Best in ear buds

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Hi

My dad wants some ear phones for his birthday to block out noise while he gardens (lawn mower, hedge trimmers etc). Have been looking at the Etymotic ER-6i or the Shure E2C, with budget around £65.

The main criteria are good noise blocking, decent sound (though he's no audiophile and will be listening to 128/192 mp3) and comfort/ease of use. Looking on amazon some people have said the Shures are hard to put in?

Anyway hoped you guys could give me some basic advice on these or similar models, and the sooner the better cause i'll need to order them soon. Thanks very much
 

Andrew Everard

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Well, you can find these for about £50, and they have active noise cancelling, not just physical noise blocking. I've used an earlier version for plane travel for years and they really work well, and have proved very durable.

 

Clare Newsome

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The Shures are our current Award-winning earbuds - they sound fantastic for the money (Amazon is selling them for £35, almost half price, at the moment), and aren't iffy about lower bit-rate tracks. Also, they offer great noise-isolating without a big lumpy battery box as shown above....

However, they - and the Etymotics, which we're not as impressed with - don't suit everyone, as you really do have to burrow them into your ears to hear them at their best/get that noise-isolating effect. (And if that sounds bad for your ears, it ain't necessarily so: you need to listen at far lower volumes, which is both better for your hearing and your player's battery life).

The mistake a lot of people make with the Shures is to only try one of the many earbud options you get with the headphones - there are all sorts of shapes and size in the pack. And you can't just jam them in your ears - hence the Amazon comments - you need to loop them behind your ears and plug your lugs from the top. There's even a video on the Shure website that shows you how!

Personally, I can't bear in-ears, despite the many sonic benefits: way too claustrophobic for my liking.... Sennheiser's excellent PXC range of portable noise-cancellers are an over-ear option worth investigating.
 
A

Anonymous

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Hi. I must agree with Clare that Sennheiser's PXC 250 are excellent having used a pair for sometime, I also have a pair of Bose Triport IE but much prefer the Senn's. My only concern would be that, as this type of IE cuts out most of the noise going into the ears, would there be an element of danger when using electrical equipment in and around the graden. Hope this helps.

Regards

Ed
 
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Anonymous

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sometimes i find that the humm generated by the noise cancelling mechanism of the sennheiser's gets a little too loud.. maybe i have sensitive ears.. i dunno
 

Clare Newsome

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It's not just you - some members of the test team can't bear them for the same reason. That's why we always test headphones with a lot of pairs of ears!

And talking of headphone tests...we're doing one right now: round-up of all the latest in-ear and over-ear designs (including the big new Sennheiser PXC450s and the Shure SE420s) for our October issue, out August 23rd.
 

D.J.KRIME

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Are any of these earphones compatible with my Sony Ericsson W850 as the ones that came with it are a bit pants and have very little bass weight to them?
 
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Anonymous

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My 'phones eventually gave up the ghost whilst I was out, so I quickly nipped into Asda's (!) just to get a cheap set to tide me over until I could get a decent pair. I found some by 'Magnavox' and bought them. I connected them to my player, expecting that awful cheap tinny sound. Was I surprised! These babies deliver! Rich, full bass, Exceptional imaging and superb detail. I was totally knocked out. And how much were they? Get ready.... 97p! Talk about a bargain!!
 

Clare Newsome

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Very few of the existing headphones are convertible to the 2.5mm socket used by most mobiles, sadly - though we expect this to change.

You could consider a pair of Sony Bluetooth headphones - no wires! They're not cheap, and won't give you the same sound-per-pound performance as wired ones, but they sound pretty fine. Try the Sony DR-BT50 (£130 list price, but available for less) for size. And of course they'll also be handy for your computer, or PS3 if you have one....
 
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Anonymous

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Hi im after a pair of the Sony DR-BT50, ive read mixed reports about bluetooth stereo headphones, do u get much interference or background noise from using bluetooth. Im having a tough choise chosing from the sony's (DR-BT50's) or the Motorola DJ Headphones (S805's), any advice/help will be great.
 

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