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I use these on my commute- <2 hours a day and treat them gingerly, like the expensive, easily breakable items they are.

I’m now going on my 2nd pair and 3rd cable set.

In about 3-4 months you’ll notice that one of your channels has lost all or most of its volume.

Then when you continue to use it, you’ll notice that the sound completely cuts out between steps as you’re walking.

Eventually, nothing brings the sound back and you pay $20 for a new cord. Disconnecting and then reconnecting the cable to the buds will not do anything.

The problem is that the area where the jack transitions to the cord (the strain-releaf) is VERY WEAK and eventually the wire breaks inside. On my next cable (currently awaiting its arrival), I’ll use some heat-shrink in that area to try and bolster it, but for $400, why am I engineering a fix?

I also have a coworker whose first pair broke where the bud meets the shapeable wire that goes over your ears. I’m sure this will eventually happen to me and then I’ll no longer buy anything from this company.

My $100 Shures Shure E2c Sound Isolating Earphones are just about as good, isolate about the same and I can buy 4 of them for the cost of one of these.

Also- if you want a GOOD seal, you need to get the replacement (or 3rd party) foam tips. The foam tips that came with both of my pairs was not the same, and inferior to, the replacements.

I upgraded to these from a pair of $100 Shure earbuds. The sound quality improvement was amazing, they sound awesome. The clarity is amazing, and it brings to light many musical details that I had never heard before. I immediately re-listened to many of my favorite albums and heard them in a whole new light.

However, it takes a few swaps of the included eartips to find the right fit, and they have never given me quite as good of a fit as the Shures did. They also stick straight outwards from your ears, whereas the Shures fit up into your ears. This means that they can be a bit uncomfortable when trying to rest the side of your head against something.

I’ve owned these for approximately two years now, and use them almost every day, whether while at the gym, at work, or while traveling (make sure to look for cars before crossing the street, you can’t hear them coming!). They have broken twice in that time, once due to getting caught on something, and once with the buds themselves splitting apart and the wires snapping, but both times UE’s customer service was extremely helpful and replaced them under warranty very quickly.

If I were to break these again now that the warranty period has expired, I would definietly miss them, but I would also take a very hard look at the comparably priced Shures before replacing them.

First, let me mention that i’ve tried earphones out in the past and found them to be extremely uncomfortable in most cases. The Bose earphones are comfortable, but they don’t go very far in your ear. The Shure E3C didn’t sound good and they hurt so much they were unusable. After that experience I skipped out on earphones for a long time.

For the past few years i’ve been trying and using many different headphones. My favorite of the last year has been the AKG 701. They’re huge and really need a good headphone amp. Don’t laugh, but my main source of audio is an ipod touch using a headphone amp and Lossless audio. WAV format or Apple Lossless. If it’s MP3, it’s 320kbps.

I wanted to downsize my setup a bit for some uses, so I needed something smaller that could work well without a headphone amp.

Did maybe two days of research and found these and was shocked at how many good reviews on Amazon there was for these (the old listing). That’s not very common with earphones it seems. It was a hard decision to go with these over a similar Shure model. The size of these ALMOST made me not get them. Please don’t let the size keep you from getting them. It’s not a problem. The other Shure model also seemed to have more Bass (according to reviews). That’s a negative for me. I don’t like any extra bass usually. That’s one reason I love the AKG 701’s. They have a perfect balance of everything.

Ok, with that out of the way I bought these and immediately found that even the smallest ear piece was too large and hurt my ears after just a few minutes of use. I’m not really a small person, but I was surprised that the small ear piece was a tight fit. Sony earbuds come with a small sized one that would work perfect, but I didn’t want to risk it.

I tried the (old, not Comply) foam piece and it was defective! The foam was not glued on properly to the plastic insert. Imagine if I did not notice this! I’d be prying that thing out with tweezers perhaps. UPDATE: Ultimate Ears now includes Comply Foam inserts. Those things are the best! ZERO pain at all EVER. Not once in a year. Previously they were a separate purchase.

Be sure that when you use these to make sure the wire goes on TOP and back around the ear! It’s a bit different than other earphones. They have a video on their website of how to insert them properly. It actually helps! Bring them from back behind the ear FIRST.

The nice thing about these is that they feel like an earbud with the ear clip. The wire that goes above and around your ear is really stiff and kind of keeps the earbuds in your ear.

I’m not good at describing the sound, but with earphones or headphones it’s best to pick something that sounds good to YOU. Many times i’ve picked up headphones based on suggestions and they just didn’t have my preferred sound. They either had too much bass or were too bright or had too much coloration. To me the sound from these just sounds perfect. Not to sound corny, but the sound is pleasing to the ears and there’s not too much of anything at all. Perfect everything. To me, the sound is almost similar to that of the AKG 701, which is probably around the same price. With these those you really feel like your right there in the studio. I can’t say that about any other headphone/earphone. Not even Grado stuff.

If your wondering what else i’ve tried before getting these. I’ve owned Sennheiser HD-555’s, 580s and 650’s. Beyerdynamic DT-990s, Grado SR-60, Grado 325i, AKG 701 and lots of other’s.

For portable use SR-60’s are good for some types of music, but I don’t like the design, although it was my preferred headphone for portable players maybe.

AKG 701 was without a doubt my favorite headphone. Some may not like them, but it’s my preferred type of sound. Second favorite were the Beyers of course.

Purchased the Grado 325i two months before the Ultimate Ears and thought they were good on some music, but terrible on others. They stress my ears out too much and I can’t wear them for more than an hour. I think there can be such a thing as too much detail!

So now these are my new current main earphone/headphone. Believe it or not they can be used on an Ipod or Sansa View without a headphone amp. Of course they will sound better with an amp, but it’s not always needed. Thanks to these new earphones i’ve now converted some of my old CDs that were ripped to mp3 back to WAV or Lossless.

Is the price too high? I don’t think so at all. Never once felt like they were too expensive after using them for a week. I’ve compared them to many other headphones/earphones and they sound just as good as any other similar priced model.

Had the foam insert defect and that isn’t enough to knock off a point. I’ve used these since July of 2008 and the build quality has been perfect. Only a month ago did I realize that the cable is user replaceable. I did not even realize this until I pulled it apart myself and plugged it back in. I seriously think if these ever die, i’ll just replace them with the exact same thing. I like them that much. All music sounds good with these, but i’d like to try a similar Shure model just to compare them. On my new Ipod Touch they sound fine without a headphone amp. Using an amp makes them sound ever better, but it’s not needed. Just a note, if you use a headphone amp with these, don’t use rechargeable batteries. It degrades the sound quality. No lie!

I’m sorry, but as much as i’d like to come up with some more negatives, I can’t. These are very good! Best i’ve tried yet. After hearing these I doubt i’ll ever go back to regular headphones.

UPDATE: After a year i’ve now finally come up with one extremely minor negative. They are a somewhat big. Maybe in a few years UE can do a redesign and find a way to make them smaller. It’s not a big deal.