So my birthday's coming up, and I decided to ask for a new pair of earbuds seeing as how I hate the ones that came with my iPod, and they're literally falling apart. I have my eyes on the Klipsch Image S4 or a pair of Sennheisers. But of course, I also want to know the opinions of my fellow TA comrades. Gonna be listening to mostly rock, a little classical, maybe some progressive fusion. I don't want the bass to be overpowering, and the earbuds should be somewhat durable since I'll be taking them everywhere. Can't be above $100. I don't trust myself all to well with expensive stuff... expensive relative to what I usually pay for earbuds, at least.
In case you're looking for 'buds that are in-ear, the pair I've got now are the Sony MDREW85LP's. They offer really good audio quality for the price ($50 list price), and the earbuds are pretty comfortable in my experience. Bass is more prevalent than in other earbuds, but it's not overpowering. They've got a nice, durable case, and a wire design that allows the right earbud's wiring to be drawn across the back of the neck, keeping it from getting caught on things or weighing you down too much. But in relation to your mentioned choices, you can never go wrong with Sennheisers.
I've really been enjoying my SoundMAGIC pl30's. I've tried a few others in the same price range from sennheiser, nuforce, jvc, apple, but these are my favorite so far. Really comfortable and nice sounding. Not too much bass, but not completely lacking either. My favorite under 100 dollar in ears. Nothing can replace my IE8's though, but they aren't exactly cheap
I just got the Klipsch Image s4i's about a month ago, and they're really nice. The first thing you'll notice is the ear tip is oval, not round. I didn't think this would make much of a difference but you can barely feel them in your ear because of the shape, and the round ones begin to put pressure and hurt inside your ear after long listening periods, while the S4i's do not. As far as audio goes I don't know if your going to find anything better than these under 100 (and even if you do the sound will only be a tad bit better). Really deep bass and (ridiculously) high treble. The only problem I have with them is the treble is so high that I can't listen to the music loud without it being too high pitched, but I figured out putting on the treble reducer in the EQ iPod settings balances out the sound perfectly. I also had a pair of Sennheiser MM50's which were also great, the tip was round which did begin to hurt after about an hour unlike the Klipsch's though. The sound isn't that much different, except the Klipsch's are a little richer, but not that much different. Hope that helps
Yeah, cheap earbuds will cut out practically all of the bass, that's like half the band just disappearing.
"Progressive fusion" huh? Sounds deadly. Anyway I would definately go with the Image S4s, I don't really like the in ear style of earbuds but my friend has the Image S4 and they work very well. The price of $80 isn't exactly cheap but it sounds like you would need some high quality earbuds for progressive fusion.
yeah, whatever normal person. I got one ear where the cartelidge is not the same as my other ear, so normal earbuds don't work. The best I've ever found are called SURE headphones or maybe it's SHURE. Anyway, not only do they make the attachments that fit my ear they are noise blocking and have pretty good sound in comparison to studio headphones. they go from like 80$ to 300$ check their website.