Sennheiser CX300
One of the most prevalent complaints I hear about Apple’s Ipod line is that the enclosed earphones or “buds” are almost immediately replaceable. The ubiquitous white headphones were a trademark of the Ipod craze’s early days and immediately branded early adopters as Ipod owners. Apple,after all, is not a headphone company, and although they were nice enough to include them they could have come up with a better design. I now own 3 Ipods and after sampling the first set the remaining two remain hermetically sealed and buried in a drawer.
I was late to the Ipod craze as I was quite happy with a CD based mp3 player that served me well in the gym and on a lot of flights. I also owned a number of different headphones over the years as I grew up in the Walkman era. Being somewhat partial to Sony in the past, I still cherish a pair of fully functional Fontopia’s that I bought 6 years ago in Tokyo before they were widely available state-side. This original pair has still not shorted-out on me, although subsequent pairs that were purchased did not fair as well. I also own a pair of Sony MDR-V500 “mini-cans” that served as my “weapon of choice” when venturing out street-side but eventually proved a bit cumbersome. Further experimentation lead me to a pair of Shure E-4’s (single driver, no bass response) and my final quest, a pair of UE Super.fi 5 Pro’s (which deserve their own post). As glorious as the Super-5’s sound, they don’t exactly make for a great gym/cycling bud.
After getting ready to replace yet another set of Fontopias, I decided to see what else was available...
