Once and Still a Techie Weblog

A delight to the ears: A review

Since I spend a total of 8 hours traveling by bus and “speedboat” at least once a month to every week if possible, It’s important that I keep myself preoccupied during those long monotonous trips. What better way to do that than listen to my high bit-rate mp3 collection. (I make it a point to get songs ripped with no less than a 192kbps bit-rate). I’m not an audiophile in the true sense by any measure (well probably a little), but I can always appreciate some really well recorded audio.

This all started when I bought myself a Nokia 6233 which played mp3s as is expected of phones nowadays. Before I had this phone the only way I could endure those bus rides was trying my best to sleep throughout the trip which was an exercise in futility most of the time. Well anyways, I liked the sound coming out of the stock Nokia earphones until the day I bought my Asus Eee PC and needed some extra storage. So I “borrowed” my phone’s 1GB Micro-SD. I copied my collection over to the Eee and thought about using it to listen to my tunes. Since my Nokia headphones come with a proprietary connector they wouldn’t work with the Asus’ 3.5mm socket. Thus started my search for a new pair of earphones.

The first pair I bought was a knock-off of a Philips model that sounded like total crap compared to the Nokias. Well what did I expect, I only paid $5 for them. I endured these jokes for a few weeks but couldn’t stand them more and more as the days passed. Well, I exchanged them for the $8 A4Tech MK-510s which I liked for it’s strong bass and acceptable sonics. At least it was a step above the “Philips” but still not as good as the Nokia earphones.

It was also during this time that my cellphone battery started acting up and couldn’t last more than 3 hours if I kept the music player on (I later realized this was because someone didn’t reassemble my phone correctly when I had it serviced). So I started looking for a good mp3 player to take with me on those trips. After doing some online research for like a few minutes, I settled on the 2GB Creative Zen Stone Plus. It was tiny, light, would disappear into my pants pocket and so wouldn’t be a bother to carry around. I bought the player on the day I’d be going on a trip. As they usually do, this player came with a pair of earphones. I tried the complementary earphones out and was surprised to find they weren’t much of an improvement over the so-called Philips. The music sounded like it was coming out of a well, the bass was non-existent and I could barely make out the higher frequency sounds. There was no way I could enjoy my playlist with these and to think that people were raving about the Zen Stone Plus’ music quality. Was there something wrong with my ears? After a bit of research, I found out that the earphones that come with most mp3 players are expected to sound like crap anyway. So continued my quest to find good sounding earphones.

After reading some online reviews I finally made up my mind on buying the Sennheiser MX-500 which were touted to be better than the Apple earphones that came with the iPod. So I found myself at the local iStore and picked out a nice set of blue MX-500s for about $30. When I tried these on, I could immediately tell I had just purchased quality earphones. The sound that came out of them was crisp and refined. The bass wasn’t as boomy as the MK-510s but it was well-defined and not too overpowering to interfere with the treble and mids. This pair of cans introduced me to the world of audiophilia. So I enjoyed them for a while, quite satisfied in their performance and quality. I would never have thought of replacing them for anything else until that one trip back to the city where I work. I was totally exhausted from not getting much sleep the night prior and I really needed to get some rest or I’d be a total wreck when I reported for work. The bus had its sound system jacked up playing a dimwitted local comedy show with so-called comedians trying to prove their worth. I was probably the only one not smiling on that bus. I didn’t particularly enjoy the jokes and hated their intermission songs and this went on for 2 hours of the 3.5 hour bus trip. Good luck to my getting any sleep.

This started me thinking about getting myself some noise-isolating earphones. They essentially reduce sounds that may interfere with the music you want to hear by sealing your eardrums off from the world outside with the use of things akin to earplugs. They’re also referred to as in-ears (short for in-ear monitors or IEMs) or in the case of the set I eventually got – canalphones. Canalphones are less intrusive since you don’t have to push them too far into your ear canal to get some isolation. Unlike the Ultimate Ears UE-10 Pros which are custom-made to fit your ears like a glove ensuring almost 100% isolation. Those go for $1000 by the way give or take. So forget about them. Instead what I got was the Sennheiser CX-500. Yes I stayed with the brand since they proved themselves with the MX-500 I so enjoyed. I had read great reviews about the sound quality of its older brother the CX-300 and this model had just been released to the market promising an improvement in sound quality with more controlled bass output and better defined highs which the CX-300 wasn’t too good at. Let me tell you when the set arrived in the mail I couldn’t wait for a pair of scissors while I struggled to remove that confounding packaging with my bare hands and a steel pen that was lying around. You could get really creative with a pen when you’re that desperate…

Well, I finally got them out and connected to my Creative Stone Plus, and oh the sound. The reviews weren’t wrong I tell you. These phones were a vast improvement over the MX-500, lightyears away from the sorry excuse that came with the mp3 player. I’ve had them for nearly a month now and I have been able to easily fall asleep on those bus rides. I can even dose off on the fast craft which has an extremely loud engine at full throttle. I can thoroughly enjoy my music while out and about in the middle of the city moreso in the comforts of my apartment.

In the past half hour I’ve been writing this post I’ve connected the CX-500s to a PC playing Road Runner Radio tuned into a smooth Jazz station. The bass guitar in L.A. Express’ The Heat is On is specatular, don’t forget the sax, trombones and those drums! I love the sound of the flute in Hollingsworth’s Sambarosa, the steel pan in Andy Narell’s Kalinda, and the drums in Spyro Gyra’s Good to Go-Go. What ecstasy! I’m enjoying these phones and wouldn’t exchange them for the pricier models out there no matter how much better they may sound. But I wouldn’t mind it at all if someone gave me the Shure SE530PTH as a gift!

Hands down, hardly anything else in the market can beat the CX-500 in terms of bang for your buck. Oh I got them for less than $90 including shipping. Get a pair and you will not be disappointed. Word of warning don’t go for any CX-500 offered at less than $60 brand new. Software isn’t the only thing being pirated nowadays you know.

If you want to know how to pair the Creative Zen Stone with an Eee PC or any other Linux box for that matter, check out this post.