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Canalphones Roundup

Review Criteria

I selected three music tracks which I felt represented a wide range of dynamics:

"New Slang" by The Shins

I chose this song because it is very simple, just a guitar, tambourine, and vocals.  The tambourine in particular tends to get muffled by many headphones because it’s such a high bright sound.

"Moanin'" by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers

This is a classic Jazz tune with some very catchy riffs.  Lots of instruments going on here, and it’s got a great live-performance presence.

"Don’t Panic" by Coldplay

A great all-around song.  This is always the first song that I play on any new piece of audio equipment I buy; it’s become a tradition now.

Songs were scored on a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is the crystal-clear quality and accuracy of my "reference" Grado headphones (see the Introduction).  I also scored each earphone on comfort and style.

Style is important because I just bought a shiny new 4^th Generation iPod:

…and I suspect you have an iPod or other portable music player too if you’re considering canalphones.  So my listening tests all took place on - what else - my iPod.  After all, that’s what my earphones will be plugged into most of the time.  Songs were compressed high bitrate (VBR --r3mix) Mp3’s.

A Word About Earpieces

Each set of canalphones uses interchangeable “earpieces” which fit onto a tube that sticks out of the actual sound-producing drivers.  This is a good thing because everyone’s ears are a little different.

Between all seven products, there are a whole variety of earpieces included.  Thick rubber, thin rubber, double flange, triple flange – you get the idea:

These rubber earpieces have the advantage of being easier to clean and looking cool (when they’re not in your ear), but it is usually more difficult to get a good seal (see the conclusion page for a short discussion of isolation and the importance of achieving a good seal).

However, the one type of earpiece that every product came with was foam.  It’s the same kind of foam that is used to make earplugs; you can squish it down and stick it in your ear and it will expand slowly to create a great seal from outside noise.

The reason that foam is included with every canalphone model is simply because it creates the best isolation and also consistently gives the best sound every time (for a notable exception, see the Shure E5c page).

In my listening tests I used only the foam earpieces so that each product would be judged on its best behavior.