November 16, 2005

Headphones Redux

A little while back I blogged about my quest to find the perfect headphones to run with. I ended up getting the Shure E2c headphones and the Sony MDR-A34L headphones. I have to admit, I’m happy with both decisions.

The Sony pair is good for running. They are pretty basic but they don’t pop out of my ears at all which is the main thing you’re looking for when you’re out for a jog. They are also entirely plastic so sweat isn’t much of a problem. The only downside is that the cord is bit on the shortish and lightish side so it bounces around a lot when you run. It’s more of an annoyance than anything else though. I would recommend these to runners looking for a basic pair of headphones that gets the job done.

As for the Shure headphones, at first I thought I would hate them but now it turns out that I love them. The first few days they were a pain in the ass. They didn’t stay in my ears and just felt weird. But after a few days they “adjusted” and now I love them. I haven’t tried to run with them yet, in part because they cancel a bunch of noise (minor safety hazard) and in part because I think sweat would junk up the earpieces. But I do love them for walking around outside because they block out traffic noise and allow you to listen to stuff at a much lower volume.

Long story short, both of these sets of headphones are great for other fellow audio learning junkies. While it’s still tough to beat the white iPod headphones for style these definitely offer more in the way of functionality.