Shure E3c Isolation

[Egosphere]

I just got my new Shure E3c's and I'm loving them, but the isolation isn't as great as I expected. Everybody here touted about the E3c's ultimate isolation, but using the foam sleeves, I can still hear the keyboard faintly as I type right now and I can hear cars passing by me as I walk down streets, with or without sound going through (people mentioned that the E3c's silenced everything out even without sound). I was expecting total isolation. Am I doing something wrong? I stick them in as deep as possible and I flatten out my ear when I put them in and hold them in as the foam expands with my ear in normal form (i.e. not flattened), but the isolation is still not as perfect as I thought it would be.
I also tried the tri flange sleeves, but I couldn't get them deep enough for the largest flange to be wholy in my ear and thus it gave no isolation whatsoever and fell out easily. Even without the E3c's I couldn't get in the sleeves alone well. I tried cutting the stem to be flush with the largest flange as suggested on this forum, but that didn't help either.
Anyone got any tips on how to get better isolation or how to use the tri flange sleeves? From the comments I saw regarding the tri flange sleeves, they seem pretty neat and I did throw like 10 bucks at them.

[kauffee]

If you're hearing external noise with the foamies when music is playing, I'm guessing you're not getting a good seal. You should be hearing almost no noise without music, and when the music is playing you should be able to stand in the middle of an interstate and not hear a thing.

Experiment with insertion a bit more. Are you using the arm-over-the-head method? I don't know what you mean by "flattening your ear" to insert them. The way I would describe it is actually pulling the top of your ear up and outwards... so exactly opposite of flattening.

[Egosphere]

Oh! Wow, they go in REALLY deep. You can hardly see them at all when they're in. A little uncomfortable, but then again they felt a little uncomfortable at first too and stopped to ever again after the first hour of using them so I'll just have to let my ears adapt again. Thanks for the tip. I guess I misread the directions. I'll try the tri flange like this when I get back home.

[am0eba]

Yeah, it can be a little bit unnerving how far in they need to go. When they're in right, they really do isolate, and the bass sounds good.

_Dave_

[MuzakMan]

You'll get great isolation, but COMPLETE isolation is EXTREMELY hard to get at all. I shoot guns, and I have used good earplugs, and the big earmuffs over it, and you can still hear people's voice vibrations and stuff. The E3's are great, but you will still be able to faintly hear the tv, without music, in a quiet room.

With music however, you shouldn't hear anything at all.

[Egosphere]

Ooh... the tri flange are nice! They reach WAY into my ear. Feels a little uncomfortable, but as I said before, I guess I need to let my ears get used to it. The sound is amazing compared to the stock buds, but that's totally expected.
Looking at Shure's images, though, it doesn't look like the models crammed the whole thing in... I wonder if it's OK to actually cram these so deep or does it hurt the ear drum, especially with these tri flange which feel like they actually touch the ear drum membrane or something. Doesn't say anywhere in the instructions how deep in they should go. I also wonder if the discomfort (the discomfort is not from the sound but only from the in-ears themselves) is a sign of these in-ears damaging my ear and/or ear drum.

[)x(miPod)x(]

i am thinkin about getting those earphones...how is the bass?

[)x(miPod)x(]

Actually not just the bass but the over all sound? is it the quality of the stock earphones?

[kauffee]

Ego... cram them in as far as you can. There's absolutely no danger of you hitting your ear drums or anything. They need to be in as far as you can get them.

As far as the feeling... yeah, it's not so comfortable at first. Give it a week and you'll be completely used to it. We've all been through it... don't worry.

[Egosphere]

Thanks for the reassurance, but I'm still a little worried, though: I get this feeling after using the E3c's that resembles the feeling after accidentally sticking Q-Tips in too far when cleaning your ears... should I worry about this?
Also, is it OK to fall asleep with these in? Would the turning and moving around during sleep move these inside my ear in dangerous ways without me feeling it, being asleep and all, and preventing it?
I'm just a bit apprehensive about damaging my hearing as one of the main reasons I got these was so I can listen to music without having to expose myself to excessive decibles because I could feel how my hearing felt degraded after listening sessions with the stock earbuds.

