MacKeyser's Profile

What's missing here is burn-in times. I have had several in-ear phones and burn in is crucial. Especially with in-ear phones, they tend to be VERY harsh out of the box. I just got some rather cheap Sony ear-clingers and they were all, but unlistenable until I burned them in for about 40 hours. Took a good 100 before they sounded decent for the price. Burn-in, while some folks debate it's validity, isn't debatable to me. The LFEs just don't work out of the box. Lastly, don't underestimate how badly engineered stuff can wreck your listening experience. There is LOTS of badly engineered stuff out there and it is only with highly faithful reproductions using either in-ear phones or very high level circumaural (surrounding the entire ear) phones that it comes out. Most systems just don't reveal the bad engineering. When it becomes evident, folks want to blame the phones when in fact it could just as easily be poorly recorded, poorly engineered or poorly encoded (every rip is NOT identical). Just some food for thought.