Long story short:
I listen to a lot of music (everything from classical to Guns & Roses), mostly on my widescreen iPod nano. My previous IEM´s were AKG 324P´s, which were a big step up from the included ones. I used them for around 8 months, until they got crushed in an accident at the gym
So I´m nowhere near an audiophile and all this is all new to me, but since I think there´s a lot of people out there in a similar situation I thought I´d post my story...
So I found myself in need of new IEM´s. I had been lurking these forums for a while already, at least every now and then. This time I decided to try IEM´s that would be a step up from the previous ones. To be honest I was satisfied with the way the AKG´s sounded, and I was a bit sceptical about how much the sound quality would improve in the 150+ euros range. I still decided to take the leap and originally settled on the Q-Jays, which cost around 130 euros here (Finland). As I was ready to place my order I found out that the Sennheiser IE8´s were sold for 205 euros at a nearby store, which was a big suprise to me. I had read this thread and some reviews online, but since I was expecting a 350 euro price tag I didn´t see them as option. So I was, to say the least, pleasantly suprised to see that they costed only around 50 (if you count in the need to buy exchange filters for the Q-Jays) euros more here. And that´s how I decided to get the IE8´s instead.
I got finally got them yesturday, so these are only very brief and early experiences:
- Solid build quality and no microphonics at all here.
- They fit very well, but only if worn the cable behind the ears (ie, they way they are used in the official pictures). What I like especially is that they don´t stick out of my ear at all. I´m using the hard foam tips, which give me a good seal and so far haven´t made my ears hurt at all (the previous AKG´s always made my ears hurt if I used them for several hours straight).
- Isolation is good, but not outstanding. I could imagine that other IEM´s provide better isolation. I think this is because of the shape of the drivers, the wide tube. Perhaps it´s a price one has to pay for the soundstage? I´m looking into getting some Comply T400 tips to see if the isolation improves. That said, I´m satisfied with the current level of isolation too, but I can imagine that this is seen by some as a problem.
- Out of box the sound was very punchy and to me it sounded very sharp. It made me a bit tired easily if I listened for an hour straight. It was good, but a bit too punchy. The soundstage and detail was very impressive though. All in all, I was suprised how good they sounded compared to my previous IEM´s. All in all even at this point I was completely happy though. My scepticism seemed misguided and it felt like my music came to life in a completely new way. After the initial test I´ve burned them in (following the advice of some people from these forums) with the 20 minute pink noise/2 minute silence .wav sample for around 20 hours. To be honest this is the first time I´ve tried to burn in headphones and I wasn´t expecting a major change. But there was one! The bass is still as detailed as before, but it´s more in line with the other levels of the sound. They also no longer have the tendency to make me tired and fatigued. It still sounds sharp, but somehow it feels like it´s cleaner and more sophisticated. It could be that I´m just getting used to the sound signature, but I at least feel that the burn in did change something...
All in all, I haven´t used them that much yet to make any more comments, but so far I´m extremely pleased! The instruments are beautifully separated and the soundstage sounds a bit like my old Sennheiser 590-something series open air headphones. The bass is clear and it feels like I´ve found a new level of content in my old music. Never thought an IEM could sound like this
The only problem I have right now is that my old (luckily I´ve ripped most CD´s to higher quality) 128 quality mp3´s sound horrible... So I´ll need to rip them again.
Anyways, just thought I´d share my experiences... Thanks to all the insightful comments on these forums! Oh and one more thing... Just listened to Guns & Roses Chinese Democracy: it´s like a new album compared to the previous IEM´s I used! The high production values on this album really pay off when listening with these... The various walls of sound on this album really come to life on these.
Edit: One more thing... There is a very slight hiss using an iPod nano as a source. But it isn´t as loud as it was on the AKG 324P´s (perhaps 1/3). Once the music starts I can´t hear it anymore though.