A8
CL30
CX300
Over the past 3 years I’ve owned only these 3 earphones so I’ve
decided to write a brief review on them.
I’ve had the B&O A8 the longest, they have great sound
quality, bass is full, mids are clear and highs are just about right. They look pretty nice but there are a few
problems I have with them. Firstly the
earphones come with foam covers for the actual ear buds, they make the whole
experience of wearing these headphones more comfortable. However these foam covers are thin and are definitely
going to tear, and when you wear these earphone without foam covers it can get
painful.
The second problem I’ve got with these earphones is that if
you wear them for a really long time, it gets kinda
painful, but that might just be my ears. When using them for a short
time you can barely feel them on your ears and its fantastic but for me I just
can’t wear them that long.
The last little gripe I have with these earphones is that well they’re difficult to take on and off. If you expect to yank out your earphones to answer a question or two every few minutes these earphone can become quite troublesome to be using. As a result the A8’s have been relegated to the earphones of choice when I go out for a jog or a work out because they stay put when your moving about.
The first in-ear channel earphones I’ve ever owned is the Pioneer CL30. I bought these in Japan while I was living there and I had read no reviews at all. I lucked out. The first thing you notice with in-ear channel earphones is that you don’t need to turn the volume as high and the base is a LOT more full than other earphones.
The sound quality is great I’d have to say that considering these earphones are quite cheap they have really great mids and really crisp highs, however now that I’m used to in-ear channel earphones I can say that the bass is a bit on the weak side, but overall these ear phones are very well balanced when it comes to sound quality.
The gripes I have with these earphones are that it comes with the short cable design with extension cable. My extension cable died on me a few months ago then recently my short cable died on me forcing me to research and but new earphones, more on that in a minute. Some people may like the short cable design but I personally don’t like hanging my mp3 player around my neck so the short cable doesn’t do it for me at all.
With the death of my CL30’s I elected to purchase the
Sennheiser CX300s. They’ve been receiving
great reviews and they weren’t as expensive as the really
expensive Shure or Ultimate Ear earphones.
I listen to a lot of bass heavy music such as drum and bass and hip hop. However when I was listening to broken beat music I found that the Pioneer’s had better sound quality in the mid and high range. Another thing I’ve noticed is that with the CX300’s you don’t really need to turn up the volume as much, I’ve read in some review that they are more efficient and I can confirm that as on my Sony NW-E507 I could turn the volume down a notch. However the battery life on Sony’s saving a little bit of juice really didn’t make that big a difference to me.
In conclusion I’ve got to say that if you don’t mind the short cable/ extension cable configuration, the larger size and chrome finish look of the Pioneer CL30’s. I would give the edge to the CL30’s over the Sennheiser CX300’s. The CX300’s have a better built quality and a robust bass, however the sound quality of the CL30’s over all is slightly better and oh yeah they’re cheaper but I'll probably forget about the comparison in another month or so
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