Ear Canal Headphones

Quite an accomplishment for a pair of cheap (compared to some) headphones aimed at the MP3-player market. I paired the CX300s to my Apple iPod Nano.

Being ear-canal phones be prepared to sacrifice some comfort in order to achieve improved sound quality. That said, the ear buds are considerably more comfortable than my last pair of ear canal headphones, Shure Etymotics, which lasted about 5 days before I could no longer bring myself to insert them in my lugholes. The soft rubber earbuds are supplied in 3 sizes.

I do think the comfort is at the cost of some sound quality. The CX300s do create a much more vivid sound stage with a more distinct separation of instruments but in my case - and it could be down to the size of my ear canals - there is a lack of lower frequencies, so much so that on occasion I have had to turn on the base boost EQ setting.

This is a common problem with ear canal headphones. Unless a snug (and sometimes excruciating) fit is achieved then lower frequencies can be lost.

Overall, these headphones are good at reproducing mid and upper range frequencies but I find that the lower levels can be rather indistinct.

Sound isolation is an improvement on normal earbud phones but nowhere near the level I was anticipating. I suspect only noise cancelling phones which cost three or four times the cost would achieve that.

Main pluses are size (obviously), build and finish, improved sound resolution but at the cost of some comfort and some bass response. But you could pay a lot more for headphones and be just as happy with these for a lot less.


Very good earphones! But ...   April 26, 2007
MarmiteMan (Norwich, England)
27 out of 48 found this review helpful

Shall be surprised if Amazon allow this review, but here goes. First the obvious comment: great earphones! These ear-canal jobs limit a lot of ambient noise and sound extremely good or their size; just don't grind your teeth or chew anything with them in! Right, am assuming most chaps will be aware of my gripe; for what is it about 'blister packs' ...? (hence rating of only four stars)

Yesterday it was a Sandisk Ultra II 1GB Secure Digital memory card. Pretty small, but even trying to line up and then work the heavy-duty scissors along what turned out not to be a perforated edge after all was a jaw-clenching effort just to get a 4 x 2 cm sliver of pressed silicon out of a plastic pack. I recall last year's very strenuous effort to seperate the Belkin 15-in-1 'Ultimate Connectivity' module from its blister pack. This evening it's this pair of Sennheiser CX-300 "Blocks Outside Noise" ear-canal earphones. I tell you, these bloody things should come with a diagram on the back indicating where to cut, stab, slice, spear or sheer the f@ #%& g thing ...

Your new gadget arrives gleaming from within its nice, shiny and clean transparency. You stare at it proudly, appreciate its form, its design, and imagine enjoying its purpose. Then you turn it over and read the blurb on the back. As a chap you know most of the Technical Data there anyway - sound pressure level 112 db (1kHz/1Vms)? mmm, impressive! - which is why you purloined that particular item in the first place. You put the compact and pristine blister pack down and tend to other admin., c.q. chores, until coming back to it later. With some household tool. Subconsciously forgetting that advice you told yourself last time Not To Forget after having struggled with and sworn at the previous such gleaming new gadget in a pristine clean blister pack. Which was: get and use something from the garage or toolbox.

First things first: is there some simple way to press-and-release the thing open? No. Is there an obvious place to insert a blade and cut/saw along, say, a perforated edge? No. Hmmm. You examine the back again: is there some blurb on the back you skimmed past when you last looked at the Technical Data on how to open this thing? No.

Then you decide upon the least dangerous place to stick the blade, and you force it through, beginning, like the Kraken awakening from its slumber, the first stirrings of angst that Something Will Go Wrong and you'll slice through a cable somewhere. You know, like the ketchup suddenly issuing forth too much from its glass bottle. Right, the blade is finally through and 'in' - but now wedged so stiffly that you cannot work a 'sawing action' without hazard to thumb and limb. The PVC is rigid. Very rigid. Ye gods, how long would it take for this stuff to bio-degrade in a landfill site? Aeons.

You press the blister pack to your chest for both grip and balance, and also so that you get good purchase on the tool with which you are at this point still attempting to neatly dissect the blister pack. This because of the pristine presentation of the entire product psycho-suggesting that you can, you know, sort of use the blister pack itself as a storage unit. Fool. The blade/tool is so stiffly entrenched in the rigid PVC that you clench jaw and turn the exercise into a duel of A) wits and, two attempts later, B) dogged determination. Like a man refusing to stop and ask directions despite incontrovertibly knowing he is lost. And that gash in the PVC you have just sliced and almost lost grip and stabbed yourself between the ribs is now sharper than the blade itself. So you still cannot work a finger between the upper and lower PVC layers and attempt to lever the two apart without losing that digit.

I'm not married or living with a wholesome woman who at this point should come into the room (preferably looking like Laura San Giacomo) and chide maternally (read: dutifully nag), "Are you sure you know what you're doing, dear?" or "Do be careful, darling." Concerned comment which, in hindsight, you wished you had heeded. So I shall "endeavour to persevere." However, to which Ministry of the Crown or trading standards authority does one lament that THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO BE SO DIFFICULT ...???

By the by, I'm blood type A, positive, should donations/transfusions prove necessary.