5 ms·

I'm genuinely curious... Are $400 in-ear headphones really that much better than, let's say, $100 models?

smhinsey 16y ago
I am not sure about this specific model, but a lot of the high end ones are custom molded to fit your ear canal. It's a luxury, obviously, but if you are using them a lot and you can afford it, I think it's worth it. The ones I have double quite well as earplugs when I don't listen to music, and work far better than any specifically designed noise canceling headphones I've tried.
- synacksynack 16y ago
  Ultimate Ears (now a subsidiary of Logitech) is pretty well known for their custom in-ear monitors. Prices go as low as $399, not ludicrously expensive. I've never used them personally, but others seem to be pretty well chuffed by them. http://ultimateears.com/en-us/products/custom http://ultimateears.com/en-us/products/custom
mikeyur 16y ago
Depends. I can't hear the difference between $100 and $400 headphones in most cases. I have a $99 pair of Apple in-ear headphones and they work great. I like to keep my music library fairly small, so everything's encoded at 160 or 192kbps mp3. Fancy headphones only help if you're encoding much higher or using FLAC/ALAC.
- xiongchiamiov 16y ago
  I can tell the difference between 192 cbr and v0 vbr (or 320 cbr) on my $20 Sennheisers. Does it really not bother you?
  - mikeyur 16y ago
    If I play them side by side I can hear the difference, but listening to the lower quality version doesn't bother me.
ahlatimer 16y ago
I had a pair of Shures that I paid over $200 for. Every other earbud I've tried has been terrible. They're tinny, they don't fit right, and you have to blast them to get over moderate ambient noise. I worked in a fairly noisy office when I had the Shures, and I could turn the music down to one click over 0 and still hear nothing but music. The sound quality was also a lot better than just about anything else I've used (save for my $290 pair of over-ear headphones). I ended up losing them (or they were stolen, not sure) and just never replaced them. I mostly work from home now, and no one here is going to care if I turn up the speakers connected to my desktop. Were they $300 better, or even $50 or $100 better? That depends on what your priorities are. Me, I've spent a lot of time and money collecting a high-quality music library, and I prefer to hear it through headphones that are transparent and don't lose detail. Your priorities might be completely different.
petercooper 16y ago
Usually but it depends on a few variables and it's not always worth it. Because you're not used to it, high end equipment doesn't sound amazing in comparison at first - just oddly different. (At least not in a $400 to $100 comparison - the biggest difference is going from $10 to $100.) Once you're acclimatized, though, it's really hard to go back until your hearing naturally degrades and you're stuck buying high end gear. So the rational approach is to never buy high end headphones or earphones at all and instead aim for the highest quality stuff under around $150. It'll get you 90% of the way there and stop you becoming an audio freak chasing an expensive pipedream. Almost no-one will give this advice, though, since audiophiles want to rationalize their purchases and reviewers or stores want you to buy their crap.
- nodata 16y ago
  > Almost no-one will give this advice Which makes it quite difficult to find good equipment which is 90% there. What about speakers/home cinema. Any recommendations?
  - mseebach 16y ago
    There's no gospel. Get what you think sounds nice.(1) Go to a real hifi shop, where they actually demo the stuff for you in living room-like conditions (carpet, not warehouse ceiling etc., and no 25 TVs blaring MTV across the aisle), and listen to the difference between, say, $80 speakers and $500 ones, then try to figure out where your ability to hear the difference levels off, and get something in that range. Bring a CD of the kind of music you enjoy. "Thunderstruck" is wonderful for demoing bass, but if you're into indie-fragile-weeping-dude, it's not what you want to base your purchase decision on. If a place won't let your switch between different speaker/amp combinations on your time using your own music, you're not buying from them. (1: Except one thing: cables. Don't get the biodynamic green tea infused ripoff stuff, but the ones that come with your stereo (even good ones) are most likely absolutely hideous. If you already have a setup, and use bad cables, spending a bit of money on decent cables is the best investment you can do.)
    - nodata 16y ago
chrischen 16y ago
You can grab those shures for just above $200 on eBay. I got them but if I could go back in time I would have gotten something cheaper, or a headphone instead.
jacquesm 16y ago
If you're over 35 don't bother, your ears will have deteriorated too much due to aging. Under that it might be worth it, the younger you are the better your ears. Try them before you buy them, and try a bunch of them in different price ranges it's not pocket change.
singular 16y ago
I've experimented with earphones from £5's worth all the way up to £230 odd for Ultimate Ears 10vi triple fi pros (I've also tried Shure SE530's and feel the triple fi's beat 'em). The difference between the triple fi's and basically any other earphone is actually pretty astounding. The main difference is clarity; though it's a cliche, it really is a case of hearing individual instruments, etc. (though you need high bitrate for this obviously). It is, however, an extremely expensive hobby (and you can't go back). Another great thing about the triple fi's is that you can replace the cable. Since the cable is usually the failure point of any set of earphones this actually makes it quite economical compared to, say, £50 earphones you need to replace far more often.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
nc 16y ago
Definitely, I've been through a few different ones from $50-$400 and finally settled on the Klipsch X10s. You can barely tell you're wearing them.
dsantos 16y ago
you can't find a sound isolating IEM for $100. usually it starts at $200+ there's a good review in this forum: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/478568/multi-iem-review-105-iems-compared-phiaton-ps210-yamaha-eph-50-pioneer-clx50-added-09-08 http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/478568/multi-iem-review-...
tptacek 16y ago
I've spent roughly half that on single pairs of Shure headphones, and while I like the sound quality, I recommend avoiding them, because the cables are of very low quality. Jason probably doesn't wear his headphones out in the Chicago winters, but I do, and every pair of Shure's I've bought (I think I'm up to 4) has ended up with frayed cables or cable/driver connections. Shure has an amazing replacement policy (it's basically no-questions-asked) and I like the company and the user experience, but losing a pair of $200 headphones every 6-9 months isn't acceptable. I've been using the Ultimate Buds (what a terrible name [for headphones]) versions of FutureSonics FS-1's and Etymotics; in both cases, UB swaps out the OEM cable with Apple's vastly superior version, which has the added benefit of working as a handsfree with my iPhone. I highly recommend these. It's not hard to see why Shure's high-end pairs are of higher quality than the low-end pairs; the 530's have more drivers than the 115's.
- alabut 16y ago
  I live in California and had the same fraying cable problem with three pairs of Shures, so it's not the cold winters that cause it. As amazing as their sound quality and replacement policy are, I gave up and switched to a Chinese knockoff that had good reviews. I'm considering a pair of Woodees next though: http://www.woodees.net/ http://www.woodees.net/
- bkudria 16y ago
  I also have cable problems - I've found that my pair of V-Moda headphones have lasted longest.

