Earbuds VS Headphones For Field Monitoring

[Ty Ford]

Hello Archie and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum,

I know of none that offer the frequency response that give you what you need to know when listening. Some folks may have found some and I encourage them to chime in.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Watch Ty play guitar

[Jordan Wolf]

I own and have used my Shure E3 (now rebadged as the SCL3) earphones as on-location monitors. They worked nicely for isolating me from the environment, but didn’t sound as natural as over-the-ear headphones.

The frequency response on them is perfectly fine for monitoring – that is their intended purpose, after all. It’s been a while, but I’ve swept them from 20Hz-20kHz and the response picked up somewhere from 40Hz and extended all the way to 20kHz. I won’t say their response is flat, but neither is that of the Sony MDR-7506.

I bought my original pair for $180 a couple of years ago; I bought another pair a little over half-a-year ago, and they were around $60 ONLY because they were white and not gray in color. They are exactly the same, just a different color.

As with all in-ear monitoring solutions, the better the seal, the more bass response you will get. I tend to use the silicone, flanged “earmolds” for regular use since they are easier to take in/out, but I use the yellow foamies when I need a really good seal.

You can get custom molds made for them – which would both improve the seal AND the comfort of wearing them for hours on end – but if you’re going that route, it would be best to break the bank and get a $900 pair of Futuresonics.

I say get a pair of the SCL3’s in white (which equals cheaper cost) and try them out for at LEAST 1 week straight. Your ears will need to adjust a little bit. If you find they aren’t adequate for monitoring audio for video, at least you’ll have a nice pair of earphones for your personal music player.

Keep on exploring@

Wolf
<><

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[Archie Cruz] “, I’m guessing that there are noise-canceling buds that are just as good or better.”

Here’s the now-famous photo of guitar legend Eric Clapton working with his
Noise-Canceling Ear Buds-

😉

[Archie Cruz]

Awesome response Jordan! I will take your advice and FYI…

RE:”You can get custom molds made for them – which would both improve the seal AND the comfort of wearing them for hours on end – but if you’re going that route, it would be best to break the bank and get a $900 pair of Futuresonics.”

I make custom molds for myself. Maybe I’ll post a tutorial some day.

Thanks Much,
Archie

[Archie Cruz]

Hillarious. Last time I heard Clapton play was in concert at Blackbushe with Bob Dylan. No noise canceling of that concert 😉

[Ty Ford]

Later, it occurred to me that etymotic has been getting good reviews for their gear.

I haven’t tried their gear. I’ve only heard about it.

https://www.etymotic.com/

Regards,

Ty Ford

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Watch Ty play guitar

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[Jordan Wolf]

That is a good picture…I should look into those sometime 🙂

As far as “noise canceling” goes, that is an active technique which is employed by some headphone manufacturers. Earphones/canalphones passively attenuate the sound by acting like earplugs – though at times you will still hear low frequencies through bone conduction.

Wolf
<><

[Wayne Marcus]

One place to check out would be earsound.com. They made me a custom attachment for my Shure ear buds which just didn’t fit right in my ears.

[Paul Hurt]

I’ve used a pair of Shure E4 in-ears for monitoring in high-volume situations… ooh, for about four years now. They work great, as long as you use the triple-flange ear-tips (and figure out how to get them into your ears properly – usually involves gently pulling on the outside of your ear as you put them in).

They sound great, and aren’t short of frequency response… but like any headphones or in-ear monitors, you have to learn how the sound you hear in your in-ears/cans translates to the “real world”, because the presentation is not the same when heard over a pair of speakers.

But most of the time I think you’re just listening to check that your audio is clean and strong, and for that, in-ears work great. You can worry about tone balance more when you get to the mix stage.

The only downside to in-ears is they’re slow to put in and take out… compared to a pair of headphones which you can whip off your head at a moments notice when you need to talk to someone. With in-ears it’s a bit more of a palaver… and you also learn to keep a hand close to your monitor level control…!