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First Impressions of Apple In-Ear Headphones
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I'm no audio expert but the freq. response chart Apple provides looks awful (and misleading)!
What's misleading about it? It looks perfectly like a sillhouette of Shub-Niggurath.
I'm just glad you can get decent headphones and still have the iconic white earbuds and wires. The only thing I don't like about my Shures is the black wires.
Total aside...
Wow, so how large a collection do you have, and how much space do you allocate? I still haven't ripped much of my music, because I don't want to do it more than once, yet I've imagined that everything in Lossless would take up tons of space.
Wow, so how large a collection do you have, and how much space do you allocate? I still haven't ripped much of my music, because I don't want to do it more than once, yet I've imagined that everything in Lossless would take up tons of space.
I know that they're atleast in all Apple stores. They have been shipping for a while.
I just got home from checking the few Apple stores in the Littleton Colorado area, they don't have them yet. They said it could be any day now.
Wow, so how large a collection do you have, and how much space do you allocate? I still haven't ripped much of my music, because I don't want to do it more than once, yet I've imagined that everything in Lossless would take up tons of space.
It's not that bad now in the days of 1TB hard drives for $100. It compresses your CDs by about 50%, retaining 100% of the quality. I have about 3500 songs and it takes up about 90GB of space. Plenty room left for more CD's.
Do any of the Shures and other headphones these are being compared to, have any remote-capabilities? Also, how much do they cost?
I'm really interested in getting these headphines in the future (after I get a new iPod), since I like the remote. The sound-quality is probably more or less similar to my current Sennheiser in-ears, while the price is similar as well.
So I get similar sound-quality + remote for same amount of money. Not bad, IMO. Especially since I hate the fact I need to get my iPod out of my pocket when I want to skip songs etc.
I'm really interested in getting these headphines in the future (after I get a new iPod), since I like the remote. The sound-quality is probably more or less similar to my current Sennheiser in-ears, while the price is similar as well.
So I get similar sound-quality + remote for same amount of money. Not bad, IMO. Especially since I hate the fact I need to get my iPod out of my pocket when I want to skip songs etc.
I have a question about the bitrate. Most of my songs are around 128 and 192. How would I go about converting them to, say 320? I have always used the regular apple earbuds but I really want these and don't want to spend too much. Thanks!
you can't. The data is already lost. converting a 128/192 to 320 won't change the quality.
lol, i would rather just stick with my cheap Sennheiser in-ear ones instead...they come in white too!
Dang! Thanks for your help though. If I were still to get the new in ear headphones, would I see a significant improvement even if my music is 128/192? As you can tell, I don't know much about audio, but I am curious as to re difference between the new and regular ones...
I really don't think that it's much of a hygiene issue to share earbuds. Sure the idea may sound a little gross but I don't think you can become sick from the transfer of earwax. For me personally I would like the opportunity to test them before purchase. I can get over my discomfort for 2 minutes of sharing earwax. It's better than the alternative of purchasing something you don't like.
Personally I don't like Grado that much. They are too fragile. Also they broadcast what you are listening too much more loudly than other headphones. Just my experience.
Yes. I wish that people who encoded low bit-rate mp3s would be shot.
It cheapens the quality of all music to have to listen to that garbage. I'm a huge fan of MP3 but unfortunately the vast majority of files are ripped with a lackluster encoder at too low a bit-rate.... BAH!!!I would bet my left nut that these phones will not sound as good as the etymotics.... true I haven't heard them yet but...... it's like saying a saturn will perform better than a Porsche.... not going to happen.
I think that most of the "whiners" are simply pointing out that there are already headphones out there that sound as good or better and have the same or more functionality as these buds for the same price. I do think that apple will sell quite a few of these though.
Wow, so how large a collection do you have, and how much space do you allocate? I still haven't ripped much of my music, because I don't want to do it more than once, yet I've imagined that everything in Lossless would take up tons of space.
Not really. I too strive for 100% lossless... although I do have a few high bitrate mp3 albums. Lossless takes about 300-400MB per CD. It's a lot of space but hard drive prices are so incredibly cheap pretty soon there won't be any reason NOT to rip in lossless.
NO NO NO.... you can never convert up. The way compression works is that the encoder reads the waveform determines what the user can actually hear and then discards the rest. (this is WAY SIMPLIFIED but it conveys the general principle). Once the data is discarded you can't simply get it back. If you were to convert a low bitrate MP3 to a higher bitrate you would get the same (or possibly slightly worse) quality sound but increase your file sizes. SO DON'T UPCONVERT LOW BITRATE MP3's. YOU WILL GAIN NO IMPROVEMENT IN QUALITY AND WILL INCREASE THE FILE SIZE. The only way to get better sound quality is to re-encode the original source material (CD's or higher bit rate audio files.) Hope this is helpful.
Quite honestly it may make your music sound WORSE. Because you will be picking up frequency ranges that you couldn't hear before. This is particularly true for high-frequencies. MP3s are notoriously bad for cymbals or other instruments having large amounts of energy in higher frequency bands. If you upgraded your headphones you would be able to hear the horrible job low bitrate mp3's do on high frequencies BETTER... which means that your songs might actually sound WORSE.
Same or more functionality? Please give me a link to in-ear headphones with similar quality, similar price AND an iPod-remote. Waiting....
And BTW: Please multi-quote in the future, as opposed to posting dozen separate posts in a row. I know that I'm not the best multi-quoter in the world, but still....
Negative, the SE110s were going for as little £25 (US$38) in the UK recently - and that was before the VAT rate reduction. The relatively poor reviews that they got could not tempt me. Sounds like these Apple dual-driver buds are only a marginal improvement over the stock iPod earbuds.
Even now, the SE110s are on average still £10 cheaper than Apples new buds.
[Edit] The SE110s are back down to £18 delivered - a third of the price of Apple's new earbuds
SE110s at Play.com