Digital Home Thoughts: They Shure Sound Good! Shure's E5cs Earphones

Go, Go Gadget Attenuator
Speaking of planes, the E5cs are so sensitive that they come with a special level attenuator (Figure 4) that allows you to control volume with a wheel as opposed to a button that takes leaps across the volume spectrum. All you have to do is plug the Shures into one end of the black ergonomic device and plug the attenuator into the outlet of your plane or tour bus.


Figure 4: This is the level attenuator. It's a breeze to use and is quite handy. Click on the image for the full size. (282KB)

Can You Hear Me Now? Good!
So how do they sound? In order to answer this question properly I performed a series of tests that would help me come to a decent conclusion. When you buy a car you have to drive carefully for the first 1500 miles. In the audio world you have to perform a burn-in. This can be done with a simple sinusoid generator set to do a 10 Hz to 40 KHz sweep. Although the perfect human ear can only hear 20 Hz to 20 KHz, this procedure makes sure that your Shures will operate to their maximum. Just because we can't hear some waves does not mean they are not there, but more on that later. After a nice burn-in at a low volume, the earphones are ready for listening and my first test song was "Hey You" by Pink Floyd.

Slowly but surely an ear to ear smile formed on my face. I did not know my crummy old CD player could produce such bliss. This experience was passed on to my audiophile friend who is now thinking about pulling out his piggy bank to buy these. CDs never sounded so great. In the last stages of my temporary ownership I tested them on HIFI equipment and found that they sounded even better when a proper CD player was hooked up to a Pioneer or an AKAI amplifier. Every resonating effect of instruments in the recording room was clear and crisp. So sensitive are the headphones that you will likely never exceed their ability. Elitist audiophiles believe in using a portable amplifier such as the Porta Corda II to get the most out of your headphones. However, most of us do not want to carry a nearly CD-player sized amplifier just to get clearer sound on the subway to work or school. The joy did not end there though. I previously stated that these ‘phones provided great isolation. Even at very low volumes you will not hear the person next to you speak at all, such is the extent of the awesome design of these earphones.

Can You Hear Me Now? Not So Good...
For some listeners they just might be perfect, but there are a few who will scoff at the E5cs. It is true that these earphones bring out the best out of any CD, but what if you want to go outside that envelope? What if you want to listen to something outside the midrange frequencies of 1024 bit encoded CDs? When combined with proper amplification and speakers, nothing can beat the sound of an LP. Armed with a Pioneer 9900 amplifier as well some other HIFI toys (such as an AKAI 747 reel-reel and various record players) I discovered that the E5cs did not sound as good with better equipment. Although we cannot hear sound waves outside our ears' frequency ranges, we do hear the effects of those waves overlaying the lower frequency ones. It seemed almost as though the Shures could not cope with the sound they were receiving. As opposed to the booming sound from the speakers (no subwoofers will find home near HIFI equipment) the Shures only provided a healthy midrange. At low output volumes you could make out a significant amount of noise that you will not hear from a good set of speakers. Removing the 16 KHz to 32 KHz from the output completely did not affect the sound at all and neither did sliding the 10 Hz to 32 Hz to the off position either. Fortunately for us, modern CD encoding processes exclude those frequency ranges in order to conserve space on the well known medium we call the CD-R.

Wrapping It All Up
Does this mean that the E5cs are not worthy of a true audiophiles ears? No. A connoisseur of music will not sit on a couch and listen to his or her collection through a pair of earphones. Obviously the portability and sound isolation qualities will appeal to audiophiles on the go and since you cannot take your record player with you, you will be stuck with a CD player anyway. Yes it is a shame that the Shures are not perfect in every way but they do not need to be. You will be hard pressed to find a better sounding portable solution (Grado RS1s are not portable people) for the money.

The question lingering in everyone’s mind is whether or not they are worth the money. If you spend a lot of time on the road and praise sound quality and hate outside noise, then these are the earphones for you. They are a hefty investment but deliver on their promise of quality sound on the go.