I’d been looking to try some better earbuds for awhile now… a few years back I was working on a job with another mixer (Steve Grider) who was monitoring through earbuds, and I’d never considered that as an option. His were some relatively expensive Sennheisers… I can’t recall the exact model number, but I remember they have a street price of $300. While I’m sure they sound quite nice, I wasn’t sure that mixing through earbuds would be right for me… and I wasn’t ready to drop $300 on an experiment that might not work. And I rather dislike all of the other earbuds that I’d tried, though none had cost more than $20.
Then I found that Galaxy Audio had a pair of earbuds that were within my “experimental” price range. Their EB6 model retails for about $80… not nearly as expensive as the Sennheisers, but expensive enough that one should expect a reasonable increase on performance over a standard pair of iPod earbuds, which most folks are familiar with.
Actually, stock iPod buds aren’t all THAT bad, but you’d be crazy to mix through them. Their response changes dramatically depending on how they’re inserted in your ear, and they have a tendency to shift of fall out of my ears altogether. There’s plenty of room for improvement.
The EB6 come in a nice case with three different size silicone liners, which fit the drivers to most ears In use, the leads go around the backside of your ears, which prevents them from being jerked out of your ears as you move around. They’re marked R and L, which means a better fit and consistent stereo imaging.
How do they sound? Honestly I’m not the best judge. Earbuds are tough to audition. I haven’t tried many other earbuds, certainly no expensive ones, and I’m kinda weird about sharing earbuds or even buying used ones. Regardless, I really like these buds. I use them mainly for listening to music, and these are far better than the standard iPod buds. Bass is full and solid, but (importantly) NOT overemphasized. Mids have a nice presence, and the highs are clean and clear. If we do an admittedly unfair comparison with my most accurate reference… my AKG K271 headphones… I feel like there is more of an “airy” quality to the highs in the K271s, while the EB6 have more of a “direct” quality to them. This seems to me to be more a basic difference between earbuds vs headphones, rather than any sort of shortcoming in one over the other. While I love the way my K271s sound, they become rather distracting to use after about 30 minutes or so because of the way they press on your ears… it starts to hurt a little. The EB6 don’t have that issue, and I will often fall asleep listening to music on my earbuds… I can’t do that very comfortably with headphones.
Isolation is far better with the EB6s, since they are sealed-type buds. They’re also a lot cooler in the summertime, though I do like my 7506 cans in the winter for keeping my ears warm.
Conclusion… all things considered, these were a great buy and seem to give me a good return on investment. My experiment is still ongoing… I’d still like to try some more expensive buds. But these are nice to use in the meantime.
(Review sample courtesy of me and my wallet.)
BGilbertSound 