Why the Apple In-Ear Buds Suck (and the Griffin Ear Jams Too), but the Shure E4Cs Rock

I love my iPod and I use it out in the world all the time—at the gym, while I’m jogging, on the bus, and even when I’m just puttering around the house doing things. I like to use my iPod everywhere. That’s what I bought it for, and that’s what maybe 95% of the universe bought their iPods for as well, for Audio on the Go.

Now, the world is a noisy place and my hearing ain’t what it used to be. Too many years listening to loud music from the very first Walkman on haven’t been too kind to me. I’m not looking for a hearing aid or anything yet, but I do like to listen to stuff at less than 140db. The shipping Apple Ear Buds, however just do not cut it over ambient noise any louder than a kitten snoring.

Yeah, I’ve cranked my volume up to drown out street noise while walking. But I don’t like it. That quasi-parental voice deep inside me knows that it’s a bad thing.

I am not sure when I first got the idea of buying in-ear headphones. Probably right after my late and unlamented Sony MDRNC5 Noise-Cancelling Headphones proved that they were a great big fat waste of money.

When the Apple iPod In-Ear Headphones were announced (January 2004), they seemed like a great idea. Despite mixed reviews, I bought a pair.

Apple made them, right? They had to be good.

However, I Lost that enthusiasm pretty quick.

On a positive note, they had a nice case.

They even had three sizes of earpieces. You were supposed to be able to fit these things to your own peculiar size of ear canal. Sounded like a great idea.

I’m a medium, apparently, but not always.

That was the problem.

Sometimes when I was, oh, say, MOVING, they’d pop out or work their way loose. I tried the small ones. They stayed in, but let more noise past than I was comfortable with. Other times, sitting in a noisy place like a bus, I’d have to ram the large ones and pretend that the resulting discomfort, which I never got used to after weeks of doggedly trying, was worthwhile due to the resulting improved sound quality.

So, I was always changing these earpieces, flipping them in and out of my aching ears, and had to keep all three sizes with me, always. I never knew what I was going to need. Frustration AND agony, all in a cute little plastic hard case!

Long and the short of all this is that I didn’t like constantly messing about with the things. I still used them—I had bought them after all—but never liked the damned things and was almost relieved when one of the buds died. I finally had an excuse to ditch them.

So, I Googled in-ear phones and, after wading through the resulting swarm of links, ads, reviews and recommendations, finally settled on the relatively cheap Griffin’s Ear Jams. I’d bought other stuff from the company and decided to give them a try. At $20 Canadian, I figured that if I didn’t like them I wouldn’t feel too bad.

Snapping them onto the existing Apple Ear-buds was easy enough, and they had a cheap sort of carrying case so you wouldn’t lose them or their three (again) sets of ear pieces. Though it looked like I had white plastic mushrooms growing out of my ears, the sound was okay. Neat idea and the rubber ear things didn’t hurt. Big plus. Maybe my ear canals were alredy numb by then, but that was a pleasant surprise.

Oddity was that no matter which size earpieces I used, they all worked the same. Sometimes I’d lose one rubber bit and put another size on until I found the lost one again. I never noticed a difference in fit or sound with the different sizes.

They didn’t pass the bus test though. Too much noise got through, despite the comfy fit, and though I wore them for six months, I was never really satisfied.

When they broke, I was left all alone in a noisy world once again.

In the end, neither the half-baked Apple In-Ear Buds nor the Griffin Ear Jams really delivered all the way. Kind of like pizza delivery only half way up to your apartment, both sort of worked, both sort of didn’t.

I’m not a pipe smoker. I drive an automatic. I don’t like fiddling constantly with things I use. I want to put something on or sit in it and not be worried with changing things all the time. I’m a Mac user. I just want things to WORK.

So, to be fair, maybe the In-Ear buds and the Ear Jams are 70% solutions, but at my Prep School that was just a passing grade and that’s what I’ll give these both, just a passing grade.

Better than the shipping ear buds, definitely. Apple regular ear buds are 60% solutions. And I’ve NEVER seen anyone use the included foam pads for those. I’ve looked—I’m an ear watcher—but I’ve never seen a single pair in use.

After all that, I wanted better and went looking for it.

I scanned the hard-core audio review pages. Read article after article about this brand or that model and went away even more confused than ever. So many choices. So many differing opinions. But I still wanted really amazing headphones to go with my really amazing iPod.

In the end I found my 99% percent solution: the VERY expensive Shure E4Cs.

Rather than nickel and diming myself for months, maybe years, trying substandard, cheap consumer earphones, I decided to cough up the big bucks and buy what the pros use. Well, at least the wealthier pros. At about $329 US MSRP, they definitely provide full-body sticker shock. But they had EIGHT different sizes and types of ear pieces. Talk about thorough!

Now they’re all I ever use.

So sweet! And they passively cut out not 10db, not 20db, but 30db of noise! And the medium clear soft rubber earpieces fit fine, don’t hurt, never fall out and I’d forget I even had them in except everything goes so very quite when I do.

If I can hear Sol Invictus so well that I can pick up Tony Wakeford moving around in the studio and adjusting his guitar strap or Andrew Eldritch rubbing his nose during Sisters of Mercy live sets, maybe they’re too good. But if I can’t hear my wife shouting at me from six feet away to get my attention as I sit at my desk or miss my cell phone going off right at my hip, I’m sure they’ve done their job. I love them.

And I’m happy now. A bit poorer than I was before, but very very happy.

More about the Shure E4Cs later.