coming from basically shi* headphones and trying to bust into the nice sounding pairs without actually having any experience. What advice is there for a first timer? I cant keep ordering and returning pairs from amazon because I lose 5 bucks in shipping each way every time. Test driving 5 or 6 sets of earbuds would end up costing me half my budget... im just so confused....
The only other foray into audio I've had is listening to a pair of Audioengine A5 speakers. They sound great but theres a large chunk in the low to mid section where it is overbearingly loud at those frequencies. It must be my room's acoustics or something, but I dont know what i can do about that, if anything. Also I've got a Creative Soundblaster X-fi-notebook. That thing sucks so much I never bother using it. Not compatible with windows 7 or vista, unsupported by creative a mere 1 year after launch, no hardware acceleration, didnt come with any added cabling....basically 80 bucks wasted on getting 5.1 output via optical toslink to my logitech z5500 speakers.....
If I had an actual job and was making 1000 bucks worth of disposable income every other month, I'd have no problem buying a pair of super expensive custom fit in ear monitors and never buying another set of headphones ever again. Unfortunately, I'm a full time student and cant really do much in the way of cash apart from a 30 dollar weekly allowance....and I have to fund dates with my equally unemployed yet allowanceless girlfriend too.
Theres a little more info about me. I have no problem buying a used set of phones off of someone on the forum or some other similar transaction via paypal or something, I would hope that they clean the phones before handing them to me though. That could be another source of recommendations. Keep them coming though. Even if I cant afford half of this stuff I can at least learn about what the sound is like.
One other question: how do I figure out what my preferences are in terms of soundstage, low, middle, high range, etc if all I have is a set of bose on ears and some Koss Plugs (11 bucks, good noise isolation, abysmal everywhere else. used for lawnmowing back in the day)?
shrimants
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BTW if you have a recommendation that goes over the budget but you find the item on ebay within budget for buy it now price or on these forums for buy it now price, go ahead and recommend them (pref. with a link to the ebay post/thread). I have no qualms about buying from ebay.
scannon18
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There is a for-sale section to this forum. If it helps you rest easier, any headphone recommended here in your price range will sound good. Many people here like to obsess about differences in sound from different headphones, but that is because it is their hobby. The differences certainly exist, but it is important to keep in mind that you will probably be satisfied with the first headphone you try. I was. And after owning a pair of solid headphones for a while, you will begin to understand your listening "preference," and will know what you like and don't like in a head phone.
But it doesn't have to be very expensive, or involve more than one purchase a year.
But it doesn't have to be very expensive, or involve more than one purchase a year.
dbdynsty25
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Quote:
That's pretty much the way I look at it. I started off with the Sennheiser CX300s...went up to the ie6s a couple years later and now after a couple more years, I'm on the Turbines. I definitely don't obsess about sound, I just wanted to find a way to give my Zune HD a little more low end clarity and the Sen ie6s just couldn't cut it. They were outstanding with my Cowon S9 and the J3, but the Zune doesn't produce bass like the Cowon's do (Jet Effect EQ helps a lot)...so I went looking for a bass-oriented headphone. So really, I would have been fine keeping my ie6s except they just don't pair that well with a Zune without amping in my opinion...so here we are.
shrimants
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My sound experience has been like this: I used to just listen to music on a pair of those sony ear clip type earbuds. They sounded more or less fine to me. Then I started listening through my dad's Koss over-ear headphones. They were retailing for about 60-80USB back in the day when he bought them, but they were worth about 40 when I started listening to them. Immediately, I noticed a difference. I loved how rich and mellow the sound was. They had crystal clear bass (compared to those earbuds, mind you), and the treble wasnt all that bad. I was listening to bands like pink floyd, led zeppelin, system of a down, etc through them.
