Has anyone shopped extensively for the best earbuds? What have you found out?
I have noticed a big variance in quality, in sound, details etc. Do you have to stick with famous names?
Could you tell us the price range you’re considering and the source you’re planning to use?
I use an iphone and/or ipod.
I don’t want to spend 100 if that's what you're asking. Just how large is the range for the prices on these things? The ones I see are between 10 and 40. If they go higher than that for an earbud, I’d want to know what you’re getting from it.
I own and use these wireless ear buds off of Amazon for under $20 bucks. Never had a problem with them, and have had them for about 2 years.
I have some Panasonic RP-HJE125-K earbuds that sound pretty good and only cost $10.
$100 is a reasonable price range. I’ve been a big “headphones and earphones” guy for many years, buying and selling quite a few as I tried to find the “best.”
Based on my experience, I think you need to ask yourself if you can handle sound-sealing earphones that actually insert in your ear. Some people find them uncomfortable and don’t care for the sound isolation they produce. But the sound quality (especially the bass) is usually much better than “buds” that sit in your ear and don’t seal.
The Shures range from $45 to well over $100 and are a safe bet. Very good sound quality. But they do insert into your ear and seal off a lot of external sound. My wife uses Shure SE215’s and likes them a lot. They’re about $90.
As far as “buds” that sit in your ear, I’ve got to say that I haven’t been happy with many of them. I’d leave it to others to discuss their experiences with those.
I’ve been very happy with Skull Candy Method Wireless, with the exception that they don’t provide a big enough earpiece for me in order that the bass will come through properly. That’s not an issue with the tiny speakers themselves, but with the rubber “bud” parts which don’t fit tightly enough in my ears to bring out the bass.
So you’re probably wondering why I say “very happy”. Well, that’s mostly because I listen to a lot of spoken word content, where bass sound quality is very important. I’m sure I can fix the problem by finding bigger buds that will fit over the tiny speakers, but I haven’t gotten around to it.
Another feature I like is its long battery life.
The cost is somewhere in the $50 - $60 range.
For that type, the best choice is probably simply the Apple Earpods. But that category is generally inferior, especially in the bass, to in-ear phones with rubber tips that form a seal.
There are lots of choices for in-ear phones. I like the Apple In-Ear Headphones, but they’re $80. These Panasonic ones were good for a cheap pair: Amazon.com
I guess i didn’t mean earbuds. They won’t stay in my ears.
Has anyone comparison shopped and found vast sonic differences between these phones? I think have.
Maybe it was a long time ago but I tried skull candy in a store one time and it was not good.
These things (Earhoox) will help keep them in your ears. I had the same problem, earbuds always just fell out unless I held my head almost totally still, then I got a set of these and they don’t budge no matter how much I shake my head around.
Yes, I’ve compared quite a few, but many that I’ve tried are no longer available. For example, Ultimate Ears (pre-Logitech) made some truly well-balanced IEMs for less than $100. (In fact, Radio Shack sold a pair that was probably the best buy for anything under $50.)
The reason I originally suggested the Shures was that they are capable, but pretty neutral. If you have EQ on your source, you can tweak them the way you like them. Too many IEMs nowadays have way too much bass built-in and it’s hard to get rid of it once it’s there.
I would actually suggest staying with the name brands, as they are popular for a reason. Sometimes you trip across a good pair with no brand name, but that’s rare. And evaluating IEMs through reviews is pretty much a waste of time. Everybody’s opinion is necessarily subjective. Add the variation in fit and comfort and it becomes a crap shoot.
If you can manage the full in-ear style I would highly recommend anything from Etymotic.
https://www.etymotic.com/consumer/earphones.html
The ER-4 basically defined the in-ear monitor and is still something of a reference that all other are judged by. Including phones many times their price. Etymotic have about 4 models in the $100 and below rage.
I still have a pair of 20 year old ER-4s and they are used more than any other headphone. Out of your desired price range, but I don’t doubt the other models will be just as satisfying. Etymotic are not a well known consumer brand, they have historically been more in the professional arena, but they are most certainly a name brand in the field.
Here’s the thing with these high end buds: I don’t expect them to last that long. They’re going to break, degrade, fall off of my lap when I get out of the car, you name it. I can’t see spending 100 and having the accident happen early in it’s useful life. What makes it worth the risk? How much better could they be? I just bought one of the ones above recommended for $9.
I’d love to know what the bullet points are for buds that expensive.
When I still used plug-in buds, having them get snagged on a passing doorknob and yanked out of the jack was a habitual method of degradation for me. Another personal favorite was stopping to tie my shoe while out for a walk, and then not noticing that the cord was looped under my knee before standing up again. Yanked once again, either from my ears or the phone.
