First impressions: Apple in-ear headphones
I finally picked up a pair of apple in-ear headphones today. I had to phone three apple retailers in vienna (all three i know, that is), one hadn’t got them yet, the next was sold out and the last one had only one pair left which i immediately reserved (so if you live in vienna and can’t find them anywhere you know who’s the lucky bastard who got the last pair *eg*).
I already posted links to a couple of reviews and opinions about them here. I found those to vary considerably and was a little insecure wether i should buy them or not. The issues commonly raised were the following: lack of bass, tinny sound, bad grip and uncomfortable fit. I only listened to them for a few hours this evening, but here are my first impressions:
The packaging is quite nice as usual with apple, no surprise there. The earphones come with three different sized soft caps for various ear sizes and have to be deeply inserted in the ear canal (etymotic provides useful instructions, scroll down a bit to find them). I found the medium- and big-sized caps to fit my ears quite well, both offering solid grip. The medium sized are a little more comfortable whereas the big ones offer better isolation. As isolation is crucial for the sound quality of inear headphones and the apple earbuds indeed sounded better with the big caps i’ll settle for those, i guess. Overall i found the ergonomics of these headphones very pleasing. They fit comfortably in my ear offering solid grip and in contrast to all the earbuds i previously used they didn’t hurt even after several hours of listening.
The sound quality isn’t downright bad, but i’m rather disappointed nonetheless. I found them inferior to my sennheiser mx400 (which cost less than half of apples inear headphones), though i have to admit that my new headphones aren’t broken in yet, in contrast to the sennheiser earbuds. The bass is somewhat boomy and muddy and the highs sometimes sounded a little tinny. Overall i was less than impressed by the sound quality of these headphones. I hope they’ll sound better when they’re broken in, i’ll post a follow-up when i know definitely.
Another thing i’ll comment on later is sound isolation. I didn’t have annoying background noise immediately available this afternoon, i’ll save that test for my next shopping trip.