I’m not talking about the bud style earphones that come with an iPod or Zune. I’m talking about those you buy that would replace the bud style that actually go into your ear canal. Those earphone, headphone, whatever you wanna call them things that you plug into your head. I bought a pair, never having tried them before, hoping to get better sound that what the buds gave me. After getting past the initial weirdness of pushing them into my ears, which I can only equate to the weirdness someone who has never had contact lenses experiences the first time they try to put contact lenses in their eyes, I tested their sound. Overall the audio quality was fine, but the entire time I was being distracted by how odd it felt to have something stuck in my ears and also have virtually all external sounds blocked out. It was like a constant wet willie — only not wet.
After a few minutes my ear canals begin to ache so I removed the earphones from my head. Then I noticed that my ear wax was now on the earphones which, aside from being a little gross, made me wonder if I now would have to clean these things every time I took them out of my ears. So to sum up: awkward putting them in, weird feeling of having external sound blocked out like someone had their finger in my ears, and needs frequent cleaning. You can probably tell that I am no fan of this style of head/earphone. Oh, and for those of you that do like this style of head/earphone yes, I did try changing the size of the little cushions they give you for a more comfortable fit, but the result was always the same. Needless to say, I’ll be sticking with my reliable, non-intrusive, old bud style headphones for the foreseeable future.
I TOTALLY agree! I can’t stand the way these things feel. The problem is, you can’t find a decent pair of buds in a store.
I don’t like them either. Everything sounds muffled, so I can’t talk on the phone with them in(have those ear buds on my iphone headset). Sounds and feels wierd.
Two things.. First; normal earphones fall out of my ear, even sitting down. I guess I’m one of many people who have this problem. There is absolutely no pair that stays in my ears.
Second I run and bike and it’s pretty hard for anyone to keep normal earphones in your ears while you run; either you have to have the hanging ones or the in-ear ones.
Anyway, as with anything, you get used to them
On the contrary, i can never go back now, i have a set of Sony MDR-EX500LP, before that i had the ones that come with the Sony Walkman X. Both have excellent audio quality, are extremely comfortable to wear, and they’re much more practical than having a headset. Frankly, before i had these i was a huge advocate of headsets. I kept saying that earbuds didn’t give good enough quality, were uncomfortable and so on. But i have completely changed my mind. You should try the MDR set, they are amazing… i can never go back to those clunky headsets now
Bose QC-15s…accept no substitute. $325 and worth every penny in a cubicle environment when you really need to concentrate. I can’t even keep those in ear/ear bud type of things in my ears.
The Bose look nice but at $300 they’re a bit pricey and since they’re a full headset they don’t seem easily portable or suitable for workouts with an MP3 player like bud or in-ear phones do. I bet they sound great though. Thanks!