Good but not perfect

I have been using these or similar earphones for the past year or two.

I have a love/hate relationship with them: I still haven't found my ideal earphones, but these are a good working compromise.

This is not an audiophile's review. I love audiobooks, and I love to walk with audiobooks, and I have been trying to cope with street noise for some time. I walk slowly, so the ideal for me would be something that's comfortable for hours on end. Most neckband headphones and most flared round-base standard earbuds seem to slip off when I use them, including Apple's.

My experiences in search of low-noise headphones:
1. Active Noise-Cancelling
This means the sort of noise cancellation that uses little microphones built into the earphones or a separate control box.

These either get rave or denouncing reviews. Many people report some sort of ear discomfort/nausea after using them for prolonged periods, and many people also say they're far less effective at keeping noise out than insertable earbuds.

I tried the Panasonic RCHC100, which are large closed-cup headphones with the circuitry built into one half of the headphones. These produced a slight hiss, and a very minimal improvement in audio clarity. I did *not* find I could suddenly hear the words when walking next to traffic, which is the effect I'd like. OTOH I did find there was a perceptible increase in audio clarity when near a steady noise like a computer fan or air-conditioning in a shop. Unfortunately, these 'phones maximise cord noise and noise from the actual earphones themselves as you move. I wasn't that impressed. Maybe I'd have better effects from Bose QuietComfort (which people either love or hate) or the Sennheiser noise-cancellers (ditto), but those cost about £100 (Sennheiser) and over £200 (Bose), and it's too much of a risk for something that might not work well.


2 True Isolators

These are very expensive, and by all accounts work extremely well. They fit right inside the ear, and most reviews suggest they're as close to cutting out *all* external sounds as possible. The best-known brands are Etymotic and Shure. I've never tried them.

I'd consider saving up for some, but for two reasons:
a) There's the possibility of damaging the ear: there's no long-term data about the effects on the ear of long-term frequent use of something like this, but I can think of several nasty possibilities offhand, ranging from ear infections to damaging the little filament things to disturbing the vestibular (balance) system. I haven't got any real data, but the risks would be far higher with something like this that fits very deeply (deeply enough that most people report that they go uncomfortably deep and take effort to put in and out, and can make the insides of your ears uncomfortable--which *does* suggest they go too close to the important things). If I had these and they worked as well as reviewers suggest, I'd feel tempted to use them for two hours. You can always save up for new earphones. You only get one pair of ears. (However, if your intended use is likely to be one really long plane trip in a year, and you'd use other phones most of the time there would be less reason to worry about your ears--but then would they justify the cost?)

b) What tends to happen to the less-drastic in-ear phones I use is that they get lost. One of my pairs was draped over my shoulders in the normal asymmetric fashion when I got on a bus. Just as the bus was leaving me at the bus stop, I discovered it was missing. Despite two or three phone calls to the bus company's lost property starting that very day, I never saw it again. At least one of my other pairs went about with me in its little case until (not having need of it for a few weeks), I realised I'd mislaid it somewhere, and since I'd been travelling quite a bit I was probably not going to be very sure where to look for it. Imagine that happening with *really expensive* earphones. You'd obviously make an effort to keep them safe, but all it would take would be a little inattention or a broken cord, and you wouldn't actually *want* to replace them because it might just happen again.

3. In-ear not-quite-as-drastic-as-real-isolators

This is the category the Sony Fontopia EX51/EX71/EX81 phones fit into, as far as I can guess. These are the cheap quasi-canalphones, but I don't think they go as deep as the isolators (and hope not, because I'd worry about my ears); at any rate they take a quick twist to make or remove a seal once you're used to them.

Some reviewers say that they're incredibly comfortable for extended use and you don't know they're there. This may be a slight exaggeration. They make my ears itch noticeably after twenty minutes of use, which I either suffer through or take them out for a bit and put them in again.

I remember for the first few weeks I used this style of earphone I was incredibly annoyed with the self-created noise (never eat crisps in these, they also magnify your footsteps and you get cord noise), but I haven't noticed it since. I'm not sure if this is a difference between the EX71s and the other similar ones, or if I got used to it and able to tune it out.

You also get wind noise. If you can wear a headscarf or ear-covering hat in the winter, it cuts down on this quite a bit.

I recently fell in love with mine all over again. I'd been using them for about six months rolling them up and putting them away in the little cloth bag. After this time, I realised that the little hard capsule case is meant to be used not for spare little rubber pads, but as an earphone holder: the little round holes (through which the small rubber pads tend to fall if that's the way you're using them) are designed for putting the cords through. It's not obvious: unless you position them exactly correctly, they won't fit or allow it to close. Now it's possible to use the reinforced soft rubber just behind the earpieces as soft 'posts' for winding the cord round. This isn't perfect, and the clip has a tendency to fall open--but if you use it _in conjunction with_ the small cloth bag and you're careful about putting them away and taking them out, it should minimise losing the little rubber pads or breaking the earphones. I try not to use the asymmetric cord (draping them over the shoulders) for any longer time than taking them out to cross the road, because of the risk of damaging/losing the 'phones.

Because this sort of earphone is fairly standardised, you can get away with using rubber earpads for Creative EP630 or Sennheiser CX300: similar three-size earpads and similar small in-ear 'posts' for putting the rubber pads on.

If the pads get grotty, put them in the basin/sink with the plug in and rub them in warm water with a bit of soap, then dry them carefully.

(I wish ebay had a 'swap shop' section, because I'd actually rather swap my large/medium earpads for small with a person with large or medium ears who has too many small earpads than have to bother about selling them and buying other ones. I can see why e-bay wouldn't want to create such a service; they'd get too many pettifogging disputes for too little return)

I have gone through three similar sets of these 'phones: Sony EX71, Sony EX51 (current) and Creative EP630. Sony have a bad reputation for the EX51/EX71 not standing up to wear and tear, but *all* mine have got lost rather than broken in the past two years or more.

The only difference between the EX51 and the EX71 seems to be that the EX51 has the built-in long cord, while the EX71 has the short cord plus extension. The EX81 seems to be the EX71 with semi-rigid earclips added; some people suggest that unless you have the right shape of ears, they won't work; I should think the clips also make it more difficult to put them away.

I'm considering getting an EX71 after a while, because I wear my iPod remote clipped to my purse at chest-level, and the short cord would probably work well with that. People who wear their mp3s at trouser-pocket/belt level should get an EX51 (because it's more comfortable dealing with a 'straight' long cord than short-cord-attached-to-extension). This would give me some spares to put away in a box. and I suspect that my early discomfort with my EX71s and self-created noise was more to do with first use of in-ear phones than to do with a difference between the models (especially since all the review sites suggest that they're effectively the same model with a different cord...).

I'd say they're not perfect, but my love-hate relationship to these and similar 'phones over the last two or three years suggests they're the best I've found so far without dropping serious money on something breakable.