After those broke I finally started looking into some different head gear. I settled on the Koss Sparkplugs because they were only 11 bucks and had "sickening bass". Well they sounded fine in the bass department and since I mostly used them to listen to my PSP and not ever actually any music, they did the job rather nicely. They broke within the year though. 11 bucks only gets you so far. After a while I started looking into high quality audio and seeing what people were using. Shure was getting a lot of hype at the time and I was still new at the whole research thing. I figured price and quality are directly proportional and thats all there is to it.
I made my biggest mistake of a purchase with Shure E3C headphones from the apple store. They had absolutely no bass and though they had a very high quality cable that near eliminated microphonics when they were worn over the ear, I couldnt like them. At the time my music was almost exclusively 192kbps mp3's. If there was anything below 256kbps, howevr, the shure's let me know about it by reproducing the sound so accurately that all I could concentrate on was the cracks, whistles, buzzes, and all sorts of audio artifacts. Pretty soon I was back to using those 11 dollar Koss because I couldnt stand the complete lack of bass and absurd accuracy of mid/treble reproduction.
I stumbled across Creative EP-630's, and they offered me a really nice blend of bass, treble, and mid range sound and for the last 3 years that has been enough. But now I'm going through that musical metamorphosis where old teeny pop music just doesnt soudn worth listening to and talent/good mixing becomes a prerequisite. The only songs I've been able to keep listening to without getting annoyed at the mood of the music are by radiohead, pink floyd, and Muse. Sure, system of a down is still there but they mixed their music so abysmally that I can hear the distortion through all but the crappiest of headphones. Even my car's speakers cant ignore the distortion of the original mix. I bought the bose after a while simply because I had some cash burning a hole through my pocket and i was a young idiot. I had experience with the bose sound and it sounded way better than those ep-630's. Much faster response, much clearer in any range, and unlike the ep630's they stepped off on the bass just slightly so that everything was balanced. In the 630's the bass was, at times, overpowering.
So now I know a few things about my preferences listening to the Boss. I like crystal clarity in the bass range, I like sound reproduction that is relatively flat. By this I mean if you were to pump an increasing sine wave through the phones from 6hz-19khz, you would get the same amplitude of sound across the board (assuming the input wave was the same amplitude). I like the driver being able to pump out many notes per second without any of the notes bleeding into one another. I like an extremely wide soundstage so that, depending on the mix, I can either feel like i'm standing there watching the band record or so that the sound is able to get in front, behind, above, and right in the middle of my head with different sounds. The bose does this nicely, they are balanced a little bit forwards and do a complete crap job of playing sound in front and behind the head, but anything sound in line with the ears can be played/felt either right in the middle of the brain, or along the top of my skull. I do love the bose ability to play subsonics too, though I'm not expecting that out of an IEM driver. I hate that high pitched hissing/tssss sound, and I also dont like it when the sound doesnt go loud enough on my android device to do the music justice. On the bose, its like walking a tightrope. If the phone is set to max volume I'm good, but if the phone goes even a little less then the music suddenly sounds like crap. Random notes sound louder/softer than others, some instruments disappear altogether with the bose on lower volumes....
I definately wanted something comfortable enough to wear to bed and inexpensive enough to not worry about screwing up at the gym. I would never take a pair of Ultimate Ears Reference series with me and work out with those on....I found a pair of westone UM1's for about 150, same with a set of UE Triple.Fi. The thing with money is, I figure consumer benchmark for price of headphones is set to about 30 bucks for a "decent" pair. If that pair lasts about a year, you get your money's worth in terms of longevity. So basically I take the price of what I'm buying, divide by 30, and expect them to last about that many years with rigorous, daily use. The Shures didnt last me more than 9 months. The creatives last for about a year each before starting to sound a bit crappy, having the silicon slide right out of the ear, etc. the bose are nearing the end of their lives, but for 35 bucks I can refresh the pads, which are the only broken parts on them thus far. The driver stll sounds nice, though I'm expecting them to break hardcore before the year is over. That is why I'm trying to get a set of nice headphones that will last me another 2-3 years or so before having to buy another set. I'm not looking at Amps any time soon. If nothing else, i'll have my own desktop sound card by then. I plan to let the desktop be a giant media PC, capable of pumping out blu-ray, watching tv in HD, etc, and I dont think i'll be needing a seperate amp with it just to listen to music. If nothing else i'll have it pumping sound AND video via hdmi to a nice amp/reciever combo, and just plug giant headphones into that amp IF I have to.
