Sony Ericsson W950i and headphones

[RobsterD]

Hello
I've just got one of these walkman phones and now require some suitable headphones.Been looking at the Westone UM1 or the Etymotic ER6-i.
I dont want to be listening at full volume but require some nice efficient phones.
Anyone had any experience with the above phone and suitable headphones.
RobsterD

[jimmy100]

I have a W950i, which I use to drive a pair of Shure E500. The Shures might be out of your budget (I got mine for ~£200 while in the US), but I've also used their E4c model. A couple of things I've found:

- The quality of the third party fastport->3.5mm connectors is crap, noticably worse than the supplied sony-ericsson hands free stereo adaptor. A headphone with a short cable (and extensions) is therefore a big advantage, since it can used with the supplied adapter without leaving you struggling with loads of cable. The E500 are great in this respect, but the E4 cable + handsfree was far too long, which was one of the reasons I upgraded.

- Highly efficient phones (i.e. most IEMs) can be driven quite easily by the phone at low volumes, but in quiet environments there is an audible hiss from the noise floor of the phone. It's not noticable outdoors (walking, on a train etc. ) though - I can only hear it while sitting at my desk at work. I use the attenuator supplied with the E500 to get rid of it (turn the phone up, and the attenuator down).

[RobsterD]

Thanks for the reply.Does the W950i hold up sound quality wise with regards to other MP3 players ?
Cheers