I am a media quality junkie. I am always looking for ways to improve my audio/video experience. That’s probably why I obsess over every little detail of my sound for the show.

About a month back I started my search for some new earphones to use with my iPod. I have a full set of cans that I use in my studio for production work, but I wanted something smaller that I could use while I was walking Mia the Wonderdog, or while I was on a plane. I looked at offerings from Shure, Sennheiser, and Ultimate Ears. In the end I decided on the ER6i from Etymotic Research. I had read tons of reviews and people really seemed to dig them. One thing that I really liked was that they supposedly filtered out 99% of all background noise making it possible to listen to your audio in a noisy environment at a much healthier volume. After my earphone arrived it took me several minutes to figure out how to get them seated in my ear correctly. They really do go way into your ear and in order to achieve optimum sound and noise filtering, you have to get a proper seal. Once I did, the sound was awesome. I was really excited. The next day I decided to take Mia for a walk. I grabbed my iPod and spent a minute getting my new earphones in place. I took my first steps towards my door. Wait. What is that sound? It sounded like a subwoofer going off in my head. I realized the sound was me walking creating a “boom” with each step I took. The earphones had filtered out the noise of the outside world, but the thump of my own feet made it impossible to enjoy my music.

Since that day, I have tried everything I can think of to get rid of, or reduce, that unbearable sound. I have tried three different types of footwear. I have tried placing the headphone wire in different positions to see if that has anything to do with it. I also tried every single one of the different ear tips that come with the ER6i’s. The result is still the same.

The reason I bring this to your attention is two-fold. First, I wanted to tell you about my experience and warn others about buying these earphones if you plan to do any type of activity while wearing them, and second to see if any of you have had similar experience with in-ear monitors like this?

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 12th, 2007 at 11:48 am and is filed under Scott. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.