Monoprice Enhanced Bass Hi-Fi Noise Isolating Earbuds Headphones - Black, Gold-Plated 3.5mm Stereo Plug, Model:109927, Wired

TLDR:They are astonishingly good. Truly great value. Would definitely buy more (and will buy several more) at this price. Replace the tips, mod them (they are so cheap, why not?!) and tape over the porthole for better bass.REVIEW:As too many other reviewers have gone into the technical details of frequency response and comparisons of factual sonic performance, let me instead just say that to my ears they sound wonderful. Very clear, bright with medium-full soundstage and solid mid-range punch. They are advertised as extra bass IEM’s but the bass is not that fantastic out of the box. It is clean and is not distorted (unless you have it too high on your post processing or equalizer) but it’s not that emphatic or loud. This can be improved in several ways, more on this in a minute.The fit is ok, I suppose. They now include slightly better earbud fitting tips than they did previously and they include a small, med and large pair in the package (with the medium pair already fitted and the other 2 in a small Ziploc bag)If you have thus far avoided in-ear phones like I have because they don’t fit at all or they fall out of your ears or you simply hate them for being terribly uncomfortable… these may not be too much better but bear with me. The sound is worth it, and I find myself wearing these more than my over-ear Sennheisers now.For comfort and fit, there's a thread over at Head-Fi.org ([...]) regarding modding them / adjusting them and it's fairly unanimously recommended that for the best overall fit and sound the tips should be replaced with the Comply T-400 foam tips (also available here on Amazon: Comply T 400 Isolation Earphone PlatinumThese, presumably, fit well enough to work out in, and do not fall out.They will be ill-fitting at first but like memory foam or Birkenstocks they are supposed to mold more and more to your ear as you wear them.You might be saying “why would I pay $15 for tips when the headphones only cost $9?” and I hear you, but that’s bad math.Good math is that for $24 dollars you get a pair of in-ears that sound better than anything under $150. They aren’t $9 headphones, they just sell for that price. (for now, until everyone discovers them? SSSssshhhhhhhh!)Another option (this is what I’m doing) is to custom-fit them into a set of Jabra Ear-gels (Jabra Eargels Ear Gels C100If I’m successful I’ll have the equivalent of the $300 custom monitors (like these Westone Custom Musician Monitor Earphones that you see people wearing on singing competitions these days, but for $18, roughly.So we’ve mentioned one of the ways you improve the bass, by making them fit better. Without a good seal, In-Ear drivers CANNOT give you good bass. They aren’t moving that much air, really. They need to move your eardrum in order to replicate a full range so good fit is imperative, not just for comfort, but also for sonic effectiveness.The other things you need to do are:firstly, burn them in!! I know MOST people don’t do this, especially average non-audiophile listeners and it’s unfortunate since first impressions are everything but as these cost like, $7 - $10 dollars, of course MonoPrice didn’t bother to burn them in for you. It’s easy to do, you essentially play various music through them for about 18-24 hours. Maybe less. I’d say you should do at least overnight once. Just open up your iTunes playlist and put it on shuffle at about 75% volume and leave them doing that while you sleep. Leave them in some other room if you have to, it won’t be that loud.Finally, they are ported and this detracts from the seal, thus from the bass but this is AWESOME! It means that those of us who prefer cleaner highs, less bass and less ear-suction that is typical with this kind of driver can leave them as they come and enjoy great sound. Those who prefer more bass will want to make this one tiny modification.On the inside face of each driver there is a tiny pinhole which looks like you’d imagine a reset button would look on your cell-phone, etc. Tape over it with tape.Now when you press them into your ears you’ll get that suction that makes you have to “pop” your ears once in a while but you’ll enjoy a very audible amount of improvement in bass immediately.I ultimately compromised and taped over them with a very fine mesh tape. I used cloth medical tape but a bandage would work just as well. (Only trouble is cutting tiny circles as the area you need to tape isn’t very large. A hole punch would do this perfectly but I can’t find one in my house.)Also - the braided cloth cord. It sounds like a great idea but it is stiff and quite microphonic in that every time it brushes against your shirt or bumps something you hear that, amplified, in your ear. I don't know what to do about this but I have just (CAREFULLY) dragged the cord back and forth across an edge (like the edge of your desk) repeatedly to break it in. Do this too hard and you might pull the cord out. Do it calmly and purposefully and you'll straighten them out nicely and the cord will become much softer and more pliable.

Size:Housings are a bit too large for me. This is personal preference though... You need to decide for yourself if you want to trade off a larger driver with slightly fuller sound for a more compact size. The driver housings are easily twice the size and weight as similarly priced earbuds. I say this first, because for whatever reason, the images on the page didn't quite prepare me for their actual size when they arrived at my home.When I first got them and used them exclusively for the first week or so, I got more than enough stares to become self-conscious and even had people ask me 'what the heck those things' were...When I use them now, it is only at home (on my computer / tablet / phone or as monitors while playing my guitar) as they're too big and weighty for me to use while walking, exercising or anywhere else that I'd be moving around more than a little bit.-However- I must say that they never once fell out (after I figured out the correct way to insert them - there are no instructions, and the L and R stamped on each one was VERY easy to miss), and the rubber eartips did a decent job sealing the ear canal which is crucial for noise isolation and (much more importantly) bass response. You can, obviously, choose one of the three standard sizes for your ear size.Sound:I have a headphone amp so I can drive my earbuds / earphones much harder than the standard output from my phone(s) tablets, etc...When they arrived, I drove them VERY hard to put them through their paces as I do with all my gear. They took a bit more punishment than 'regular lower-end' buds (my $20 skullcandy buds for example) and do have better bass response at higher volumes. Not much, mind you, but certainly noticeable. I can easily get a few db more out of these than comparably priced buds before distortion creeps in.At high volume, they get muddy. The bass WAY overpowers the mids and highs creating an unpleasant mashup.After a bit of trial and error I've found a happy medium where I do not drive them any higher than roughly 80% or so of max output, and I have devised EQ presets specifically for these buds on my different devices and depending on how I'm using them - e.g. as guitar / recording monitors, simply listening to MP3 music, or watching movies.Conclusion:Well, very simply, they sound 'fine'. If you take into consideration their price, I'd re-word that statement to say: they sound 'pretty good'. I can't get overly excited, but by the same token, they are only around $10.This was by no means a scientific test. I used my only my ears and my (subjective) judgement and not quantifiable testing parameters and electronic equipment. That said, I do however have 37 years in the music industry as a musician and sound engineer. So, (at least I like to think) possibly, my experience perhaps gives me a small bit of a leg up on the average user. Take that as you will.Finally, I'd say: If you can deal with their size, AND you have the patience to play with the EQ on your phone to define the sound parameters conducive to these buds... by all means get them.Thanks for reading.