[djbizze @ Jan 9th 2006 12:14PM]

Boe, i just got off a plane with my Shure E2c headphones (Shure's "low-end" model), and the only thing I heard the whole flight was my music. Shure's in-ear headphones pride themselves on excellent sound isolation, not noise cancelling. Basically, the headphone acts as an earplug, so outside noises never even make it in your ear in the first place, meaning that you can listen comfortably at much lower levels than if your ears were having to compete with the noise of an airplane or crying babies. Noise canelling technology listens to the surrounding noise and mixes a negative wave into the signal so that destructive interference cancels out the noise, but this only works with steady noises like the hum of an airplane.



From what I've read elsewhere about the PTH device, it is not a noise cancelling device as found on other headphones like Bose or Sennheiser. Because the Shures do such a great job of blocking outside noises, my coworkers will frequently come up behind me and have to tap me on the shoulder for me to hear them, and honestly, it's a pain to take these out for 2 seconds and then have to put them back in again. The PTH just lets you hear what's going on around you through its external mic.



Aptmunich, I promise you that there is nothing disposible about these headphones. My E2c's don't even come close to the specs on the E500's, and I can still say without hesitation that I'll never go back to a pair of cheap earbuds. There is nothing second-rate about the construction here; the wires feel very sturdy and the jack is solid and well protected. Even if the wires do give out, they come with a 2 year warranty, and I've read countless accounts of people getting a product replacement instead of a repair. Sound quality is amazing (I'm constantly hearing things in my music that I never heard before), and these are only the lowest-end model. I'd love to hear what the $500 pair sounds like, but the E2c's do just fine for me.