Originally Posted by
enthrop
Lost my old wired earphones, and figured now was the time to see if there was a set of earphones that could meet my 3-4 core needs. Tried to search a bit, but there's so many products on the market, I was hoping to get some recommendations.
About what I'm looking for:
- Earphones because they're easier to travel with -- I can stuff in pocket when needed. They could be the slightly bigger over the ear models and such, but I focus is on compact and easy to travel with. I don't want to juggle a big Bose headphone carrying case while returning my rental car and grabbing my luggage.
- Something that works on plane. I don't need noise cancellation (nice to have vs must have), but I do fly about 3-4 times a month, so let me at least hear it over the plane's ambient noise.
- If wireless/bluetooth, something that can last ~6 hours. Periodically I have to do the coast to coast travel, other times I just have long days where I won't find time to charge.
- Something that works with my phone, iPad, AND computer. This is actually the toughest part for me. My phone is used on conf calls on the go, iPad mainly when I'm in hotel/airplane passing time, and computer for in-office/hotel calls via VoIP (i.e. Lync, Skype, etc.)
Etymotics HF3. Costs about a hundred dollars. Excellent sound. Supreme noise isolation. This is the entry level for balanced armature headphones.
If you don't want to spend a hundred bucks, the dirty secret is that everything cheaper than this uses dynamic drivers, with all the same limitations in sound quality. All with poor sound isolation.
So basically if you don't want to spend a hundred buck for the better sound, then stay at like 15-20 bucks for a basic Panasonic headset that kits iphone compatible on the specs. These are a solid implementation of this technology - little or nothing to be had from more expensive headsets that use the same driver tech (which BTW is all headsets under a hunder bucks and Even many up to double that price). Then spend 10 or 20 bucks on some Comply plugs for the headset, to get the better sound isolation.
Another cheapo approach is to buy the Etymotics kids headset in black for 35-40 bucks. Dynamic driver with proper noise isolation.
But don't fall into the trap of buying expensive headset that uses dynamic driver.