My Bose headphones (like these) have finally bitten the dust. The sound was great but, even with 3 different sized ear pieces, they never really fitted that well. In fact, all cheap in-ear ones (like come with ipods as standard) simply fall out, and the Bose ones were always coming loose.

I think my ears aren’t good at retaining them – I can stick my fingers in my ears at 90 degress to my skull without any part of my fingers touching any part of my ears (other than the finger tips in the canals); most other people have to come at their ears from the back to some extent (if you can understand what I’m trying to describe).

So, just to limit the field I don’t want buckets or things that clip over / round my head. So I’m looking at in-canal ones like the Sennheiser CX400, or over ear ones like Sennheiser CX6, Sennheiser OMX95 VC or Audo Technica ATH-CK9. Cost is an issue, but firstly I need advice on which style is likely to stay put in lugs. “Stay put” includes walking around, commuting on trains etc. but not running or much cycling.

Oh, and for commuting I want them to isolate noise and be quiet for other people – nowt as irritating as noise pollution from ipods.

Appreciating that it’s a very individual thing, but any advice appreciated.

Being a microsoft nerd, I’ve got some of these

Come with three different sized mushroom thingies and are completely quiet on the outside. Background noise is well suppressed; to the point that they’re almost as good as my uvex earplugs when I’m riding my KTM.

I’ve used them skiing, snowboarding, commuting, mtbing, on the motorbike and not had them come loose.

Hi
I have a similar problem with the Bose ones except I cant get them to stay in because my external ear (pinna) is too small. Fortunately ear buds work for me.
You could try http://www.noisebreaker.co.uk they do some custom moulded ear plugs that you can get speakers built into-not cheap though about £150.
Cheers
Steve

Useful, Steve – thanks. Nice to know there’s a solution if the standard things don’t fit.

More custom ones here.

I can stick my fingers in my ears at 90 degress to my skull without any part of my fingers touching any part of my ears (other than the finger tips in the canals); most other people have to come at their ears from the back to some extent (if you can understand what I’m trying to describe).

What species are you? 😆 Sorry!

Sounds like you need custom fit earphones.

Etymotic ER6i’a are a good option because they were designed for iPod users. Etymotic service the music industry and you can get a custom fit ear pieces to go with some of their domestic range.

Shure do some good ones too. There are loads of companies selling in ear type earphones now, so you have a lot of choices.

Don’t know if you do this already and I’m just behind-the-times but I now wrap the cable around my ear and then put the buds in so that the wire is running through the gap that isn’t the gap at the bottom of my ear lope type bit but the one a bit further up. Quite hard to explain really but it ends up looking like how those wrap round headphones fit but with inner ear earphones, makes mine fit much tighter and I get much better bass for some reason too!

You want to have custom made earphones or noise reducing headphones, because they provide a better acoustic seal more comfort which also means you will have reduced street noise meaning you will not have to have your ipod or mp3 volume so high. Protect your hearing now as the ipod generation are going to be the next hearing aid users adding to the 7.9 million people in the uk with a hearing problem.

I’ve used the Sennheiser CX300’s, which aren’t bad, the Etymotic ER6i’s, which I had custom eartips made up for. Fantastic fit, (obviously), and very comfortable. However, the Ety’s are very bass-light, and as I’ve now got an iPhone I needed ‘phones with a microphone, so I decided to try Ultimate Ears SuperFi 4vi’s. They aren’t cheap, mine were $124, and they’re around £119 or less on Amazon, but bloody heck they’re good! Honestly, they are astonishingly good, they bring out detail in songs I’ve heard countless times and never noticed. There is loads of bass, which is well controlled, and the treble is really smooth; certain recent recordings I’ve noticed have a really harsh edge on higher pitched female vocals; the UE’s make it virtually unnoticable. I really can’t recommend them highly enough. The SuperFi 5i’s which don’t have the mike, do have replaceable cables. UE recommend that you loop the cable over the top of your ear if your active, which really makes a difference, and stops that annoying tugging. The cables start to keep the shape after a while, too.

A whole world of geekiness I hadn’t appreciated 🙂

I think I’m going to try to Sennheiser CX400s – I’m don’t use them enough to justify a huge cost, but if they don’t fit I might have to take the plunge and get custom ones.

Cheers for the advice.

I can totally recommend Ultimate Ears’ UE10 Pro. They have a fancier model available now. These are custom earpieces and are made in the same way as some hearing aids. It’s great fun having your ears filled with goo, packaging these up and a few weeks later getting some custom fit earphones. Pricey though.

If you don’t fancy the price of custom earphones, the higher-end Shure, etymotics and UE off the shelf ones all take the triple flange in ear bits that you get on EAR ear defenders as well as the regular round rubbery ear plugs they come with. These triple flange ones fit most ears and block external noise to around -20dB or so.

earphones like the Shure and UE ones have you wrap the cable over your ear to prevent tugging and ‘microphoning’. microphoning is where the cable picks up rustling and other noises and transmits it to the in-ear earphone. It also prevents wear on the wire-earphone connector.

Have fun choosing

I have a pair of white Etymotic 6i’s I’m selling on (upgraded to Etys ER-4p’s) – they sound amazing and are great value considering how close they are to the 4p’s, which retail at about twice the price.

£45 posted with new rubber flanges on, boxed with carry case and manuals (currently about £70 on eBay).

Upper spec Sures come with a selection of cables and you can get an add-on microphone for use with an iPhone. The 520s I have hook the cable around the ear and attenuate to 35dB. The sound is injected into the ear from the drivers that sit in the outer ear and come with more fittings to suit odd lugholes (technical term) than are sensible. Not cheap mind, great sound at low volumes with 320bit MP3 tracks.

Catching up here…

Thanks for all the info. Despite no wanting to get sucked into more geekiness, I am now the proud owner of a set of EU Super fi.5s. They seem to fit, stay in nicely and are rather better than the Bose things I had before. Crap case they come with, mind.