After those broke I finally started looking into some different head gear. I settled on the Koss Sparkplugs because they were only 11 bucks and had "sickening bass". Well they sounded fine in the bass department and since I mostly used them to listen to my PSP and not ever actually any music, they did the job rather nicely. They broke within the year though. 11 bucks only gets you so far. After a while I started looking into high quality audio and seeing what people were using. Shure was getting a lot of hype at the time and I was still new at the whole research thing. I figured price and quality are directly proportional and thats all there is to it.
I made my biggest mistake of a purchase with Shure E3C headphones from the apple store. They had absolutely no bass and though they had a very high quality cable that near eliminated microphonics when they were worn over the ear, I couldnt like them. At the time my music was almost exclusively 192kbps mp3's. If there was anything below 256kbps, howevr, the shure's let me know about it by reproducing the sound so accurately that all I could concentrate on was the cracks, whistles, buzzes, and all sorts of audio artifacts. Pretty soon I was back to using those 11 dollar Koss because I couldnt stand the complete lack of bass and absurd accuracy of mid/treble reproduction.
I stumbled across Creative EP-630's, and they offered me a really nice blend of bass, treble, and mid range sound and for the last 3 years that has been enough. But now I'm going through that musical metamorphosis where old teeny pop music just doesnt soudn worth listening to and talent/good mixing becomes a prerequisite. The only songs I've been able to keep listening to without getting annoyed at the mood of the music are by radiohead, pink floyd, and Muse. Sure, system of a down is still there but they mixed their music so abysmally that I can hear the distortion through all but the crappiest of headphones. Even my car's speakers cant ignore the distortion of the original mix. I bought the bose after a while simply because I had some cash burning a hole through my pocket and i was a young idiot. I had experience with the bose sound and it sounded way better than those ep-630's. Much faster response, much clearer in any range, and unlike the ep630's they stepped off on the bass just slightly so that everything was balanced. In the 630's the bass was, at times, overpowering.
So now I know a few things about my preferences listening to the Boss. I like crystal clarity in the bass range, I like sound reproduction that is relatively flat. By this I mean if you were to pump an increasing sine wave through the phones from 6hz-19khz, you would get the same amplitude of sound across the board (assuming the input wave was the same amplitude). I like the driver being able to pump out many notes per second without any of the notes bleeding into one another. I like an extremely wide soundstage so that, depending on the mix, I can either feel like i'm standing there watching the band record or so that the sound is able to get in front, behind, above, and right in the middle of my head with different sounds. The bose does this nicely, they are balanced a little bit forwards and do a complete crap job of playing sound in front and behind the head, but anything sound in line with the ears can be played/felt either right in the middle of the brain, or along the top of my skull. I do love the bose ability to play subsonics too, though I'm not expecting that out of an IEM driver. I hate that high pitched hissing/tssss sound, and I also dont like it when the sound doesnt go loud enough on my android device to do the music justice. On the bose, its like walking a tightrope. If the phone is set to max volume I'm good, but if the phone goes even a little less then the music suddenly sounds like crap. Random notes sound louder/softer than others, some instruments disappear altogether with the bose on lower volumes....
