14 out of 14 people found this review helpful.
Shure E2c, one of the best headphones ever tried
Date of Review: Dec 5, 2004
The Bottom Line: Highly recommended if you can spend the money they're worth (and if you have average ears!)
I recently bought a pair of Shure E2c headphones to use with an MP3 Player. These headphones are one of the best I've ever tried, including high-end, over-the-ear models and I definitely recommend them.
The Shure E2c goes into the ear canal just like an earplug (if you ever used hearing protectors you know what they look like), not around your ear or lying in your ear like most earbuds do. This isolates the listener from the ambient noise, requiring less power to listen to the music and making music perception more subtle.
In my case I bought these headphones mostly to use on international flights. I do a fair amount of air travel and I've found most headsets clumsy or hard to use. Because of the shape of my ears, regular earbuds don't hold very well, and the high-end Bose with noise cancellation provided in First and Business Class by some airlines make my ears hot and sore after just a couple hours.
My first impression wasn't that good: after reading reviews at Amazon.com and other sites telling me that the sound quality will impress me I really expected more. While I wasn't blown away immediately, after a week I came to realize that the quality was much better than my first impression suggested. What happens is that I listen to most of my music at home, through my home theater and the sound quality of the E3c was as good as the one delivered by my home theater! Once I compared these headphones to all the others I own I clearly saw the difference and now I can't use anything but the Shures. So I definitely recommend them.
There are two issues worth mentioning: bass and fit.
Some people complain that these headphones do not deliver impressive bass. I disagree. The bass is extremely accurate. I listen to jazz and rock and in both cases the bass sounds like what one hears during live performances. I believe many people today listen to saturated bass in hip-hop and pop music. This is not the $500 subwoofer in your truck (which by the way produces an unnatural sound). If you want exaggerated, unreal bass, go with an over-the-ear model, the bigger the better.
I've read several reviewers at Amazon.com criticize these headphones because of the low bass they deliver, however after listening jazz with these headphones I have to say that they deliver the best, most precise bass sound I've ever heard with any type of headphone.
However, achieving good bass is tied to achieving good fit, and this is my only problem with this product. In order to isolate noises, optimize bass and minimize music volume, the plugs need to fit perfectly into the listener's ear canal. To this purpose Shure provides six different plugs: three sizes in two different materials, clear silicone and foam.
After trying the smaller plugs on each material it became apparent that my ear canals are too small for either one of them. I tried using them for a week, but after less than one hour they became painful to wear and I had to take them out. I can't imagine myself spending 10 hours on a flight with these headphones in, so I returned them in exchange for a pair of Shure E3c (by the way, here's my review of the Shure E3c headphone).
I visited their local retailer (a music store) and they told me that they had the same problem mostly with women and also with some men with small ear canals. They recommended I try the E3c, which offers more variety of ear plugs (3 types: the two mentioned before plus a set of soft silicone plugs) plus the possibility of buying what's called a "three ring plug" thus increasing my chances to find a better fit.
The other problem with the E2's is earwax. The E3 and E5's have a wax removal tool, the E2's only have some kind of a sticker that you have to stick to the end of each driver and replace periodically. Well, this is yukky... but I can have an earwax problem sometimes and I could see myself replacing the sticker (set of 5, $10) every flight, so maybe the $50 premium to upgrade to the E3's isn't that expensive...
You may ask yourself why did I return a product I wasn't completely satisfied with and bought an even more expensive product of the same brand? The answer is simple: I have never experienced such sound clarity, I've discovered subtle details I didn't know were there and I've enjoyed my music more than ever.
The E3c's, at $99 are pretty expensive, but once you try them you can't go back to $20 Sonys. So it's worth looking for sales and special pricing (Buy.com is selling them now for $68). If you invested a significant amount of money on a player and lots of music, pamper yourself to these or even the E3c's. You won't regret it.
