For some reason I’ve ended up with ears the wrong shape to use the majority of in-ear style headphones – I either screw them into my head hard enough that they get stuck once the blood dries out, or hold my head veeerrrrryyyy veeeeeerrrrryyy still so they don’t fall out.
Then I wandered into Dixons (oh, the shame) with a voucher that had been sitting in my pocket for ages, and found these Sony MDR-EX71SLB earbuds. I really didn’t expect them to work very well, but I was wrong – they’re bloody brilliant. Not only do they fit, but the sound quality is damn good as well – I’m no audiophile, so I can’t rant about the lush warmness of the midrange and how the upper reaches of the treble response caresses my synapses, but there’s thump and there’s tish, and they block out the background noise pretty well too.
The only minor gripes I’d have are that the rubbery sealy bits look disgusting when you pull them out of your ears because they get coated in wax – although the advantage of that is noone will ever want to borrow them, still less steal them – and because they’re effectively sealing your ear canal you’re conscious of the noise of swallowing and so at first until you get used to it.
All I need now is the iPod to go with them. I’d settle for an iRiver, but that might have to wait for a few more invoices to be settled…