I definately wanted something comfortable enough to wear to bed and inexpensive enough to not worry about screwing up at the gym. I would never take a pair of Ultimate Ears Reference series with me and work out with those on....I found a pair of westone UM1's for about 150, same with a set of UE Triple.Fi. The thing with money is, I figure consumer benchmark for price of headphones is set to about 30 bucks for a "decent" pair. If that pair lasts about a year, you get your money's worth in terms of longevity. So basically I take the price of what I'm buying, divide by 30, and expect them to last about that many years with rigorous, daily use. The Shures didnt last me more than 9 months. The creatives last for about a year each before starting to sound a bit crappy, having the silicon slide right out of the ear, etc. the bose are nearing the end of their lives, but for 35 bucks I can refresh the pads, which are the only broken parts on them thus far. The driver stll sounds nice, though I'm expecting them to break hardcore before the year is over. That is why I'm trying to get a set of nice headphones that will last me another 2-3 years or so before having to buy another set. I'm not looking at Amps any time soon. If nothing else, i'll have my own desktop sound card by then. I plan to let the desktop be a giant media PC, capable of pumping out blu-ray, watching tv in HD, etc, and I dont think i'll be needing a seperate amp with it just to listen to music. If nothing else i'll have it pumping sound AND video via hdmi to a nice amp/reciever combo, and just plug giant headphones into that amp IF I have to.
scannon18
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Seeing as how you have a pretty good idea of what you are looking for in a headphones, I recommend browsing through some reviews, even if you don't understand the colorful language that is used. Take the reviews with a grain of salt, and then take a small risk when you've saved enough money. If you do a bit of homework you won't have to spend more than $80-150, and you definitely will not need an amp.
shrimants
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senn what, ie8's cx300? 800? ie7? the IE are way out of budget, but I can try to find them either used or find someone willing to sell theirs....
jjmai
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@shrimants,
if you plan to wear them to bed or in the gym, some of the recommendation (such as Turbine) in this thread definitely don't apply, due to size, weight, or microphonics.
Meelectronics m6 is worn over the ear, no microphonics, and doesn't stick out much from ear. It's one of the most recommended IEMs for gym and running, from I read here. But its bass may be lacking compared with what you are used to, at least vs EP630. (I've never tried Bose.)
Senn cx300 and ep630 are likely to sound indistinguishable to untrained ears, though more experienced audiophiles do claim differences. Keep in mind that both of these are very compact IEMs compared with other offerings, so don't under-estimate other IEMs' sizes.
Recently, I found Klipsch s4 to be surprisingly comfortable, and doesn't stick out of ear too much, and can be worn over the ear to reduce microphonics. Maybe something to consider.
if you plan to wear them to bed or in the gym, some of the recommendation (such as Turbine) in this thread definitely don't apply, due to size, weight, or microphonics.
Meelectronics m6 is worn over the ear, no microphonics, and doesn't stick out much from ear. It's one of the most recommended IEMs for gym and running, from I read here. But its bass may be lacking compared with what you are used to, at least vs EP630. (I've never tried Bose.)
Senn cx300 and ep630 are likely to sound indistinguishable to untrained ears, though more experienced audiophiles do claim differences. Keep in mind that both of these are very compact IEMs compared with other offerings, so don't under-estimate other IEMs' sizes.
Recently, I found Klipsch s4 to be surprisingly comfortable, and doesn't stick out of ear too much, and can be worn over the ear to reduce microphonics. Maybe something to consider.
shrimants
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Quote:
Perfect. I'm glad you told me that and have experience with the ep630's. Just for your info, the bose sound almost entirely the same but they are a bit better at distinguishing between notes. I dont claim to be an audiophile, but I do have sensitive hearing to some limits. The microphonics on the 630's are nonexistant when I sleep because I dont move around, but when I'm running at the gym they are abysmal. I was looking at the klipsch S4's, though more accurately the S5i's. I figured that even though volume buttons wont work under android, they might eventually. Furthermore, the fact that they have the microphone/play pause button that DOES work is nice for me.