That’s why I refuse to use anything but bluetooth headsets these days.
Oh, and I didn’t even mention the cats.
drad dog, having said all that, I did find that more expensive earbuds did tend to be noticeably more durable, even corded ones.
All I can say is that my ER-4s have lasted for 20 years. They get used in all sorts of situations, and they have taken a lot of punishment. Sure, I catch the cords, and they get pulled out of my ears from time to time. But they cope. The latest ER-4 models are machined out of a solid lump of aluminium. They are not going to break unless you hit them with a hammer. The cords are replaceable, so if you do kill a cord it doesn’t ruin the headphone. But the cords are engineered to a level you probably don’t appreciate can be done. They have not caused the slightest issue in 20 years of use. You get what you pay for. For $9 you can be assured that every part is made of the cheapest materials and that quality control is non-existent. minimum copper in the cords, cheapest possible plastics, and so on. Proper engineered plastics can be stronger than metal. But they add massively to the cost, not just in materials but in production.
If you are so careless that you lose everything you own, then there isn’t much that can be said. However I have rule about expensive things. You won’t lose them because you tend to always remember where they are. How many times have you lost your phone or car keys? Properly lost that is - never to be found again.
Quality. If you have never listened to a proper high fidelity sound you won’t know. It is like asking what a really good meal tastes like if you have never eaten better than Burger King. How good could it be? The answer with headphones is that you will find the difference simply jaw dropping.
For the buds that come with Apple products, how do people get them to stay in their ears? If I sit with my head perfectly vertical, place the buds in, then don’t move my head or even open my mouth, they can stay in. That’s not very practical however. If I simply open my mouth, that’s enough movement to make them fall out.
I see people with them, moving around, even running. How do you do that? Do you cram the bud into your ear canal somehow, or what?
For a recommendation, I like the Skull Candy Inkd - cheap, and the flat cord doesn’t tend to tangle.
In previous years I’ve used the Sonys with the over-the-outer-ear hooks, and they do well, except those things are like grappling hooks when you’re trying to untangle the cord.
These Bose earphones come in just under $100 ($99.95):
They stay in your ears and have lasted for years. They aren’t sound isolating, which is good for me because I commute by walking and train and I don’t want to have no awareness of what’s around me. So, they let sound in, but still sound really good to me. They have lasted for several years now, so could make up for cheaper ones that break frequently (but they don’t make up for losing them frequently).
I’m not a Bose fanboy by any stretch, and I went through so many earbuds before I settled on these. They were the only ones that stayed on, sounded good, and weren’t ear-canal style buds.
I’ve had some luck with earlier version of these Urbanears:
But, they didn’t last as long as the Bose and weren’t as comfortable.
These Koss KSC-75 are cheaper:
They sound great, but they don’t last that long in my experience, and you kind of look silly wearing them.
I’ve had no luck with any other headphones in terms of comfort, sound, and remaining on/in my ears and I’ve tried tens, maybe dozens of variations.
OK. But I have heard vast differences in quality in reasonably priced ones too. Some flashy ones had no life to them or were harsh. This is what scares me. There didn’t seem to be any reason. But I’ve never spent $50 on a pair.
I wonder if these things are covered in the specs of the things on the package, if I’m hearing something that is quantifiable or traceable, or is it just something else.
I’m a luddite in many ways. Is bluetooth easy to get? Any products out there I should look at?
Almost always it is very hard to quantify. Most manufacturers quote essentially useless figures of merit that bear no relationship to much that matters. (Indeed totally rubbish headphones will often quote fancifully good figures that are much better than the more honest figures a quality manufacturer will quote.) Measuring earphones is hard in that they don’t have a flat frequency response - they need to compensate for being close to or in the ear, and exactly what compensation is needed is very hard to judge or measure. Many designs have deliberate dialled-in frequency responses that deliver a particular sound. High quality brands - like Etymotic, Sennheiser, etc, can be reasonably trusted to provide figures that can be sheeted home to reasonably scientific methods, and be trusted to build a good product. But it is very hard to judge the relative quality based upon a few simple figures of merit. Anything written on the packet can be safely ignored.
There are tests and reviews done that can help, and some perform as much in the way of objective testing as they can to underpin their subjective opinions. A couple of places to look are headphone.com (a commercial site that sells lots of headphones, and makes and sells their own amplifiers. They seem very objective about the headphones. Sadly they are shutting up shop soon.) Also headfi.org which hosts everything you ever wanted to know about headphones, and whose greeting is “welcome to headfi,org, sorry about your wallet.” Many tests, large and active user forums.