Aural Habits

For years (ears... get it?), the brand "Ultimate Ears" has been typically associated with audio engineers, professional artists and of course... audiophiles. Considering that the top of the line UE-11 Pro costs a whooping US$1150, you can be sure not many
are willing to fork out such a sum.

The Legendary UE-11 Pro Custom Ear Monitors
~ Quad armature speaker system
~ Three-way crossover network
~ -26dB of passive noise cancellation
~ Custom fit by audiologist

Even as Ultimate Ears attempted to go mass market by producing a myriad of off-the-shelf in-ear monitors (better known to us as earphones) with significantly reduced price tag, it was still expensive by all measures.

Admittedly, I once toyed around with the idea of buying a S$250.00 Bang & Olufsen A8 earphones, but I was soon grounded to reality the minute I looked at my bank account. Thus, the dream of owning earphones by UE, Shure and Etymotic Research and such died off.

Until a few days ago, I stumbled upon... AMAZON.

My favourite source of obscure cds had morphed into audiophilic paradise with maddening discounts! To cut the long story short, after much deliberation, I finally settled for the humble Ultimate Ears Super.Fi 3 Studio Earphones at an ultimately sweet price of US$66.

Features:
1. Single precision balanced armature
2. Audio filter
3. Ultra light-weight housing
4. User replaceable cable
5. 2 years warranty

Heh, now all I have to do is wait.

As a quick reference, here were the following close contenders:

Creative Zen Aurvana In-Ear Headphones

Shure E2c-n Sound Isolating Earphones

Etymotic Research ER6i Isolator In-Ear Earphones

Sony MDR-EX90LP Stereo Earphones

Panasonic RP-HJE70 Earbud Headphones

V-MODA Vibe Earbuds