I own a pair of CX 495 IEM's, along with a variety of other earbuds and IEM's, and I can say that the CX 495 have earned a solid place among other headphones costing many times their price. I got my CX 495's from a Newegg sale for $25, including shipping. Their clarity, spectral balance, comfort, and competence to display the spatial, tonal, timbral and textural aspects of sound is quite impressive. I also appreciate about them that they do not display sound in a "super-magnified and close-up" field of hearing, and yet, they give a very nicely detailed and intimate sense of the sound being listened to - just from a more polite distance. They also do a wonderful job portraying what is the audio version of "aerial perspective" in visual art. A further away sound, well, sounds further away, because it is portrayed as a more airy sound than a closer sound - as if more air got mixed in with the sound because it travelled through more air to reach the ear. Along with this sonic portrayal ability comes the really beautiful layering of sounds - with multiple sonic discriminants to intuitively hear and feel the layer within which each sound is portrayed as inhabiting.
To be fully open about the rig in which I have been using the CS 495's, it's a:
Nationite S:Flo2 (line out) -> Whiplash Audio hybrid (TWAg+TWCu) mini-to-mini cable -> iBasso D10 (fitted with a TopKit of opamps and buffers), or a RSA SR-71A Blackbird, and, finally, the Sennheiser CX 495. I'll be trying the CX 495 with more portable sources soon - like a Sansa Clip, and an Hisoundaudio AMP3 (v1) and Studio players, and a Rocoo PDAA-1 digital player. I'll likely also try (with the Clip and Rocoo, especially) a FiiO E6 (using a Whiplash Audio hybrid and/or TWAG mini-to-mini) between the player and the E6. But, for now, I'm using the CX495 with a transportable rig the sound of which I especially value and enjoy to see how competent they are to display such a well-formed sound. And, as I guess can be detected in my description of the performance above, I am finding them to be quite competent in displaying the high, quantity and quality, of the information content of the sound to the ears.
The other earbuds and IEM's amongst which I am listening to the CX495's to arrive at the assessments above are:
Sennheiser MX 980, 880, and 25 (edit: 500, not 25) (blue) earbuds,
Hisound Audio PAA-1 earbuds,
Yuin PK2, Pk1 earbuds,
Brainwavz alpha, M0, M1, M2, M3, B1 IEM's,
Shure se530 IEM's.
Alas, my pair of Etymotic ER4S canalphones have stopped making sound, so I am not able to include them in this comparison with the sound of the only-more-recently available CX495. I CAN say this, however. That I enjoy the highs of the CX495 in a way that is very close to the way that I REMEMBER enjoying the highs of the Ety ER4S. I describe such highs as gorgeously illuminated, without even the slightest hint of silibance, harshness or glare. Given the unreliable nature of sonic memory, I cannot give such a comparison much weight - however, it makes me very happy that I can currently enjoy the highs of the CX495 in place of the highs from the now-soundless shells of the Ety ER4S.
And the CX495 hold their own as a valued listening instrument among the more portable earbuds and IEM's listed above.
Also in my regular sphere of headphone listening instruments are the:
ALO hard-wooded and Jenna-Cryo-Wire recabled SR225 phones,
Senn HD650 after-market fitted with an ALO Jenna-Cryo-Wire replacement cable,
also available for use with the HD650 is a Stefan Audio Arts Equinox HD650 replacement cable.
Stock Grado HF2,
An ALO modded and recabled Ultrasone 780 (the so-called ALO-780),
Senn HD600 with a Cardas (smurf-blue) replacement cable.
Also, amongst this full-size set of headphone listening instruments, the CX495 hold their own as a valued listening instrument.
I'm amazed at the sonic competence that Sennheiser was able to pack into so small and relatively inexpensive a set of IEM's as the CX495.
And, I'm very happy to be able to describe their sound in such positive terms.
Edit: The CX495 have a 4 foot cable, with symmetrical-length wires from the "Y" to the earpieces.
