[Pat Marcus]

After successions of sets of apple phones and a couple of pairs of the brilliant-but-no-longer-made-because-headband-in-ear-phones-arent-fashionable Sennheiser PX10s, I took the plunge after reading a couple of threads and bought some £30 CX300 mkIIs from Play.com...

..........and I absolutely hate them.

Firstly, I need them for the gym and the sound that is carried through the cable when you move, let alone run is hugely annoying.
Then there's the massively overblown bass at the expense of clarity, dynamics, subtlties and er, treble. Did I mention the muted, recessed midrange ?
In spite of how it may seem, Im really not that fussy and after a lot of fiddling, set my Nano to "reduced bass" which helped to restore some balance but didnt give me the clarity I expect.
So, while theyre better made, have a usefully longer cable, are much more efficient with each milliwattt of sound and deliver terrifying and initially impressive amounts of bass, theyre not the headphones for me.

So, my questions to the experts here are :

a) Given that the packaging has to be cut open, will Play.com let me return them for something else ?
b) What should I be choosing ? (Generally, Ive been unimpressed with Sennheiser's previous attempts at so-called gym-phones. They just dont sound any good.)
c) Is part of my problem that Ive never had ear-canal type phones before and that I need to understand that they DO sound different to in-ear phones ?

I am prepared to spend up to £100 as clearly £30 isnt enough but ONLY if they are going to last the punishment (and sweat) they`ll get.

Please, find me something that does articulation and subtlelty as well as funk and drive.............

[Pat Marcus]

Since writing this, Ive had an opportunity to compare them to CX300 Mk 1s which certainly have a more neutral balance with a slightly less dominant bass. However, they also have even less finesse and outright clarity. Ugh.

Migh I be better of with something like Sennheiser's own MX760s ? Or will this not give me enough of an improvement and still demonstrate the same gym issues ?