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Shure SE530PTH Earphones

Posted 07/31/2007 at 5:10pm | by Michael Brown

For the price of one set of Shure’s SE530PTH earphones, you could buy two 30GB iPods, 17 sets of Apple earbuds, or 500 encrypted songs from iTunes. A worthy investment or Marie Antoinette­–style consumption? With that question in mind, we couldn’t resist auditioning these pricey phones to the sound of Cake’s Fashion Nugget, ripped and FLAC-encoded, on Cowon’s D2 digital media player. We don’t know if Shure’s BOM (bill of materials) justifies a $500 price tag, but we did have awfully big smiles on our faces after using these earphones.

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Genius HS-04U

Posted 07/26/2007 at 4:04pm | by Michael Brown

The Genius HS-04U plugs into your PC’s USB port, instead of your soundcard’s analog speaker output and mic input, so it bypasses any EAX or OpenAL audio effects that game developers might have painstakingly programmed into the software. What you get instead—after installing a driver—is what Genius calls “Virtual Dolby.”

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TheBoom Quiet

Posted 07/12/2007 at 4:57pm | by Michael Brown

We generally don’t like headphones that use active-noise cancellation because these devices mask external noise by producing noise of their own. But we decided to make an exception for theBoom Quiet because of the lofty promises the company makes for its noise-canceling mic.

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iAsus Concepts Mobile Amp

Posted 06/12/2007 at 12:48pm | by Michael Brown

With all the legitimate warnings about hearing damage induced by in-ear headphones, you might think a portable headphone amp is the last thing on-the-go music listeners need. But that’s not going to stop us from praising this tiny doodad. Don’t get us wrong: Listening to music played at high sound-pressure levels will absolutely damage your hearing over time.

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M-Audio IE-20 XB Reference Earphones

Posted 04/03/2007 at 12:33pm | by Michael Brown

One of the most commonly voiced complaints about earbuds is that they don’t deliver enough bottom end; those tiny drivers just don’t have much material to work with when it comes to producing long waves. M-Audio’s IE-20 XBs are the exception to the rule. These earphones pump more bass than many full-size headphones.

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Etymotic Research ety8 Bluetooth Earbuds

Posted 02/28/2007 at 12:38pm | by Michael Brown

Thanks to Apple’s ubiquitous advertising, you can walk around town with wires hanging out of your ears without getting strange looks from passersby. Etymotic Research’s ety8 Bluetooth earphones shorten the wires, but these anything-but-discreet earbuds are guaranteed to draw a few sets of eyeballs your way.

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Ultrasone iCans

Posted 02/27/2007 at 12:38pm | by Michael Brown

Ultrasone’s iCans feature the same S-Logic technology that prompted us to name the company’s Proline 750 headphones to our 2006 Best of the Best list. However, as wonderful as they sound with an iPod, they can’t displace the Shure E4g earbuds in their respective Best of the Best category.

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Etymotic ER-6 Isolator

Posted 10/10/2006 at 12:26pm | by Michael Brown

The relentless snare drum crack on “Jack of Speed” was enough to make some of the lesser earbuds beg for mercy, but the Etymotic ER-6 Isolators delivered it nearly perfectly. More importantly, they served up Beck’s bass with equal authority.

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