[kauffee]

Again, don't worry about sticking them too far in... it can't be done. So in that sense, you can't do any physical damage to the ear canal itself. If you went to the pharmacy and bought those foam earplugs, they go in farther than your earphones will. A lot of people fall asleep with them in and it's not a problem. Think about it... with all the product liability litigation these days, if you could damage your ear by having these in, there would be warning labels all over the box and the manual. As it is, the only warnings relate to the sound level.

As far as that goes, as long as you're listening at a comfortable volume, these should be safer than regular headphones. As you said, you can listen at a lower volume due to the isolation. That's one of the main reasons I use canalphones... it's safer.

That being said, just be careful that you don't have your volume turned up too high before turning the iPod on. As far as volume level, I find that for most of my MP3s, I listen at about 33%. Some need a little more and some a little less. That's without sound check, by the way.

[Egosphere]

I see. Thanks; I feel a lot more confident using these now. :)

Yeah, I notice I put the volume around 25%-33% of the bar with sound check on with tags that correlate to ReplayGain values calculated by Foobar2000 and transfered by foo_pod and these values are usually like around -5dB for most of my MP3's. I think I only have one album (out of my album collection that fills my 40gb iPod almost completely) with positive ReplayGain values.

[maisany]

I wasn't sure which of these Shure threads to add to but let me start off by saying that I love my e3's and before them, my old e2's. I guess I'm not as much of a bass-hound as some of the other posters are and I'm perfectly happy with the level of bass that you get from both the e2 and the e3.

90 percent of the time, I'm wearing mine as I either commute or get around town in NYC. Lots and lots of street noise to be sure. You're always going to get some passing through even the good isolation that you get from these phones, but they do block out most of the annoying stuff, like people talking on their cell phones.

Almost all of the rest of my listening would have to be on an airplane and I'd have to say that the Shures give you as much isolation as you could reasonably expect in that type of environment. I owned a pair of noise-cancellation headphones a few years ago, and the Shures are far superior, IMO, in both isolation from external noise and also in the quality of sound you get in spite of the noisy environment. I even had a chance to do a side-by-side comparison with a pair of the Bose noise-cancellation headphones on a recent trip and I still preferred the Shures.

On an airplane, and in other similar situations -- like on a bus or a train -- a lot of the noise that's still filtering through the seal that you get with the Shures is not coming via your ear canals but through vibrations being carried through the bones in your body. The next time you're listening to these on an airplane, do a little experiment: pick your feet up off of the ground for a bit and rest them either on the seat back in front of you, or on the bulkhead. Then put them back down again on the floor.

You're never going to get 100 percent isolation in a noisy environment, and it's probably dangerous in other, less noisy situations, but the Shures give you as much isolation as anything that I have ever tried, including noise cancellation headphones.

[kauffee]

maisany is right about the bone vibration. But your bones only transmit low frequency sounds.

As far as street noise, though, that's mostly high frequncy. Isolation for this is highly dependent on what tips you're using. If you're using the gray flex sleeves, you'll definitely get a lot of noise coming through. If you're using tri-flanges or foamies, though, you'll only hear street noise in the rarest situations... even in NYC.

[Egosphere]

Well, using the tri-flange sleeves, I still hear the "woosh"-es from cars as I walk along a busy street with cars going 40mph+. Should I not expect this?

[kauffee]

It's hard to say. Do you think you're getting a good seal? Personally, I rarely hear car sounds with my tri flanges, even if I don't have them up too loud. Though most cars near me aren't going 40 mph, either. I usually cross streets with cars going 25-30. So yeah, it's probably normal for you if cars are going that fast.

The music you're listening to also makes a big difference. If you're listening to pop or more vocal music, then you'll hear more noise. If you're listening to rock, outside noise will be much less.