Favorite earpods?

[viking]

What kind of earpods do you like? I guess the large gen9 devices don't come with them anymore?

For outdoors it's almost always noise-cancelling technology for me, because even that barely does the job. No noise isolators or over the ear phones alone will let me make out spoken word stuff in loud distracting environments. So for sitting still I have low end N.C. headphones, and on the go I have some Sony N.C. earpods. Yeah, what a pain that they need their own aaa battery and don't shut off if you forget.

But I heard of new Sony digital noise cancelling earpods that are said to really be improved http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2360185,00.asp I first saw this Sony MDR-NC300D offered for United air miles, but I have to pay cash (too much) because United won't ship to my location. I hope to use it with my Archos clipper and Archos vision 3c because of it's long cord to a pant's pocket. Neither has a clip anymore and my clipper never had enough volume to be heard over outdoor sounds. The new Sony uses it's own aa battery to play sound (not just a battery assist as with analog N.C.).
...[edited from "isolate" to "cancel"]

[viking]

Apologies, I had to edit the above where I often substituted isolation for cancellation. Serves me right for reviewing something I don't have on hand yet.

To make it clear, I am an active-noise-cancellation fanatic and use the analog versions almost all the time. But this new digital kind has me counting the hours for it to be delivered. Yes, I tend to use isolation thingies in tandom with the active cancellation but the performance leaves room for improvement, such as when walking along a busy street.

[viking]

OK, here's a review. For listening to audio books in a noisy environment, this digital thing is a miracle. My older analog sony noise cancel earbuds would work, but I had to use enough volume to start to make me a bit deaf. The new one lets me keep the volume soft even when walking alongside a pack of motorcycles. It's something like hearing boat propellers when underwater - just a soft hissing as vehicles go by.

Playing music in a silent environment gave a slight brittle quality, probably due to the extra conversion from analog to digital. But I'm sure it would be a net advantage in a noisey environment. The earbud speakers and NC microphones are large, as is the battery box. I could keep the weight from yanking out the earbuds by routing the long cord back and forth behind my neck (and use the right earbud cup selection).

For more info there is a manual at http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model- ... manualsTab but they don't post the best manual on the technology (artificial intelligiance, etc) that comes as hard copy.

PS (edited update) This model has much less trouble with wind over the NC microphones than usual. Also has 3 equalizer modes to boost bass (best for music) or to boost dialogue.

[roylovelock]

hi mate, i work an an extremly noisy enviroment, and ive found the noise cancellations just dont work after testing many many sets. I found the only way to really hear the music was noise isolation. I work on the london under ground so noise is a real issue, when traveling between places on the system i have a few sets but have settled on the zagg smart buds as my best overall.
Ive got and had many many sets of shures, ers, sonys, sleeks, yet the zaggs seems the best for the job.
They sound pretty deacent for a cheap set of phones, they isolate very well with soft rubber tips or foams (im now using custom tips which give fantastic results), and most of all they are virtually indestructable.
My shures had a life of around 3 months before the cables always failed - i know they have updated them to changable leads on higher end models, but they burnt thier bridges with me. I got so sick of returning the phones for replacements that i got to know some of the ppl by name lol.
Noise cancellation i found make things uncomfy for me, the funny noise you hear insted was always worst than the sound they are trying to mask. I suppose its each to thier own though and for me isolation is better than cancellation.
roy

[marcel]

I had senheiser cx300 noise cancelling earbuds, till I lost them! I've just ordered the mark 2 versions from amazon for £30.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sennheiser-CX-3 ... 818&sr=8-6

I cycle a lot and the wind noise is a nightmare with regular units. I can use the senheiser's at the lowest volume and they are plenty loud and clear enough, and no wind noise. I have also used them non stop on 9 hour flights and the soft rubber does not hurt my ears. The only downsides to them are the wires get tangled really easily, and when the wires rub, you can hear it through the earpeices.. but stop them rubbing and they are great.

marcel

[viking]

I had senheiser cx300 noise cancelling earbuds, till I lost them! I've just ordered the mark 2 versions from amazon for £30.

Your link says noise ISOLATING, which is great if they work for you. Noise CANCELING has 2 microphones to detect noise and broadcast the inverse of the noise into each ear, with an extra battery pack and amplifier. You can even use them with no player. They are a pain if not needed but good ones can be a miracle in serious noise.

[viking]

hi mate, i work an an extremly noisy enviroment, and ive found the noise cancellations just dont work after testing many many sets. I found the only way to really hear the music was noise isolation. I work on the london under ground so noise is a real issue, when traveling between places on the system i have a few sets but have settled on the zagg smart buds as my best overall.

Oh, I missed your post until now. But it is true that I have never found anyone liking noise CANCELLERs except on the reviews. I have only tried one isolater which I hated, but maybe should try more. It could partly be personality type - I have been accused of being "hypervigilant" and small distractions easily upset my focus. Anyway, my experience:

Bose NC around-the-ears: Once I was lent some on a long airline flight, and it was pure bliss. I don't normally mind the sounds of flight, but I could tell that the quiet made things a lot more pleasant and restful. These are insanely expensive due to their retail policy, although maybe ebay has overstock?

Bose NC clone from sharper image: Bought these cheap as maker was going out of business, and it has horrible speaker quality but very good active cancelling. I sometimes still use them in spite of bad sound since they cancel noise so well.

Philips Noise Cancel and ISOLATING earbuds: Awful. The noise cancel feature didn't seem to work at all, and the isolating earbud selection seemed to penetrate too deep and make my ear canal feel violated almost like a rectal exam. It did have a finned baffle earbud which maybe isn't an isolator, but is quite comfy and I transfer to other earbuds.

