Ultimate Music listening experience

I first became interested in quality listening when an acne-prone bose sales rep brutally encouraged me to try out their quietcomfort 2 headphones with my ipod. I plugged it into my ipod, picked out my own mix and all the goodness poured into my skull and I became a happy victim of commercialism... for about two seconds. I then remember thinking: this isn't the way I made my mix at all. The bose headphones made the mix sound "good" to the average ear, but it in no way made the mix sound accurate, detailed, or alive. I then went in search for headphones that didn't sacrifice audio integrity for the sake of "fun"

My first venture was with sennheiser hd202's which are great for the money, and then I bought a pair of sennheiser cx300's, an even better deal for the money. Then my studio started to expand and I was in need of something even more high end so I got a pair of ultrasone pro 750's, which are heaven on earth for headphones and I will review them shortly, but when my friend borrowed my cx300's and broke them listening to 128kbps mettalica (blasphemy to any sence of the term "musical quality") I had to get some ipod listening headphones.

Of course now that I was spoiled by my ultrasones I had to get something that was at least semi-up to par that I could also use for mixing. The Ultimate Ears super.fi 5 pro do just that.
They are in my opinion, the ultimate headphones for listening with ipod. They are an in-ear model, which means that they go slightly inside one's ear canal, and aren't bulky like over head headphones, perfect for portable use. The best thing is that they don't NEED much power to be loud and i can have my ipod on half the volume of other headphones (more or less expensive) and it will be loud, saving ipod life.

Many audiophiles use stand alone tube amplifiers and d/a converters for their listening, and many reccomend modifying the ipod in some way to upgrade one or the other. The super.fi 5's are, in my opinion, as good as it gets until the ipod's electronics become a bottleneck in sound quality and one would have to purchase an additional something to get better sound. Trust me, the quality is still there, one can hear much detail and one can definitely hear the bitrate if encoded low. I also use them with a better d/a on my computer and amp and there is a quality increase.

In terms of sound they are very nice. They are "fun" headphones like the bose I mentioned but they are far and away better for listening to quality and detail. They have a good balance between a pair one can rock out with but also a pair that one can mix with. While I most often mix with my overhead ultrasones I will most always plug in these babies for a second opinion. The low end is not as detailed as an overhead, but again, my friend tried them and commented "the drums are SO real on these"

Another mentionable thing is that these are awesome for voice monitoring. The cable is not very long but one can purchase an extending cable and they wind behind the head so are inconspicuous. I've used these to both monitor my voice when warming up, recording, and peforming. The dual drivers are great for hearing one's own voice and correcting problems if need be. These and a keyboard and microphone are how I learned to stay on pitch.

They come with a ton of accessories, different ear tips, cleaning devices, and a volume-decrease cable, and a hard-ish case. I love the earplug style tips, they make it very easy for one to get a good, noise canceling seal, so that the bass is fully heard even in a moving vehicle. I've used these on car rides and planes, where usuallly it can be expected to forget about bass but these cancel noise so well that they are like a portable studio. It'll take a while to get a good seal but once you do it's heavenly.

The last thing I'd like to mention is the warrantee. When I bought these logitech did not own ultimate ears and ultimate ears required registration of product within thirty days of buying them for a warrantee. I did not do this so I guessed that I was out of luck when I broke them. I broke them buy slamming them against something and breaking the metal connector from the cable to the phone (the cable comes out of the earpiece) This wouldn't happen under normal usage, I did something extreme to them, nothing was wrong with the earpiece itself and it was probably an easy fix. I also commend logitech for doing an exchange for me, the cs rep I talked to was more than friendly and able to handle my problem. The replacements shipped as soon as the bad ones got there. Very nice.

All in all these are a great pair of mixing and listening iem headphones in the <200 price range.