I am not sure about this specific model, but a lot of the high end ones are custom molded to fit your ear canal. It's a luxury, obviously, but if you are using them a lot and you can afford it, I think it's worth it. The ones I have double quite well as earplugs when I don't listen to music, and work far better than any specifically designed noise canceling headphones I've tried.

synacksynack 16y ago
Ultimate Ears (now a subsidiary of Logitech) is pretty well known for their custom in-ear monitors. Prices go as low as $399, not ludicrously expensive. I've never used them personally, but others seem to be pretty well chuffed by them. http://ultimateears.com/en-us/products/custom http://ultimateears.com/en-us/products/custom

mikeyur 16y ago

Depends. I can't hear the difference between $100 and $400 headphones in most cases. I have a $99 pair of Apple in-ear headphones and they work great. I like to keep my music library fairly small, so everything's encoded at 160 or 192kbps mp3. Fancy headphones only help if you're encoding much higher or using FLAC/ALAC.

xiongchiamiov 16y ago
I can tell the difference between 192 cbr and v0 vbr (or 320 cbr) on my $20 Sennheisers. Does it really not bother you?
- mikeyur 16y ago
  If I play them side by side I can hear the difference, but listening to the lower quality version doesn't bother me.

ahlatimer 16y ago

I had a pair of Shures that I paid over $200 for. Every other earbud I've tried has been terrible. They're tinny, they don't fit right, and you have to blast them to get over moderate ambient noise. I worked in a fairly noisy office when I had the Shures, and I could turn the music down to one click over 0 and still hear nothing but music. The sound quality was also a lot better than just about anything else I've used (save for my $290 pair of over-ear headphones). I ended up losing them (or they were stolen, not sure) and just never replaced them. I mostly work from home now, and no one here is going to care if I turn up the speakers connected to my desktop. Were they $300 better, or even $50 or $100 better? That depends on what your priorities are. Me, I've spent a lot of time and money collecting a high-quality music library, and I prefer to hear it through headphones that are transparent and don't lose detail. Your priorities might be completely different.

