I recently had to hand down my trusty Shure SE2 IEMs to my stepson who had his cheaper headphones stolen at school. These are not my primary pair of IEMs, those are Shure's SE535 earphones. I use the lower cost IEMs when I play the drums to monitor the tracks I am playing along with. They need to provide considerable sound isolation, and the IEM with the squishy compliant insert always works best for me.
Well, I decided to get whatever I loved most on the market and shopped extensively. I wanted to spend about the same amount, around $100, to get the best sounding and noise isolating IEM out there.
Since I happen to work for a company with very extensive product testing labs and I have risen in the ranks enough to gain access to those labs, I made arrangement to spend the afternoon in the mobility lab auditioning all the IEMs they had in there.
After this past CES I could rule out the Morley, Woodees, and all the head candy-esgue crap out there and focus on the higher quality stuff. I chose from their vast collection the Etymotic HF5, Shure SE210, UE SuperFi 5, Klipsch Custom 2, Bose MIE2i, Creative Aurvana 3, and several other lesser known models.
To prep my ears, I listened to my test tracks on my home speakers (perfect as I can get), my AKG K701s, and my Sennheiser HD650 cans. Then I put in some earplugs and went in for the audition.
I am not going into each one individually, but I compared their performance using my Zune, Dell Streak 5, an iPod they had, and a high end custom sound card they had on hand. Without question, the best sounding IEMs were the Shures and UE SuperFi 5 models. The others were either extremely colored in tonal balance (too boomy or too shrill) or presented clearly audible distortion at levels I could never live with.
So I went into critical listening mode and spent an entire hour alone in the lab during lunch switching back and forth between the UE and Shure IEMs. Ultimately, and I was disappointed by this, I chose the Shures. The UE SuperFi 5 sounded very good, but they were finnicky to insert and adjust, and when I yawned or grit my teeth they would deform in my ear and the sound seal would fail, causing the sound quality to suffer.
So, I ordered a pair of Shure SE210 IEMs from Amazon for a fun price of $130 and am happy as can be.
Well, I decided to get whatever I loved most on the market and shopped extensively. I wanted to spend about the same amount, around $100, to get the best sounding and noise isolating IEM out there.
Since I happen to work for a company with very extensive product testing labs and I have risen in the ranks enough to gain access to those labs, I made arrangement to spend the afternoon in the mobility lab auditioning all the IEMs they had in there.
After this past CES I could rule out the Morley, Woodees, and all the head candy-esgue crap out there and focus on the higher quality stuff. I chose from their vast collection the Etymotic HF5, Shure SE210, UE SuperFi 5, Klipsch Custom 2, Bose MIE2i, Creative Aurvana 3, and several other lesser known models.
To prep my ears, I listened to my test tracks on my home speakers (perfect as I can get), my AKG K701s, and my Sennheiser HD650 cans. Then I put in some earplugs and went in for the audition.
I am not going into each one individually, but I compared their performance using my Zune, Dell Streak 5, an iPod they had, and a high end custom sound card they had on hand. Without question, the best sounding IEMs were the Shures and UE SuperFi 5 models. The others were either extremely colored in tonal balance (too boomy or too shrill) or presented clearly audible distortion at levels I could never live with.
So I went into critical listening mode and spent an entire hour alone in the lab during lunch switching back and forth between the UE and Shure IEMs. Ultimately, and I was disappointed by this, I chose the Shures. The UE SuperFi 5 sounded very good, but they were finnicky to insert and adjust, and when I yawned or grit my teeth they would deform in my ear and the sound seal would fail, causing the sound quality to suffer.
So, I ordered a pair of Shure SE210 IEMs from Amazon for a fun price of $130 and am happy as can be.
If he loses the seal for a second, it can impact his playing if he's using them for monitors. If I'm playing piano in a quiet room, that's not so much an issue - that's really my only point here. It doesn't have to be super-tight.