After initially disliking them, I now find that they're perfect.

Update (May 21, 2006): Well, after 11 months of very, very heavy usage of these earbuds, they finally died on me last Thursday. I took them off for around an hour, and then the next time I used them again I found that the right bud was dead, and it refused to be revitalised.

I guess it says a lot that I went straight out the moment I could (which was last Friday evening, after work) and bought the exact same type of earbuds. Okay, maybe not exact same, but I bought an MDR-EX51LP white/pink to replace my MDR-EX51LP black. Close enough, no?

Oh, and my new pair of earbuds appears to have a sturdier cord than my old pair. They seem somehow thicker and more willing to take abuse than my old pair - hopefully this will be the case!

Up until June 2005, I'd been using either:
1. the normal earphones that you get everywhere (usually free with purchase of MP3 players and the like) - the kind that just stick a little into your ears and occasionally fall out when they don't quite fit, especially when you jog with them.
2. The type of earphones (?) that work a little like headphones, in that they don't stick into your ear at all and stay in place through a little hook that goes over your ear - I think the brand/type I was using was Panasonic RP-HS100 or 101. (I have no idea how I remembered the model...!)

Basically, up to that point those kinds of earphones worked for me. They were usually cheap (besides the Panasonic ones), and hence I didn't mind the fact that they tended to fail after 3 months to a year.

However, the turning point came when I started to realise how I couldn't actually hear anything when travelling on the underground sections of the MRT (subway) here, due to the noise generated by the MRT rushing through the tunnels. Especially when I started to listen to classical music on my MP3 player... I'd happily listen to the music, and then the moment the train travels from the aboveground section to the underground section, I could forget about listening to anything.

So I started to look for earbud, earphones, headphones... anything that would let me listen to classical music on the underground sections. However, most headphones were simply too bulky and fragile for me to carry to school everyday, especially after seeing the cracks that my friend's headphones suffered after a few months of carrying them around. So then I looked towards earbuds, and to be honest, the reasons why I settled on this pair of earbuds are simple: it was the cheapest pair of earbuds available here! But even then it wasn't easy for me to buy them, considering they cost me around US$38 bucks...

(You have to understand that cost is a pretty important factor to me, being a poor perpetually broke student and all...)

But I took the plunge anyway, and bought these earbuds from a Sony Gallery.


My experience buying the earphones...

I bought the earbuds from a Sony Gallery in Singapore, and I must say I was pretty disappointed with the customer service. I'd went into the store with the intention of buying these earbuds, and initially asked the salesperson if they had it in stock. She went to look at the rack and said that they didn't. Then I went there and looked around, and it was there!

Then, I asked if I could possibly try out the earbuds before buying them. The answer? No. I would have to buy them first before I could even try them out, so basically I ran the risk of buying a product that I hated and no way of returning/exchanging it (return/exchange policies are not very widespread in Singapore).

As for warranty? Sad to say, it is totally non-existent. Sony Gallery apparently gives a total of a 7-day exchange period with these earbuds for any "manufacturing defects", provided you have the receipt. Beyond that, however, you're on your own and the only way you could get a working pair of earbuds would be to buy a new set.

However, since I sort of had my heart set on buying these earbuds, I bought them despite all that...


The earbuds, packaging, and stuff that comes with the earbuds

These come in two colours (when I bought them), black and white. I bought the black to go with my pure black Creative MuVo TX FM.

The packaging looks very normal. It looks exactly like any Sony packaging for their lower-end earphones; with a flat cardboard base and a curved plastic top. The only way you can open it is to sort of tear the plastic away from the cardboard base, which basically means that it cannot be closed again. (This also means that if you keep your extra rubber covers inside the packaging, you need to find a way of keeping it closed such as by using scotch tape, or run the risk of losing the earbuds... I lost one of my small earbuds because it fell out at some point in time due to the open packaging.)

Inside the packaging, there are the earbuds (of course), 3 pairs of covers (small, medium, large), and a "earphone holder" for protecting the earphones.

The "earphone holder" is ostensibly for keeping your earbuds in, to protect them. It is good for winding up part of the 1.2m cord (which can be a bit too long sometimes), though you have to be a bit careful that you don't accidentally crush the cord each time you close the holder. It is a nice concept, and I actually used it for 3 months, before it became too much of a bother and I just stopped using it.

The earbuds have a "neck chain" cord, which I actually feel to be better than the "Y" shaped cord. When I have to take off one earbud to answer a call, I can just take them off and let them hang around my neck, then locate them easily after my call to put them back on again. The only thing about this is that the main cord runs down the left side of my body, which can be a little awkward if the only pocket I have is on the right (as with my school uniform last year).

The plug is gold-plated, apparently, and it's an "L" shaped plug. Depending on what player you're using, it's either a blessing on a curse; with my MuVo, it's a blessing because it makes the player easier to handle than with a straight plug.


