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"COMPARISON: Sennheiser CX-300 vs. Shure E2c" on by HeyItsJoel
Pros: read review
Cons: read review
Summary: I'm the most picky consumer I know. I don't buy anything without reasearching it first and doing a personal comparison side-by-side second. Rarely do I buy anything without doing my homework. I'm using the ARCHOS AV500 as my mp3 playback device. So, here we go...
1. SOUND- Advantage: Sennheiser. I gave the slight nod to the CX300 because it delivered a more prominent BASS than E2c. The E2c had a difficult time handling the lower end and I had to max out everything on my equalizer to be able to get some bass. On the CX300's however, the bass hit me right from the get-go. I had to literally turn down the bass to a more manageable level. Otherwise, it will be thumping in your head. The way I see it, too much bass is better than not enough at all. In all fairness though, the E2c's handled the high's better. It's clearer and more crisp. If you listen to ROCK, POP or ACOUSTICS, go with the E2c. For R&B, HIP-HOP and JAZZ, the CX300 is the way to go.
2. COMFORT- Advantage: Shure. The E2c's came with an array of tips including both rubber and foam. The CX300 came with only rubber but they are noticeably softer ones so it will contour to your ear's shape better than E2c rubbers. The most comfortable out of the two were E2c's foam tips though which CX300 doesn't provide. All tips came with SM, M, and L sizes.
3. FIT- Advantage: Shure. Given the right size tips you choose, the E2c's fit your ear perfectly. These things will not fall out. Believe me I tried jumping up and down and shaking my head vigorously. They're in there good. The CX300 doesn't have the around-the-ear design that give the E2c's such a good fit so adjustments need to be done from time to time. For working out, E2c's will do nicely.
4. CORDS- Advantage: Shure. The CX300 has irregular length being that the right side is longer than the left. This is so that you wrap the right earbud behind your neck and you have no choice but to put the mp3 player on your left side pocket. The E2c's not only have equal lengths (which I prefer) but have the luxury of durability with its thicker cords. It'll take significant abuse for these to be damaged. As far as length, both are generous. I stand at 5'10" and I can put my mp3 player in my pants pocket without the danger of the buds being pulled out during activity.
5. NOISE REDUCTION- Advantage: Equal. If you have a good seal around you ear canal, ambient sounds coming from the outside world are drastically reduced. I played loud music with my stereo system and stood next to the garage door while opening/closing it and I couldn't hear a thing. It will give you complete sound isolation (when the music is playing. Without music you will be able to hear your fingers snapping). Please note: Do NOT use these in places where you need to hear important noises. In other words, if you're using these at the airport and you miss the announcement about your flight boarding early, don't blame me. Or when you're driving in your car with these on (dumb) and you run smack into an ambulance with its sirens in full blast, you're going to find yourself riding in the back seat of police car instead. Don't blame me.
6. PRICE- Advantage: CX300. As of this writing (10/07/06), Amazon.com has the cheapest prices on the net. Shure E2c = $72+$5shipping. Sennheiser CX300 = $47+free shipping. Needless to say, you don't have to be a genius to figure this one out. Either that or go to your local retailer and pay MSRP. E2c's go for $99 and CX300's for $79.
So, pick your poison. Both have their positives and negatives and which one you pick depends on which are more important to have. To me, the BASS sound and price of the Sennheiser CX-300 made it a no-brainer for me. Good luck. -
"Awesome Sound! Definite Buy!" on by crazywidget
Pros: Rich, Yummy Sound! Sound Isolation is great...
Cons: cost, lacks carry pouch
Summary: I just got these yesterday, and I have to say the sound is absolutely terrific, not to mention the added benefit from the sound isolation! I can finally hear all those minute details. Seriously, you don't know what you're missing until you hear these puppies.
My only wishes were for a carry pouch (given the cost) and the cost itself. I would also mention that since these do such a good job of isolating outside sound, you *do* hear noise as the cable rubs against your clothing if you move around... -
"Great ear buds!" on by sannyc22
Pros: Love the bass
Cons: Not good if you need to be aware of suroundings.
Summary: I absolutely love these ear buds. They provide the sound that I used to get when I pressed my old ear buds deep into my ears to hear the nuances of a particular song, but lost all richness when I removed the pressure of my fingers. I wanted the E4s, but didn’t have the $200 plus so these are great substitutes for the price.
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"I love 'em!" on by Elvis_1967
Pros: Sound quality.
Cons: No carry case.
Summary: This is my first pair of ear canal 'phones, I changed from Sennheiser MX550s. The sound quality is incredible, the detail is much better. For work I use Beyer Dynamic DT990s and the Sennheisers obviously aren't as good as these but nor are they as big & heavy. On the train & walking through central London to work there's a lot of background noise & it no longer gets in the way of the music although I'm still aware of it as I don't need to turn the volume anything like as high. My Creative Zen has a volume setting of 0-25, with the OED 'phones it was set at 20-22, the MX550s at 15-17, the CX300s it's down to 9 or 10. My hearing's safe & I get all the clarity (and a little more battery life)!
