$330
www.ultimateears.com
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
The story goes that Van Halen's sound engineer, Jerry Harvey, needed to help drummer Alex hear his brother, Eddie, when playing on stage. Harvey invented a new kind of sound-isolating, in-ear speaker that revolutionised live music. He founded Ultimate Ears, recently bought by Logitech, and it's thriving.
They have two flavours: the regular ones are $330 and the "vi" variants are $380 and have a multi-function button and microphone to pause playback or answer the phone. Both have a carry case and rubber tips, to ensure they fit in the ear.
Ear-plug headphones feel awkward in that you can hear your own breathing and footsteps. You also have to push them quite far in to work properly. But you're treated to bass-rich, rounded sound that only you hear and you don't need to raise the volume.
If you think the earphones that came with your phone or MP3 player are good, once you've tried these you won't go back. Frequencies are faithfully reproduced for all types of music. But Sennheiser's CX500 offer more bass (at the expense of minor clarity in other frequencies) and are half the price. If you prefer bass-rich music and money's tight we recommend the Sennheisers but for general listening, the super.Fi 5s are excellent.
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