Shure E500 Review

you'd rather have hd600's on a plane?!?!?!! that's the worst idea i've ever heard. those things are wide open and you'll hear all of the plane noise and have to turn it way up to hear audio. you'll also be sharing your music, not just with your immediate neighbors, but with people sitting rows ahead and behind you.

and complaining about the lack of active noise canceling in a high end earphone? that's like buying a race car and complaining that it doesn't have air conditioning or an automatic transmission. no audiophile wants active noise cancellation as such "features" have an adverse effect on the sound quality.

I disagree with hearing hiss/background noise with these headphones out of an Ipod. I have a 4th generation Ipod and use the e500 directly out of the headphone jack. The e500s do not hiss and are dead silent. Because they are so efficient, the Ipod does a great job powering them. I've never cranked the Ipod over 50% volume no matter how noisey my surroundings are. The only time I've ever heard background noise is when I hook the e500 up to my 2nd generation shuffle, and even then its very slight.

I have owned the Etymotic 4P earphones for several years now. They have been wonderful. I have now owned the new Shure E-500 PTH earphones for a few weeks. They are better. That is, in terms of sound quality, they are even better than the 4P's. However, in terms of sound isolation, they are not as good as the 4P's. Even using the triple-flange in-the-ear piece, the 4P triple-flange piece does a much better job. So for traveling in a noisy environment (such as an airplane) the Etymotic ER4P would be preferred; in a quiet environment, the Shure E-500's would be preferable. The best of both worlds would probably be the E-500's with a custom-molded earpiece.

"I found it took 30 - 60 seconds on average to put them on the first 10 times."
Wrap around the top,pull down on earlobe with thumb and middle finger, place in ear with index finger. How hard is that?

"I'm surprised by the absence of noise-cancellation. I was confused about this for a while"
Noise cancellation has a adverse effect on sound quality. Think Bose QuietComfort.

"embedded so deep into the plastic case that none of my fingers were small enough to make it move"
That's so you don't accidentally change it. You're meant to set it and leave it.

"it's no harder for me to just reach and hit the pause button than it is to find the on/off switch on the phones."
They're very different and serve different functions. PTT amplifies and ambient sound and turns down the volume of the line in, whereas hitting pause will only allow you to hear the muffled sound that leaks through the seal.

"The cable is a little short"
Designed that way so you can use it with lanyard-hanging music players. Otherwise, the included extension cables makes the wire length very practical.

"HD600s and my iPod on a plane"
Bringing open headphones on a plane? Not only will you annoy others with sound leakage, but ambient sound will also enter your headphones.

A rather flawed and unthoughtful review, this one is.

Listening music with the e500 is amazing. Many years I could hear music with quite a High-End-System (Crimson Mono-End, Crimson Pre-Amp, best Harman-Kardon-CD-Player, Epos E14 - everything highly modified with no compromises to clarity and purity - was just as perfect as it could). I thought, good music reproduction couldn't be possible with earphones and I didn't found nothing good enough – nothing have let me feel the music near and natural enough. But the e500 are now really good - clear, smooth but dynamic, no "grainy"-sound, very good details (still of great orchestras), perfect timing, great depth of the sound image and so on. In fact there seems to be nothing to criticise about the sound they can deliver (I haven't hear them with a high-end source still now).

Ive have had the pleasure to own the shure e3,e4,e5c
and own now the e 500.
there is no comparison the sound is just mind blowing.

its the same stuff in the e500 as in the 10 pro, nomatter what anyone says.
Etymotic ER4 with a good portable amp and using the DAP\'s line. -sorry man you dont know what youre talking about.
Ive got the iaudio x5 with flac files streaming through my inear e500, and man that is sound.
so dont be cheap and fool yourself, give yourself a treat shop the e500.

any one out there that wants to buy the 10 pro,
dont waste cash, go for the e 500.

Ive have had the pleusure to own shure e3,e4,e5c
and own now the e 500.
there is no comparison the sound is just mind blowing.

Hey mikael its the same stuff in the e500 as in the 10 pro, nomatter what anyone says.
Etymotic ER4 with a good portable amp and using the DAP\'s line. -sorry man you dont know what youre talking about.
Ive got the iaudio x5 with flac files streaming through my inear e500, and man that is sound.
so dont be cheap and fool yourself, give yourself a treat shop the e500.

any one out there that wants to buy the 10 pro,
dont waste cash, go for the e 500.

You can definitely get custom molds for any of the Shure earphones.

'The Shure E500 seem to be the highest end earphones that one can find' uhh, not quite, what about the super.fi 10 pro? or anything with custom molds? plus im willing to insure that a pair of Etymotic ER4 with a good portable amp and using the DAP's line out will sound better than the E500s in that set up.

-Mikael

I personally own the Shure E3c's and they are the best headphones that I have ever owned. Of course, I have never before spent $200 dollars for a set of earphones but thats beside the point. I can't imagine that the E500 could be any better. If you want to get crazy, get the E4c's which are basically the same as the E3c's but with metal construction.

Wow, thanks a lot for a thorough review. I was spoilt for choices on what earphones/headphones to get but this bad boy clearly makes the cut in terms of sound quality/loudness, if it's as good as studio headphones.