My E2c's have started distorting, less than a year old, not played loud or much, going back to play now.

I always thought they sounded average – hard, compressed and bass light (though I read that this is meant to be "more accurate" 🙄 ).

I have some unopened alternatives, "consumer" Shures, are they likely to be any better or should I just ebay them and get some sennheiser CX300s?

Not a big fan of Shures. Got some of the Denon AH 771's recently as I didn't have any iem's. Quite like like them, good punchy sound, and decent bass. I only use them in noisy environments (train and tube mmostly) and they work well for that. For home listening I have full size headphones (Grado RS2s) which I much prefer.

Ta for that. I have my DJ-sennheisers for home use, must get my speakers built & system set up properly…

I've not tried Sures or Denons, but the Etymotic ER6is are very good if you like the isolation thing.

If you wanted to try the cx300s out for cheap, This Place has got them going for a song…

I found my Shures a bit bass-light until I changed the rubber mushrooms to a size larger. Much better once they were properly fitted, although the sensation of having something well wedged into my ears took some getting used to.

I also have some Sennhieder 550's (not 'plug in', bit sit in your ear type) which I think are equally as good, but they suffer from the intrusion of outside noise and since I use my player on the train or plane I go for the Shures more often.

Ta blob – have played with the mushrooms a fair bit, and yes it does make a difference, but to get it to really work I found it uncomfortable.

It turns out the second pair of Shures I have are 110's which I got for £17 (they appear to be about £60!). Can anyone comment on these? If they are going to sound like the E2c's I'll just ebay them…

There's no comparison between my Shure in ear jobbies to my Bose quiet comfort 3s

the QC3s are leaps and bounds better.

I haven't heard many different Shures but my experience has been that most models of a brand will have a similar sound – if you find one bass light you'll find the others generally are similar. Check out head-fi.org for lots of advice and people with first hand experience. Etymotics are nice, I've only heard the ER4 and they sound amazing, very detailed, 'clean' sound though which may not be what you are after. They also tend to suffere a bit from microphonics (distortion created by the cable moving) so are not so great on the move. The ER6 may be better for this. Can't say I think much of the Bose headphones I've heard.

I had a pair of E2C's & they sounded ok to me. When they finally died a death from 3+ years of day-to-day use/abuse i replaced them with a pair of SE240's. They're in another league sound-wise, with a very clean detailed sound. I've seen reviews that say they're light on bass. Can't say i notice that.

I've had 2 pairs of Shure SE210s both replaced under warranty as after 6 months or so one of the head phones went out of balance twice
apparently not uncommon! wire breaks down apparently

They then upgraded me to SE310's all sounded great ('till they broke) I can't personnaly tell the difference so wouldn't have spent the extra ££'s

great customer services

so bit of a mixed experiance personnaly