You’ll Understand If You Put It In Your Ear

I’m not talking about the incredibly unlikely (yet exceedingly useful) Babelfish – rather, the more sophisticated alternatives to those bulky in-ear headphones bundled with your iPod, Zen or (horror) mobile phone. There is a huge range of earbuds out there designed for people who demand a bit more from their portable music playback equipment…

In-Ear Headphones

As a general rule, the headphones included with portable music devices range from poor to unusable. On the one hand this is surprising, as you’d think manufacturers would want their products to sound as good as possible. On the other hand, decent headphones cost a bit more – and people buy the player, not the headphones. However, if you want to get the most from your music, a decent set of cans can make all the difference…

So what are the options? Well, if you want to take it from the top and have half a grand to spend, then you could check out the Shure SE530 sound isolating headphones – with an RRP of $499. This is a lot of cash to splash on earbuds, but apparently they sound very good.

A more reasonable option would be the Shure E4c, sound isolating headphones with a SPL spec of 109 dB SPL/mW and 29 ohms – definitely a cut above the average. If you have £134.99 to spend, then these might be worth a look.

However, as my personal recommendation to Santa, I would be inclined to opt for the M-Audio IE-10. M-Audio claim they are developed specifically for musicians, and that they are the “best single-driver buds on the market”. I don’t know about that, but they may well be the best in-ear headphones you can get for under 100 euro. As they are of the ear-canal type, they provide 26dB of ambient noise attenuation which means they are ideal for noisy commutes – as long as you remember to look where you’re going…