My experience with these earbuds

So my first time I ever tried out these earbuds were right after I purchased them at the Sony Gallery. Well, they worked fine. Which was actually the main point of trying them out at that time because even if I hated them, I was stuck with them...

For the first week or so, I used the small covers, for the simple reason that the were the easiest to fit in my ears.

And for the first week or so, I REGRETTED buying these earbuds. Seriously. I hated the sound, since it didn't really seem to be blocking out any external noise, and the earbuds made my ears hurt for that entire first week - I couldn't even wear them for an hour or so without my ears hurting. I would probably have junked the earbuds, too, if I hadn't paid that much for them.

Then I switched to the medium covers. And experienced an entirely different sound with the earbuds.

(This would have been because the small covers didn't really create a good seal for the sound, so all the external noise would have came flooding in while using them. However, the medium covers, being bigger, created a good seal for me, so very little external noise comes in.)

Also, probably at that point (after one week or so), my ears had gotten used to the feeling of earbuds, so I could wear the earbuds for a much longer period of time. (I can happily wear them for an entire day without any trouble at all now.)

So since then, I've had a wonderful experience with the earbuds.

I can wear these earbuds almost anywhere, and still be able to hear my music. On the underground sections of the MRT, I can now happily listen to my classical music, even the soft parts. Since this was the main reason why I bought them in the first place, you could say that I'm totally happy with these earbuds.

Also, these earbuds have almost no noise leakage. Basically, if I blast the earbuds on the MRT, the person sitting next to me will hear absolutely nothing from my earbuds. This is great, because I hate making other people listen to what I'm listening to on the train - it just annoys people to the max.

These earbuds are also good for me for any type of music - classical, pop, rock, jazz, musicals... I'm no audiophile, but they sound perfectly fine with any music I've listened to so far.

And there's more... when I'm in a quiet environment listening to music, I sometimes hear little subtones of the songs that I never noticed before. This is especially obvious with pop/jazz songs, where there are occasionally very soft undertones that I'd never noticed with other earbuds but would notice with this pair.

When I go jogging with this pair of earbuds, the earbuds never fall out of my ears either, probably because they're really snugly fitted into my ears (thanks to using the correct size of covers!).

However, these earbuds haven't been perfect.

The major downside of them is that it is completely impossible to wear these, and eat anything. Perhaps because of the way these earbuds create a seal around your ears, anything your jaw does is magnified. So the constant movement of your jaw when you eat is magnified very greatly when wearing these earbuds, such that you end up hearing none of your player's music and all of your jaw's "music". (This is not so bad for me, though, since I usually listen to music while commuting, and eating is generally banned on public transport.) I suspect this is a problem with all well-fitted earbuds, though.

Another thing I have doubts about is the durability of the cord, which feels a little thin. Maybe Sony was trying to minimise the weight of the earbuds (they're advertised as being very very light), but they ended up with a rather flimsy feeling cord. After 9 months of use, there are little nicks here and there in the cord, which makes me wonder how much longer the cord will last...

Lastly, these earbuds seriously block out almost all external noise. This is bad when someone tries to call you from behind and you just blissfully walk on, unaware that anyone was trying to call you. (This has happened to me many, many times.) Also, it could be potentially dangerous at road crossings, so you have to be doubly observant.


In a nutshell

Despite those downsides of the earbuds, these earbuds have been fantastic. I wouldn't hesitate to buy them again should my current pair fail on me.


Miscellaneous comments

The covers are completely essential for the earbuds to function. Even though they fit rather securely over the earbuds, they still come out fairly easily with a little tugging in the right direction. Hence, I'm usually a little afraid that they may fall out one day, and I'd have to either switch to a different size or attempt to find replacements.

So far, I've been asking around about how to find replacements, and the only thing Sony Gallery was able to tell me was to go down to their main store in Singapore (at Wisma Atria). One day, I happened to be there, so I asked about the replacement covers and they directed me to the repair centre. Since I had no wish to wait for something like 10-30 minutes just to ask about replacement covers, I never did find out how I could get replacement covers in Singapore...


Health warning

When wearing these earbuds, please please please don't play your MP3 player at high volumes. There has been a lot of reports in the news lately, about how earbuds in general can cause more damage than earphones because they sit closer to your ear canal.

Also, with this pair of earbuds, you'll find that you have to turn up your player to play at a higher volume than with earphones (perhaps because of the drivers using more power?), so you run a slight risk of turning them higher than you should.


Specs

Type: Closed, dynamic
Driver units: 9mm, dome type
Power handling capacity: 100mW
Impedance: 16 ohms at 1kHz
Sensitivity: 100dB/mW
Frequency response: 6 - 23,000 Hz
Cord: 1.2m (44 1/8 in), OFC litz cord
Plug: Gold-played stereo mini-plug
Mass: Approx. 4g (0.14 oz) without cord


Price paid: Approx US$38