petercooper 16y ago

Usually but it depends on a few variables and it's not always worth it. Because you're not used to it, high end equipment doesn't sound amazing in comparison at first - just oddly different. (At least not in a $400 to $100 comparison - the biggest difference is going from $10 to $100.) Once you're acclimatized, though, it's really hard to go back until your hearing naturally degrades and you're stuck buying high end gear. So the rational approach is to never buy high end headphones or earphones at all and instead aim for the highest quality stuff under around $150. It'll get you 90% of the way there and stop you becoming an audio freak chasing an expensive pipedream. Almost no-one will give this advice, though, since audiophiles want to rationalize their purchases and reviewers or stores want you to buy their crap.

nodata 16y ago
> Almost no-one will give this advice Which makes it quite difficult to find good equipment which is 90% there. What about speakers/home cinema. Any recommendations?
- mseebach 16y ago
  There's no gospel. Get what you think sounds nice.(1) Go to a real hifi shop, where they actually demo the stuff for you in living room-like conditions (carpet, not warehouse ceiling etc., and no 25 TVs blaring MTV across the aisle), and listen to the difference between, say, $80 speakers and $500 ones, then try to figure out where your ability to hear the difference levels off, and get something in that range. Bring a CD of the kind of music you enjoy. "Thunderstruck" is wonderful for demoing bass, but if you're into indie-fragile-weeping-dude, it's not what you want to base your purchase decision on. If a place won't let your switch between different speaker/amp combinations on your time using your own music, you're not buying from them. (1: Except one thing: cables. Don't get the biodynamic green tea infused ripoff stuff, but the ones that come with your stereo (even good ones) are most likely absolutely hideous. If you already have a setup, and use bad cables, spending a bit of money on decent cables is the best investment you can do.)
  - nodata 16y ago

chrischen 16y ago

You can grab those shures for just above $200 on eBay. I got them but if I could go back in time I would have gotten something cheaper, or a headphone instead.

jacquesm 16y ago

If you're over 35 don't bother, your ears will have deteriorated too much due to aging. Under that it might be worth it, the younger you are the better your ears. Try them before you buy them, and try a bunch of them in different price ranges it's not pocket change.

singular 16y ago

I've experimented with earphones from £5's worth all the way up to £230 odd for Ultimate Ears 10vi triple fi pros (I've also tried Shure SE530's and feel the triple fi's beat 'em). The difference between the triple fi's and basically any other earphone is actually pretty astounding. The main difference is clarity; though it's a cliche, it really is a case of hearing individual instruments, etc. (though you need high bitrate for this obviously). It is, however, an extremely expensive hobby (and you can't go back). Another great thing about the triple fi's is that you can replace the cable. Since the cable is usually the failure point of any set of earphones this actually makes it quite economical compared to, say, £50 earphones you need to replace far more often.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

nc 16y ago

Definitely, I've been through a few different ones from $50-$400 and finally settled on the Klipsch X10s. You can barely tell you're wearing them.

dsantos 16y ago

you can't find a sound isolating IEM for $100. usually it starts at $200+ there's a good review in this forum: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/478568/multi-iem-review-105-iems-compared-phiaton-ps210-yamaha-eph-50-pioneer-clx50-added-09-08 http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/478568/multi-iem-review-...

tptacek 16y ago

I've spent roughly half that on single pairs of Shure headphones, and while I like the sound quality, I recommend avoiding them, because the cables are of very low quality. Jason probably doesn't wear his headphones out in the Chicago winters, but I do, and every pair of Shure's I've bought (I think I'm up to 4) has ended up with frayed cables or cable/driver connections. Shure has an amazing replacement policy (it's basically no-questions-asked) and I like the company and the user experience, but losing a pair of $200 headphones every 6-9 months isn't acceptable. I've been using the Ultimate Buds (what a terrible name [for headphones]) versions of FutureSonics FS-1's and Etymotics; in both cases, UB swaps out the OEM cable with Apple's vastly superior version, which has the added benefit of working as a handsfree with my iPhone. I highly recommend these. It's not hard to see why Shure's high-end pairs are of higher quality than the low-end pairs; the 530's have more drivers than the 115's.

alabut 16y ago
I live in California and had the same fraying cable problem with three pairs of Shures, so it's not the cold winters that cause it. As amazing as their sound quality and replacement policy are, I gave up and switched to a Chinese knockoff that had good reviews. I'm considering a pair of Woodees next though: http://www.woodees.net/ http://www.woodees.net/
bkudria 16y ago
I also have cable problems - I've found that my pair of V-Moda headphones have lasted longest.