Can anyone recommend some new earphones for my iPod?

[D0nnie Dark0]

Hi,

I just bought an iPod - which is great! - but, seeing as I live in one of London's dodgier areas, I'm not to keen on walking around with glowing white earphones that say 'I have a £300 piece of kit in my pocket, please mug me.' Can anyone recommend some earphones of comparable quality to the ones that come witht the iPod (10GB). I rather like the little earbud ones, I've just forked out for the unit itself so don't want to pay a fortune but I don't want to lose any quality by replacing the apple ones with a dodgy pair.

Any recommendations (and e-tailers to get them) would be greatly appreciated

cheers

DD

[NicolasB]

Sennheiser MX500s are the best in-ear 'phones I've come across. They normally cost £20, but you can get them for £14 from Richer Sounds if you print out the web page from their site that says they cost £14 and take it to the shop with you.

[D0nnie Dark0]

Cool, thanks folks. I shall pop over to Richer Sounds this afternoon - though the website now says £20 for the 500s so I guess I'll have to pay the full whack :rolleyes: - what are the 400s like? they run for £11. What makes the 500s better?

[KJ_Palmer]

The MX400's lack the volume control. That's about it, I believe the specs are the same. I prefer the looks of the MX500 as the 400 has a nasty silvery blob on the earpiece. OK, I'm shallow. The earpiece on the 500 is dark blue, by the way, which fits in nicely with my MD.

[D0nnie Dark0]

Cheers,

I picked up the 400s from Richer at lunchtime. I see what you mean about the blob, but £9 is £9 :)

DD

[pbirkett]

I wish I;d seen this thread before. I advised a friend to buy some Sony MDR-EX70LP in-ear headphones. They have absolutley spectacular sound quality for in-ear phones IMO, the bass drops to 6Hz, no bull they sound just as good as my Sennheiser HD497's which are full size phones. The isolate outside noise extremely well, and they dont fall out your ear...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/gifts/B00005ML3P/customer-reviews/026-8732716-1878837

EDIT: I think the top two reviews on this page must have got dodgy ones - they certainly didnt sound as described by these two dudes to me.

[D0nnie Dark0]

The Sennheisers are great (if a little on the large side - can't get them as far into my ears as the iPod ones) but thanks for the tip about the Sonys. I might pick up a pair of those too so that I can block out ambient sound on the tube and then swap to the Senns if I'm walking along and need to have some sense of the outside world ;)

thanks for all the help guys.

DD

[alexs2]

If you want a superb set of in-ear phones,try the etymotic research ones from www.pjbox.co.uk not cheap,but superb quality and good for isolation as well....have a set I use on my Walkman....highly recommended.

[Adlopa]

I use the Sonys too and they're great, particularly when it comes to listening on public transport. They are susceptible to noise from the cables banging against your body when you walk though, which is probably something to do them forming a seal in your ear. Stopping the music often isn't sufficient to let you hear the outside world either -- I usually have to pop one earphone out to hear what someone is saying. But even so, they rock and are by far the best earphones I've used.

[james.miller]

the sony's are ausome. I've not heard a single pair of ear-phones that can compete with the sonys. they drop lower than most speaker systems and sound better as well.

I cant reccomend them, though. Reliability is extreamly poor with the sony earphones. in two years i managed to go through 4 pairs of those, and 3 pairs of the 'overhead' earphone sonys. In the end i gave up - they cost way to much to keep shelling out for new pairs.

Excellent sound, but very bad reliability.

[alextgreen]

Are you the james Miller I think you are?

[james.miller]

no i doubt that lol - uless the james miller you know lives in bedford.......

[apul]

just spent all morning looking around newcastle for some sony mdrex70lp, went to all the usual spots, and no where had any, went to the sony centre, didnt have any, but could order them in, but would cost £35!
was just about to leave when i walked past john lewis, thought, hmm, im looking for a new tv as well, so went in and they had the earphones for £30. bougth them.
verdict, not bad at all actually, and quite good especially since ive only been using them for about an hour and they usually take time to set in (or whatever they do). very comfortable good idea with the changable earpices.
thanks for the recomendations guys

[michaelab]

Originally posted by james.miller
the sony's are ausome. I've not heard a single pair of ear-phones that can compete with the sonys. they drop lower than most speaker systems and sound better as well.

I cant reccomend them, though. Reliability is extreamly poor with the sony earphones. in two years i managed to go through 4 pairs of those, and 3 pairs of the 'overhead' earphone sonys. In the end i gave up - they cost way to much to keep shelling out for new pairs.

Excellent sound, but very bad reliability. I agree on the sound quality - the Sony's are by far the best 'in ear' phones I've ever come across except for the Etymotics but then the Etymotics cost 10x as much :eek:

As to the EX70s reliability - I've used mine every day for about 3-4 years and not had a single problem. Still as good as new. I guess it depends how you look after them :)

Michael.

[james.miller]

well, home use isnt going to cause much damage. remeber these ear-phones are designed primarily for walkmans - i used mine every day to and from school and to and from work. the causes a lot of ware on the wires, and the wire that those sonys use are not as good as they should be at that price.

[pointon]

Originally posted by pbirkett
I wish I;d seen this thread before. I advised a friend to buy some Sony MDR-EX70LP in-ear headphones. They have absolutley spectacular sound quality for in-ear phones IMO, the bass drops to 6Hz, no bull they sound just as good as my Sennheiser HD497's which are full size phones. The isolate outside noise extremely well, and they dont fall out your ear...

Simply incredible things. RRP is actually about £45. I bought some when I bought my minidisc player over a year ago, thinking that to settle for the crappy bundled phones would negate spending a fortune on such a great bit of kit.

I'm never going back. Awesome sound quality. Powerful bass. You can't hear any sound outside (so be extra careful when crossing the road), and they don't let sound out. They're also well built, small and discrete - and, suprisingly, durable.