Good quality advice

[gsusser]

Hi everyone, I'm the stoopid noobie in almost every respect. -) Apologies in advance for the dumb questions.

I just bought and just ordered my first iPod. I have the classic 160GB on order and just bought the shuffle for when I jog. I'm also a newbie to earphones. I'm looking for very good quality, but I'm not sure what to get. Having said that, I'm drooling over the Shure SE530, but don't really wanna spend the $350 (the cheapest I saw it for.) I haven't decided what format I'm going to use for my tracks on the iPod (either apple lossless or AAC)... I'm wondering if it makes sense to spend a zillion bucks on earphones to listen to AAC's or mp3s?

Another concern is fit. I have never had on a good pair of earphones in my life and the cheapo ones never fit me well. The ones that came with the shuffle are unusable for me... they're too big. Do I need not worry about this sort of thing with quality earphones?

I've read most of what there is to read here and am completely torn about what to get. I wonder if this is too general a question... what would you recommend for under $200 - comfort and fit is a major concern and not too bassy.

Thanks, glenn

[avanti]

I was in your spot for the last 3 weeks.

About the iPod:

It really depends on you. The first question you want to answer first is the following: Quality>Quantity or vice versa? Good quality files tend to take up to 30MB per song, so if you are stingy about space, don't. However, you don't have an excuse because 160GB is available to you. A CD in Apple Loseless format takes around 350MB, so just do the math. As for your Shuffle, don't bother. Just choose your favorite songs and rip them in AAC, 192 kbps or use LAME.

About Earphones:

If it was Quality that you chose above, decent headphones will be a necessity in order to get the most out of your well-encoded music. You will notice an enormous difference between your average earphones and those built with quality in mind.

About Fit:

Fit will always remain a problem for earphones because everyone's ears are different. Canalphones come with a fit-kit which include several types of foams with size, shape, material differences that you can choose from. You also have the choice to get a pair with custom fit at the expense of cash and lesser resale value.

Recommendations <200$:

I'm definitely not the best person to recommend anything since I haven't received my UM2s yet, but I have read extensively about earphones and here's what I have come across:

- Etymotics ER6i (available in white, probably match your iPod)

- Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 (go ahead and search through the rest of the line)

- Shure SE-210, SE-310

- Westone UM1

- Future Sonic Atrio M5 (right on the 200$ mark)


The last thing that I can say is this: Find an audio store and test them yourself. What matters the most is your ears and what you think about them. Also, I would suggest you to hop on the Head-fi forums and read some more. There's quite a bit of info to dig out from there.

[gsusser]

Thanks much for the detailed response!

I would love to try the various earphones first but it seems the only stores that carry the premium items are online. I work in NYC so I guess if they can be found anywhere, it would he here. Are you familiar with any brick & mortar stores that carry more than 1 or 2 premium earphones?

What does the "K" denote in the Shure SE420-K? Premium kit? If it doesn't have a "K" in the model number, does that mean it comes only with the basic kit? [there are no models with the "K" on the Shure website.]

This question doesn't so much belong in this forum, but I guess since I touched on it.... I have more tracks on my Mac that I can fit on the iPod, even if I reduce them to AAC's from lossless. [btw, according to my calculations, I can get about 10,000 3 minute apple lossless songs on a 160GB iPod.] I saw that this topic is a sticky in another forum, but that info looks dated. My thought was just to create a new library in iTunes for the iPod. Would that be a good way to organize the iPod?

[avanti]

Sorry, I live in Canada, so I dunno anything about that. My only source of information comes from websites such as HeadRoom, Earphone Solutions and the Head-fi Forum.

As for the "K" in the Shure SE series model, it simply stands for the color black. :p

To answer your third question, what I do is: dump all my songs in the main library of iTunes and create an exclusive playlist for the songs that will be loaded on my iPod. Then, I connect my player to the PC, select the songs in that playlist and drag-drop them to the icon on the left-hand side menu. I dunno if this method will suit you though because I have a much smaller amount of music than you; the selection process will be very long and painful.

[JIMBO3031]

Go with the UE super.fi 5 pro, you will not be sorry. Oh, and they do not insert as deedply as others in the ear so they are comfortable without being too instrusive.