I was looking through meelectronics' line up and I couldnt figure out what was their best headphone. Their product naming scheme makes no sense. i'll look through that massive review and see if I find reviews for the S4 and the CX300's. I'm not overly concerned about the fit because I plan on doing a Radians Earplug hack on them. That company sells custom molding that turns into a thick, rubbery, foamy substance. Basically you mix the 2 putties together, shove it into your ear, and then wait about 10 minutes for it to harden. After that you just cut a hole in for the IEM's. I was going to go about it slightly differently, in that I was going to wear the IEM's for a while to see where they point into my ear, and then push the IEM's into the soft-ish mold so I can get a definate projection of where the hole should be. Then I can use a drill bit to make a perfectly sized hole.
Update from my findings: Found IE7 and 8, and triple fi for rather cheap on ebay compared to original price, scared to buy from them. Still looking into monster turbines. Need to get a review of EP630 (for comparison) and cx300, along with S5i/S4 (from what ive heard the S5i only fixes durability issues with the S4)
dbdynsty25
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As long as you use the correct tips and they fit in your ears well, the Turbines are absolutely fine for the gym. I use mine at the gym with the Monster Supertip Foams and they don't slip out at all...regardless of the size/weight of them. It's all YMMV when it comes to earphones, so what one guy says with regards to fit definitely doesn't apply to everyone...just a counter to JJMAI's point. Oh, and the Turbines can easily be worn over the ear...in fact, I am doing it right now. I don't do it at the gym, but I do use the shirt clip to keep the cable from getting caught on equipment and whatnot.
I don't do it at the gym, but I do use the shirt clip to keep the cable from getting caught on equipment and whatnot.
shrimants
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Yeah i'm kind of sick of the whole design of the CX300/EP630's. I was looking at senn's line of CX stuff but the 980's are like 350 bucks! for that much I can find some really good custom IEM's, and for a little more I could even get the 1964T's. I think what I will do is get the moster turbine from amazon (too afraid of ebay fakes, and they are like 170 at best buy so that is out), and also get the Radians custom molds. Perhaps 2 sets of those. That way i'll be able to fix it if I make a mistake the first time around.
Mdraluck23
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Soundmagic PL50's are pretty cheap.
Thanks shrimants for starting this thread. I was about to start a thread and ran into yours and it worked out real well. Hope you don't mind.....
I had the EP-630s long time ago and enjoyed them but the better half has been enjoying them the last few years.
Thanks to this thread, I jumped on the Turbines for $74.00 (Thanks for the heads up and link). Hope it was a good choice since I debated it for 30 seconds..lol....
I had the UE 5 Pros a while back and sold them due to the ear placement. They were a bit uncomfortable and took a long time to make them fit correctly. So, I'm going to give IEMs another shot.
Two questions for Turbine users, if I may:
1) Is the cable symmetrical or asymmetrical (can't tell from the pics)? Looks like they are both the same length. Which is good, for me. I have some Beyer IEMs that have one cable longer than the other and it drives me nuts.
2) Do they need an amp or sound great from a DAP?
shrimants, I should receive them Friday and could give you quick impressions if you'd like...
Sorry for the partial hi-jack of the thread...
I had the EP-630s long time ago and enjoyed them but the better half has been enjoying them the last few years.
Thanks to this thread, I jumped on the Turbines for $74.00 (Thanks for the heads up and link). Hope it was a good choice since I debated it for 30 seconds..lol....
I had the UE 5 Pros a while back and sold them due to the ear placement. They were a bit uncomfortable and took a long time to make them fit correctly. So, I'm going to give IEMs another shot.
Two questions for Turbine users, if I may:
1) Is the cable symmetrical or asymmetrical (can't tell from the pics)? Looks like they are both the same length. Which is good, for me. I have some Beyer IEMs that have one cable longer than the other and it drives me nuts.
2) Do they need an amp or sound great from a DAP?
shrimants, I should receive them Friday and could give you quick impressions if you'd like...
Sorry for the partial hi-jack of the thread...
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