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"Decent, lightweight, portable in-ear buds" on by scoofy
Pros: Portable, sensitive, solid bass, detailed midrange, comfortable, good isolation, good value
Cons: No carry bag, resonant and somewhat decayed highs
Summary: My first encounter with in-ear monitors were the Sony series many years ago, when I was amazed by the quality of bass and clarity of sound that such a small piece of equipment can create. During the recent years, I mostly used closed and open headphones, at the top of the list being the super-detailed open Sennheiser HD590.
Recently I was looking for a good in-ear monitor for my portable, and - as I had good experience with Sennheiser - I was glad to find out that they started producing in-ear monitors for a fairly good price. Upon reading many reviews I decided that this is what I need. Luckily, I immediately found a guy who just bought a pair but he did not like the idea to stick something into his ears, so he sold it for 20% less than the new price.
Upon first listening to these earphones, I was somewhat dissatisfied with the sound. Because I had much experience with more expensive ($250) Sennheisers, I expected more. But later I realized that these earphones have very good value for the price.
Build:
They are really lightweight in-ear monitors with soft silicone rubber pads that fit inside your ear-canal providing very good isolation and bass. They're very comfortable even for longer periods of time. They come with 3 different pad sizes, for me, the default size is fine. In order to get decent bass, the pad needs to be placed in your ear canal properly. If the cable's pulled a bit, the isolation may not be perfect. The noise-blocking is pretty good, it filters out most of the ambient sounds in the mid and high range, making them suitable for traffic. I used it on subway, tram, bus and train, and it's quite relaxing. The cable is a 1m long asymmetrical cable, which tends to conduct the noise of the cable movement into your ears, which is strange at first but you can get used to it
Unfortunately there's no carry bag provided. I found a nice small leather bag for them, which protects them properly.
Sound:
These earphones have low impedande and very high sensitivity (112dB), so even the cheapest portables can deliver high sound levels with plenty of bass without distortion. As mentioned, the fit in the ear canal should be perfect to produce proper bass, which is very solid and detailed. The midrange is very detailed and clean, giving a decent soundstage. The main (only?) weakness of these earphones is the highs, which have a loud +10 dB resonant peak around 6.2 kHz. This makes the highs somewhat exaggearated, owerpowering the mids a bit, and causing ear fatigue after some time. After using more high-end headphones ($250) and sound system ($1250), this was hard to get used to. Above the resonant peak, the highs decay somewhat, lacking crispness. Still, at this price, these in-ear monitors provide pretty good sound, probably the best in this price-range (and if you only used cheap earbuds before, you'll truly be amazed at the power of these tiny little earphones!)
Tweak:
If you are a lucky owner of a soundsystem with a customizable parametric equalizer, you may get an amazingly good sound out of these earbuds by equalizing out the response. To almost perfectly eliminate the resonant peak, use the following parametric EQ setting: frequency: 6.2 kHz, bandwidth: 0.5 oct, gain: -10 dB. For crisper highs, you may as well boost the highs above that. I found the following settings the best (I used a measurement microphone to get the best results):
band 1 - type: paramEQ, freq: 6.2 kHz, bw: 0.5 oct, gain: -10 dB
band 2 - type: paramEQ, freq: 6.6 kHz, bw: 0.5 oct, gain: -3 dB
band 3 - type: paramEQ, freq: 7.6 kHz, bw: 0.33 oct, gain: -2 dB
band 4 - type: high shelf, freq: 8.5 kHz, gain: +3 dB
band 5 - type: paramEQ, freq: 9.9 kHz, bw: 0.4 oct, gain: +2 dB
band 6 - type: paramEQ, freq: 15.5 kHz, bw: 0.33 oct, gain: +2 dB
band 7 - type: high shelf, freq: 16 kHz, gain: +2 dB
These advanced EQ settings in my DSP-powered EMU1212m sound card eliminated all peaks and dips in the frequency response, giving an amazingly good, detailed, flat, clean, punchy, spacey sound you can usually get only from >$300 headphones. Unfortunately most portables don't offer such sound-sculpting tools, so I can enjoy this sound clarity only at home. I was even thinking of building a simple passive electronic filter circuit for eliminating the resonant peak. I hope Sennheiser will fix this annoying resonance in future models, making them overkill!Updated
Upon comparing my measurement results with headphone.com's frequency response curves of this earplug, I found that the two graphs look different. Headphone.com's measurement shows two distinct resonant peaks with less amplitude (about 5-6 dB), which may be more pleasant to listen to with a large peak with +11 dB. Headphone.org's measurement:
http://scoofy.psysector.com/tmp/wav/pink.wavUpdated
Upon comparing my measurement results with headphone.com's frequency response curves of this earplug, I found that the two graphs look different. Headphone.com's measurement shows two distinct resonant peaks with less amplitude (about 5-6 dB), which may be more pleasant to listen to with a large peak with +11 dB. Headphone.org's measurement:
http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&graphID[]=603
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