The Shure E3c earbuds are the descendants of the company's in-ear monitors for onstage musicians. Wyclef Jean, Jethro Tull, Everclear, Tricky, Herbie Hancock and Oasis all use Shure products. Now, thanks to some trickle-down technology, a range of Shure in-ear models is available to consumers. The E3cs are available for around £110.
The tiny E3c buds weigh less than 30g and come with a sturdy storage pouch. The earpieces are white, complementing Apple's iPod. If you prefer a darker look, check out Shure's E3s, which are the same headphones with charcoal-gray earbuds and a black cord.
The E3cs achieve full bass response only when you push the buds pretty far into your ear canals. To ensure the best possible fit for ears of all sizes and shapes, Shure includes both reusable flex sleeves and disposable foam sleeves in small, medium, and large. Compared with the flex sleeves of the step-down E2cs (around £60), the E3cs fit more snugly, so we found them more comfortable, but not everybody will like them.
The E3cs block high levels of ambient noise in planes, trains, buses and any other environment, so you can hear all of your music's detail without cranking up the volume and blasting your ears (and fellow commuters). The E3c isn't an active noise-cancelling model, but in our comparison tests, it shut out noise just as well, and better yet, its hushing abilities don't rely on batteries.
The E3cs' sound is lovely and warm, with incredible clarity and transparency. Even when you're listening at low levels, the headphones effortlessly bring you the fine detail in your music. And if you want to turn up the volume, the highly efficient E3cs will play as loudly as any headset driven by a portable device's meagre watt output. Shure designed the E3cs to be accurate, and it is, so don't expect it to blow you away with hyped-up bass or sizzling high frequencies. If you crave heavyweight bass, move up to a full-size, over-the-ear model.
When we compared the E3cs with the E2cs, the family resemblance was obvious, and each offered equal isolation from external noise. But the sound of the less expensive model struck us as thinner and not as clear. The E3c's richer and more palpably realistic audio clinched the deal for us.
More important is the way the E3cs always brought us closer to the music. Playing CDs we've listened to countless times, we were constantly finding new details and gaining further insight into the songs. The E3cs are an audiophile delight.
Additional editing by Nick Hide
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Hashim Ul-Hassan 1 May 2007
Good: Great sound quality, build quality, look
Bad: Not a bunch of bass, lower codec'd songs didn't sound all that great
Comment: Upon trying the e3c's for the first time, I encountered the arguably archaic earphones and cables. However, after some fine-tuning I was up and running with the cables nestled under my ear in a comfortable position. One thing that struck me right away was the look of the earphones. Even though they will be the smallest parts of your listening system, these 'phones look very, very respectable.
Onto sound quality. for songs that are at a relatively high bit-rate (around CD level) the difference between these and my former sony earphones was dramatic. All of the sounds were much cleaner, packed a bigger punch and I was now noticing sounds I had never heard before with my, albeit, cheaper earphones. However, with mp3's of a lower bit-rate, there was no discernable difference between the two sets. this is probably down to me, but I was expecting at least some difference due to the expense spared for such an accessory.
This brings me onto another thing, the price. Many of you will believe that it is exorbitant for such an 'insignificant' accessory. However, they are important, making an investment in your pleasure is paramount and they are more reasonably priced (I picked mine up for £60). These may be priced above the mean for earphones but they also out-perform the mean by a great margin.
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