A Journey through earphones: Beyond the humble earbuds.

Well, about 2 years ago I got into this whole Head-Fi, headphone affectionado thingy. The very strange bit is how that begun. See, it was a period when I was feeling really down and I was listening to plenty of generally sad sad music... So I saw this magazine review of something thats alien to me....something called in ear monitors. It was a review of Westone UM1 with Creative Zen Aurvana. At that point I already abandoned the cheapo included earbuds and had a pair of absolutely wonderful sounding Sennheiser MX400 and I thought: how much better could it be? So I took a plunge and bought the Westone. So here I am quite a few hundred bucks poorer but aurally more satisfied, here's a quick look at the stuff that I went through

Sennheiser MX400: Great little earbuds, cheap but with a full bodied sound thats typical sennheiser. Highly recommended

Westone UM1: Very comfortable, my first real IEM. Great fit and isolation, flat sound thats very musical at the same time. Good build quality. Recommended

MiPro E8P: Not available commercially and normally sold as part of a wireless in ear monitor kit. Got mine off EBay (seller is Zolton) for a cheap cheap price. Bargain of the year. Fantastic sound with great treble extension and plenty of visceral bass(and IMHO better than the more expensive Westone). Like Westones very good fit (once the memory wire is fixed) and comfort. Problems: Only comes in one colour (skintone beige) and wires are thin (caution!!!). Highly Recommended

KOSS Plugs: AVOID at ALL COST. Muddy with poor bass definition. Nuff said lest I get sued :P

Ultimate Ears Super Fi 3: Great sound, peaky with bass and mid treble spikes. Very suitable for pop/rock tracks but less so for classical. Awkward form factor, although goodies like replaceable wires are a big big plus. Recommended

Audio Technica ATH-M20: Limited treble extension, slightly muddy. But oh so comfortable.

AKG Acoustics K55: Fantastic treble with superb high end sparkle. Just that the damn fit is annoying and causes discomfort in longer listening sessions. Recommended

Audio Technica ATH-Pro6: fantastic bass and treble extension, slightly bass biased, smooth non fatiguing sound but at the expense of ultimate treble definition. Extremely comfortable with more adjustments than I can use, but gets a little warm under the cups. Highly recommended