Decent sounding earbuds.

[NLAlston]

Hi again,

Can anyone suggest some good sounding earbuds which wouldn't cause too-deep-a-reaching into one's pocket? The included earbuds that were bundled with my G5 just don't cut the cake for me. They're definitely 'bright' enough, but fall way short of delivering a decent 'bottom'. Now, please bear in mind that I am not interested in having the bottom end rock my brain from side to side (that, is most definitely not MY listening pleasure), but I truly desire more low end presence. I had a pair of Sony earbuds, once (which cost no more than $15) that were VERY nice in all tonal respects. They (Sony) don't even sell that particular model, anymore, but I am sure that some manufacturer should have a decent offering for no more than about $30. Let me know your opinions.

[Jake1234]

try picking up some low end sony ones. almost anything beats the stock earbuds included with the ipod.

[NLAlston]

Originally posted by Jake1234
try picking up some low end sony ones. almost anything beats the stock earbuds included with the ipod.

Thanks, Jake -

And you are absolutely right about that. You'd think that - for the cost of these units - Apple would have included at least a little better set of earbuds (these things really STINK!!). But that's the way they (and other manufacturers) do business, I guess.

[laxattackdog]

Take a look at the Panasonic HJE50 and the JVC HA-FX55. They are both sold for under $20 on buy.com. I heard good things about both and I ended up going with the FX55s. Check both of those out.

[Jackonicko]

$89 buys you the Panasonic HJE70. Excellent, well balanced bass. Good iPod like design cues.

[Jackonicko]

Avoid the Sony EX51/70/71/81 series, whose bass is crude and over powerful,and whose overall sound is muddy.

[TheJosher]

The griffin EarThumps are decent. They're the in-ear type.. and come in white and black to match the iPod.

You might need to EQ it a little... as somtimes it seems like it could use a presence lift or something. The dance EQ setting works nicely.

Josh

[shixun]

Although it's not an earbud, the Koss KSC75 is a terrific portable headphone with exceptional tonal accuracy. It only costs $13, but I think it may be better than the Etymotic ER•6.

[fk51785]

Koss is NOT better than Etymotic

maybe to urs ears but not to most of the people

[NLAlston]

Originally posted by TheJosher
The griffin EarThumps are decent. They're the in-ear type.. and come in white and black to match the iPod.

Josh

I wonder if you are referring to Griffin's ear-bud attachments which snap onto Apple's bundled buds? If so, I did try them - and they did sound quite a bit better than by just using the ear-buds in their naked state. However, I could not get them to stay in my ears, and they were returned. I just picked up a set of buds from K-Mart ($10) by Philips, that featured a bass port on their backsides. I know that they are cheap, but I thought that I'd give them a shot. Boy, were they terrible. They will be going back, this evening, and I may try out the buds that were manufactured by Koss ($15). I'm not trying to spend a whole lot of money on buds, because I do have a pair of the Bose lightweight cans. When I am out-and-about I don't like having even their size on my head, which is why I am searching for a decent sounding set of buds.

[iMonster]

I'm pretty sure he means these : http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/comments/griffin-technology-earthumps-earphones-for-mobile-devices-ipod/

[shixun]

Nathan, if you decide to try out the Koss, I'd like to emphasize that I was specifically recommending the KSC75, which is a clip-on that uses drivers similar to those in the PortaPro. The Koss Plug, which is a "bud," has booming bass and rolled-off highs; IMO it really is not good at all.

[TheJosher]

I'm pretty sure he means these : http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/re...e-devices-ipod/

Yeah, thats what I meant. :)

I've never had good experience with KOSS.. I can't remember what model, but I had a pair of the behind-the-head style headphones, they they pretty much fell apart. They felt really cheaply built, and the volume control was all staticy. So I never tried another pair after that, but I may sometime in the future.

Josh

[NLAlston]

Originally posted by shixun
Nathan, if you decide to try out the Koss, I'd like to emphasize that I was specifically recommending the KSC75, which is a clip-on that uses drivers similar to those in the PortaPro. The Koss Plug, which is a "bud," has booming bass and rolled-off highs; IMO it really is not good at all.

Shixun,

Thanks for the recommendation. I did pick those up, and found that they were considerably better than the stock buds. The problem with them, however, was that the right side seemed to cause problems behind my ear. I remember having the same problem with a similar setup before (but behind both ears), but thought that - just maybe - these ones might prove to be a little more comfortable. Well, they went back to the store also. I have kind of resigned myself to utilizing the stock buds for now. As previously stated, I have the Bose 'cans', - which sound awesome with the Ipod - but I just don't care to have all of that sitting on my head while away from home. It is also for them (the Bose set) that I can't justify spending $100+ for another set.
After listening to some other music, on my 5G-30, I have to be honest and admit that they didn't sound half bad. I guess that there is really something, indeed, to the one poster who stated that the encoding of an MP3 plays a major role in the quality of sound reproduction. I bought this Ipod for the main purpose of referring to my music (original creations) when I am in transit - and these works will be entered in as Wav files (which I am reasonably sure will sound a great deal better).

But thanks again to you - and to all who took the time to help me out.