Sony conventional ANALOG CANCELLING earbuds. At first these hardly seemed to work at all. But then I noticed they work better when running for a while (they are slow to "kick in") and weirdly they seem to work better and better with age. I use the baffle earbud from Philips. Although you may not notice a huge difference swithing these on and off quick, going back to conventional earbuds are almost unbearable by the end of a long noisey session.

Sony DIGITAL noise CANCELLING earbuds. Like I said, amazing! Well, this is with the cancel feature turned on full power - the review I posted didn't even try it over the middle setting in a range of 20. Also I use "movie" equalization mode (which boosts speech frequencies) and full volume with the player at low volume (if that makes any diff). You can flick it on and off, and unlike the analog ones the difference is stunning (even in a quiet room with just hum from a light or refrigerator). Walking along dense traffic with deafening truck and motorcycle noise, you just feel you are in hushed mossy primeval forest with a few flies buzzing by.

Drawbacks are the price, battery size and although I called the wind performance good, I meant better than the disasterous norm of analog NC. You don't really hear the wind, but the inverse of the wind is being broadcast without having any wind noise reaching your ear to cancel with. The music did sound a tad brittle in a quiet place, but I doubt that would be noticible under noise (my clipper froze up in my outside music test due to a firmware problem). These are so darn good in a noisey environment, they could be almost a danger in max cancel mode - you really only hear sudden sounds that it hasn't had a chance to see the pattern and cancel.

JVC on-the-ear analog NC headphones. I just mention these as an example of lousy NC technology being common, although the speaker quality is pretty good. They have multiple frequency settings you can cancel, but one is near useless and the other just barely helps. Certainly there is a delay to them working at all (don't switch on and off fast expecting to hear much difference) and so far there is little improvement with age.

[viking]

OK, to absolutely beat the subject to death:

Music test with noise - I had only tried audiobook type tests which worked unbelievably well under the "movie" equalization mode, which boosts speech frequencies. Now I tried music under noise, and I had to switch to "bass" equalization mode to give a more true sound (the "normal" setting on the Sony is a bit tinny). This sounds great, but it lets in more outside noise. That is, the movie mode was out-shouting some of the outside noise rather than being totally cancelled by the electronics.

So under my priorities, however quirky they may be, this is an incredible success story. I was thinking of the illogic of my statement here of saying I still use my bose-clones with bad speakers due to good cancellation. I guess this is because around-the-ear configs are comfy. Now unless rain threatens, I use the digital sonys first choice all the time for both audio books and music. The pain in my ears from those darn deep penetrating pod cups goes numb after a while, and I can groove on the amazing sound. Well, in a silent environment normal earpods may sound a tiny bit better, but not with the slightest noise.

[viking]

Wow, now there is an around the ear headphone version of this digital NC technology: Sony MDR-NC500D. Lists for $400 but I found a refurb for $144 at macmall (2 more left). Actually they at first claimed it was out of stock, until I switched to Macmall via United Airlines (which gives air miles for purchases).

It is new and got a few bad reviews that are probably mistaken. Sony defaults the noise cancel mode to moderate and you have to push it up by 10 clicks to get it all. I think they do this because it is so effective that folks on the move could injure themselves. A few sounds don't get cancelled because the sound isn't continous (and thus not predictable). Bird sounds, and some clacking branches come thru clear. Maybe clickity subway trains would do the same. Also sirens come thru, maybe due to Sony tweaks to avoid lawsuits. But otherwise, if it is like their 300 series earpods... silence.

[viking]

Wow, now there is an around the ear headphone version of this digital NC technology: Sony MDR-NC500D. Lists for $400 but I found a refurb for $144 at macmall (2 more left).

Yippie, it looks like my cheap refurb works as good as new. I bet a lot of folks are returning perfectly good versions because again Sony has given their digital NC technology a nerdy interface that hides it's best features. Although I LOVE the product - it IS a life changer, I'm actually bit disappointed how they missed certain opportunities.

Pros:

- Around the ear cushion is infinitely more comfy than their NC earpods with NI gizmos which must be painfully penetrated deep in your ear. I have never seen such a 3d shape where the earcup conforms to the rounding of your head behind the ears. You just put it on without any power and it already feels you have entered a quiet tomb.

- It has a better sound than the tinny earpod due to the larger speaker of course. There is a builtin equalizer that isn't adjustable like the earpod version, but tailored to compensate for the digital system and the exact speaker characteristics. I wouldn't call it super-audiophile quality which you might expect for the full list price, but it is for people who need noise cancellation as their supreme priority.

- It has rechargeable batteries builtin (too bad they didn't add bluetooth then)

- It has NC microphone built inside the earcup, so no wind noise from NC mikes at all!

Cons: (mostly vs the sony NC earpod version - it's better than any non-NC version)

- No volume control

- No control of degree of noise cancellation. May even give less cancellation than the cranked up earpod. Not that any reviewer had the sense to crank up NC on the earpod.

- Very nerdy handling of NC mode. The modes are not that different anyway - just manage which frequencies to target the most. I wish it either had one generalized mode or a slider switch for the 3 modes. But you have to push a button that cuts off the music while it samples noise to choose mode. Or else you hold it too long and accidentally override it with a hail of beeps. I would love to override, but it resets to airplane mode anyway when you turn it back on. The earpod version did all this sampling without any intervention - I think it's the builtin microphones that require this mess.

[viking]

To beat it beyond death, i thought i should report that the amazing refurb discount didnt give a free ride. Part if the fancy earcup cushion is falling inward due to improperly glued support. It doesnt look easy to fix, but the consequences arent too bad. On the plus side the battery charge is lasting forever... no recharge needed yet.