Which Earbud is Right for You?

For that purpose I like these:

http://www.amazon.com/Philips-SHE3900BK-27-In-Ear-Headphones/dp/B00N2PJMXG

They really sound pretty great.

OMG… how is your hearing now?!

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Oh, no damage at all. I went to the doctor’s office and go some antibiotic drops–she said my ear canal was very clean and I did a great job cleaning it. :slight_smile: But since the ear canal was a bit reddish in color, they wanted to stave off any possible infection.

I think what happened was a fluke, but I realized that all that shoving in the earbuds probably meant that this style wasn’t working for me. Think about all of the millions of ears in which this scenario hasn’t happened!

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My mac book pro has a death grip on the ear phone jack. I have had it slowly kill 3 sets so far. First one ear goes out then both. Probably partly my fault for not gripping close to the plug.

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Ultra low profile. That’s what I want and what none of these seem to provide. I use mine while cycling, and you’d be amazed how much difference the shape of the stub makes to the sound. Basically with half an inch of flange sticking out at 15mph you can hardly hear a damned thing.
And they all break, so I’ve never really been convinced hat sinking $30+ on something that will snag on a door and rip it’s connectors out is worth the bother.

For me the Right one is marked with an R.

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I use a stereo bluetooth headset with pointy sharp edged buttons. There’s only one “right way” to put it on. Otherwise the buttons dig into your neck.

Turns out for the phones I use, bluetooth headsets use less power than plugged in headphones. I couldn’t believe it myself until I actually experimented on it. I guess the headset’s internal battery does all the heavy lifting of amplification, and the bluetooth radio transmitter uses less power than the headphone amp circuit in my phone.

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I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who has great difficulty with earbuds. They hurt my ears and they never stay in. My right ear-hole must be weirdly-shaped, because any earbud will just slide out, even when I’m sitting still.

I’ve got those Samsung ones that @Missy_Pants has. I haven’t tried them yet but they look pretty good.

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I’ve given up on indestructible, and settled for cheap enough to replace when they inevitably fall apart. I’m apparently super hard on earbuds, because I’m lucky if I get a year of use before they get wrecked

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They’re good! They just sort of sit there, they don’t go inside your ear canal. You can jam them in to create a “seal” but I prefer to be able to hear traffic and sounds around me. I seriously hope they start selling them separately from the phone. Cuz I will cry when I break/lose these ones!

I’m of canalphone-tolerant anatomy, and find them to be very nice in the sound-quality-per-dollar arena. My current favorites are:

#Xiaomi Hybrid IEM aka Piston 4 (around $30)

The latest and greatest from the masters of cheap-and-good. Sounds as good as my previous favorite ($60 Sonys), but is better built with all the metal-looking bits being actual metal, valiantly tangle-resistant cables and not-too-bad microphone built in. The only complaint is that while the play-pause button and microphone work fine with an iPhone, the up and down volume buttons are an Android only feature, apparently out of spite. I have another, much cheaper set of Xiaomis that don’t have this problem. Shame!
(Also, design award! Not bad for a budget brand.)

#Something something Q7? QY7 maybe? (I paid $8)
This is suspiciously similar to the ‘MOOVE’ one in the article, and I wouldn’t doubt it’s exactly the same product. It’s apparently a very popular model sold under many, many names. What I did was search for ‘bluetooth headset’ on AliExpress and find the cheapest one that looked like this. Passable sound, passable mic, and the battery lasts a few hours but not much more. Still a favorite because of the lightweight wireless aspect, which is surprisingly useful. Sometimes the voice prompt reverts to chinese on its own, but it’s an easy fix.

[quote=“subextraordinaire, post:17, topic:76831”]
Then one summer, I noticed my hearing diminishing. So I bought some over-the-counter ear wax cleaner and when I sprayed my ear canal out with warm water, out came that little missing piece of mesh along with…well, I’ll let you picture what happens to a foreign object when it’s left in your ear for some time.
[/quote]Here’s me right now:

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But you didn’t include an Amazon affiliate link. I don’t understand!

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Well, it’s not like I didn’t warn you. :rolling_eyes:

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Yeah, but what you didn’t know is that I lost one of those screens recently. :scream:

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I’m in it for the love.

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Why not both?

(left and right)

[shows himself out]

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My Sennheiser earbuds are still working after five years and I wouldn’t say that I look after them well. There were some problems a few years ago when they used a Chinese factory who cut costs with predictable effects, but I think they have sorted that out now.

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