Premium Earbuds Worth-while?

[constable]

I listen to my iPod (1g touch) a quite a bit on a daily basis. Probably 2-4 hours a day, mostly while sitting still at a desk.

I've become dissatisfied with the quality of the standard ipod headphones, and I think I'm willing to drop $150+ dollars on some premium earbuds, given I get my money's worth (I'm not rich).

However, I'm not sure how much improvement I will get in sound quality when I'm playing mostly 128-256kbs mp3 format songs on a device which has been described as having "average" sound quality. Will my $200-$500 buds be a waste w/o high quality .flac rips and a player that plays them unconverted/uncompressed?


Your advice is greatly appreciated

 

[thecoolnessrune]

You dont have to do flac, just convert it all to AAC. You will however be completely wasting your money if you only have 128-256kbps mp3s.

I personally used my Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5EBs on the touch (first gen) while I had it and the sound quality was just as good as my PC sound.

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: thecoolnessrune
You dont have to do flac, just convert it all to AAC. You will however be completely wasting your money if you only have 128-256kbps mp3s.

I personally used my Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5EBs on the touch (first gen) while I had it and the sound quality was just as good as my PC sound.

Not true. Assuming it's compressed well (192kbps is absolutely fine, though you can get by with lower), better headphones will still make a huge difference.

I would know...I have a Zune. Most songs are compressed around the same area as yours.

 

[Strk]

The ones that come with the Creative Zen X-Fi are pretty nice. I want to say they're the ep-830 or something like that. I think they're $40 by themselves.

 

[gorcorps]

Everybody's ear is different so it's hard to say. I can definitely hear the difference between a 128k mp3 and anything higher. The 128k are garbage. But a good 192k mp3 and FLAC sound the same to me, and I have decent phones (shure SCL4). I wouldn't blow over $100 on phones for a portable player... the quality just isn't great from the player itself to make a huge difference. The Sennheiser CX300s I was using before my shure SCL4s were fantastic if you like your bass nice and punchy.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Another CX300 vote, here. Good price and good sound.

 

[Blackfirevatsal]

the value of money earphone is creative EP630 & if you can spend more buy EP830 but i feel that there is not a big difference between the two in terms of sound quaility.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: thecoolnessrune
You dont have to do flac, just convert it all to AAC. You will however be completely wasting your money if you only have 128-256kbps mp3s.

I personally used my Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5EBs on the touch (first gen) while I had it and the sound quality was just as good as my PC sound.

Ok, yes these are definitely good.

Those Sennheiser CX300s don't even compare. You really think it doesn't make a difference? I've tried those, ES7s, HD-280s, e2cs, e3cs, e4cs, and SF5Pros. SF 5 Pros BLOW everything away. I paid $159 for them, and holy crap they're amazing. Have I tried anything better? Shure e530s? Yeah, great pair, but if you wanna blow $300 be my guest.

My recommendation is DO NOT get the EBs but just the regular 5 Pros. If anything the 5 Pros are already bassy. If you want accurate, Etymotic ER4s or Shure e4cs might be better, although the e4cs fall a little flat. The 5 Pros are a fun pair to wear, and I think of them that way. For those who think they need the bassiness of the EB, I think that's just excessive. Bass is kinda the newbie thing to think is cool. It's more just a fun thing and not the way music was meant to be.

Do I regret my SF5 Pro purchase? HELL NO. But I'm glad I tried a lot of different cans and IEMs before settling on these.

BTW, the improvement is night and day.

If you already use the standard Apple earbuds, I'll tell you they blow. I went straight to IEMs (Sony Fontopias) with my first iPod and I ran with those for 2 years. I shopped around for the longest time and when I finally jumped to my 5 Pros, it was like night and day. Holy crap. I was mesmerized. Yeah, trust me you will love the improvement.

Just take a good set of IEMs and stick them in your ear and close your eyes. I didn't get the effect with the E3Cs, but with the 5Pros, those were just amazing...

 

[QueBert]

best earbuds I've heard in the $150 range are the Beats By Dre from Monster. They have some funky SATA looking cable that's impossible to tangle. And they sound damn amazing. The sound quality + the fact you never have to worry about the wires getting knotted up make these pure win. I'm sure most will write these off simply because they're made by Monster, but they are very awesome buds.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: DLeRium

Originally posted by: thecoolnessrune
You dont have to do flac, just convert it all to AAC. You will however be completely wasting your money if you only have 128-256kbps mp3s.

I personally used my Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5EBs on the touch (first gen) while I had it and the sound quality was just as good as my PC sound.

Ok, yes these are definitely good.

Those Sennheiser CX300s don't even compare. <..snip..> SF 5 Pros BLOW everything away. I paid $159 for them, and holy crap they're amazing. <..snip..>

Well they should be four times better at that price.

 

[wota]

check out the portable forum on head-fi

i think the audeo phonak's are the FOTM (flavor of the month) but i don't really pay attention to portables.