Bose In-Ear Headphones Review

So mods, what do you think about a section just for user reviews of stuff we use with our Macs?

Before jumping into the review, I have a brief word for you Bose haters, and you know who you are. Stop hating on Bose! They are a company who understands the end user experience better than any company out there with the exception of Apple. They are not making products to meet some theoretical standard that can only be measured by a machine in an acoustically balanced room. They are designing products for how the end user will actually enjoy their music. It is not just about the physics of sound; it is about the biology and psychology of sound as well. Most audio companies stop at mere mechanics. Enjoying music is about a lot more than mechanics. Bear this in mind when judging any product. It is a lot like a PC user looking at the specs of a system and deciding which is the better system based on that. This is why Bose does not publish a lot of its specs. The specs do not matter, only the end user experience in real world usage.

Sound

Let us jump right to the heart of the matter. These plugs are a sonic marvel. Shocking, is how I would describe the sound. These babies got back. That is to say, they have a full, well-rounded bottom. The bass has a hearty and reassuring thump without being muddy. I believe the word is transparency. The bass does not bleed into the rest of the range. Speaking of the rest of the range, you will not be disappointed with the mids and highs either. I listened to a pair of Sure E2Cs I think, and thought the sound from those were a little colored toward the mids. Compared to those, the Bose may have been colored toward the lows. I cannot say which was more accurate. I can say that my impression of the Bose was that they were not colored at all, and the Sure had a slight coloration.

These are the first phones of any kind that I actually felt good about using for editing. I opened a few pieces that I had done in GB with guitars, drums, piano, vocals and more. I confidently remixed the music with noticeably improved results. I sang into my microphone with reverb and compression. I was completely blown away. My voice sounded much more full than it does in my best set of cans. Now that i have an MBP, portability is very important to me. Goodbye huge cans; hello, in-ear phones. These may have just become my new reference monitors.

Fit & Stability

This is the sticking point for a lot o people with this product. These plugs are not your father's in-ear phones. Bose completely rethought the concept. For many people, Bose is simply ahead of its time. One expects ie phones to form a seal in the ear canal. We have been conditioned to believe that without this seal, the phones are not in securely and the sound will suffer. Bose has done away with all that. These plugs do not form any kind of a seal. There is no noise isolation. You cannot shove these far into your head like other plugs. In fact, they are designed to sit in the bowl of your ear. The business end is a silicone tip that directs sound into the ear without placing the entire apparatus into the ear. They are more like buds than plugs.

The removable silicone tip has a somewhat sticky feel to it. This is, in part, what keeps these plugs securely in the ear, even when in motion. Everything about the fit and feel of these plugs is counterintuitive. There is no seal, no force, no pain or discomfort. There is nothing tactile that tells you these are in properly. But once you hit the play button, your jaw drops and you know you did it right. These plugs are all day comfortable. They are a new level of comfort because they are not shoved invasively in your ear. After more than three straight hours of wear, I hardly noticed I had them on. And, yes, after many hours of wear, they were still perfectly in place. If you can't live without the seal feeling, these will never be for you. Bose has found a way to make plugs that are comfortable and non-invasive, without losing one iota of fidelity.

At $99, these are a bargain. This is an outstanding first generation product. I can't wait to see how they evolve over time.

Please do not get sidetracked by discussions of noise cancelation. These plugs do not claim that as a feature. They do not try to cancel noise in any way. I am also not a fan of noise cancelation. If you do not like canal phones, pick these up a Sharper Image. They have a very good return policy.

Quick follow up after a few days of usage. I still like them just fine. Though, there was a time when I thought for sure I was going to take them back for a refund. The issue was that the sound was breaking up at high volume levels. Once the sound broke, turning it down would not fix the problem. It took a couple of days to figure out what was going on. I use an iPod Shuffle. The shuffle is not powerful enough to drive these phones. It is as simple as that. I realized that you can have dramatically different listening experiences depending on the hardware you are using. The same music on my MBP sounds pristine at any volume. For those who believe that the shuffle has great sound quality, the problem is that you do not have good enough ear-phones. I have had this problem with other phones in the past. Good phones make iPods playing mp3 sound like crap. I have not tried these with my wife's video iPod. I suspect it has a stronger amp. I will report back. Take negative reviews about headphones with a grain of salt because depending on what people are listening to and on what they are listening will impact the sound and perceived quality of the phones dramatically. I will keep these phones for use with my MBP. They really are great, and in environments where one uses a notebook, an isolating seal is not important. The second generation shuffle just cannot handle this caliber of phones. My cheap ones do just fine with the shuffle. By the way, I am using a 2G shuffle.

I was really starting to wonder how these stacked up to other plugs in the price range, so I when back to the store and picked up a set of Shure e2c.

Bottom line. The Bose sound much better to me, but are less accurate. I believe they are doing something techie to enhance the bass, as it really does have a nice thump right out of the box. It is very pleasing to the ear and eliminates the need for EQ. Just plug them in and enjoy.

I tested the Shures with my reference monitors. They are not perfect, but they come much closer to the actual sound of the music. For editing, I would not recommend the Bose despite my earlier post to the contrary. The Shures have taught me the error of my ways. I would recommend editing with the Shures. Using the Shures makes me want to re-rip all of my music with a better codec and higher bit rate. The Bose plugs make the crappy music sound better than it should. I might have to keep them both; Bose for enjoyment, Shures for accuracy.

By the way, I do not understand why the Bose have the issue with the Shuffle. I tried several headphones with the Shuffle and they worked just fine. Perhaps it has to do with whatever trickery they are using to enhance the sound. I will let smarter people than myself speculate on that. In spite of some of you getting way off topic, I appreciate all the input. Some of it has been quite helpful. Please do your own review threads so that I and the rest of the community can benefit from your experience. I read these boards before I buy anything to use with my Mac.