Great Design, Very Comfortable! Upgrade Over E2Cs Mainly Ergonomic

Author's Rating:

Pros: Excellent sound quality, very comfortable, Nice modular cable design, Sound Isolation is very effective

Cons: Expensive, Some may find bass lacking

The Bottom Line: 
Great pair of earphones that sound awesome and are very comfortable. Some may be turned off by the high price, but I believe its worth it.

Author's Review
Overview
First off, I’ve been using the Shure E2Cs for about three years now, and I’m a big fan. I believe they offer excellent sound quality, great design, durability, and come with an excellent warranty that Shure stands behind. I purchased the SE201s as sort of an upgrade and stop gap after my E2Cs developed a crack in the rubber wire shield, and I sent them in for warranty servicing. In this review I’m going to focus on the differences between the E2Cs (the introductory Shure sound isolating earphone and the SE201s which are equivalent (I believe to the E3Cs, but don't quote me on this). The reason I can't tell is because Shure has discontinued the E3C line and replaced it with the "SE" line. However, the SE201s retail for $179, where the E3Cs retailed for over $200.

Sound Quality
The sound quality seems fairly similar to the E2Cs, however I’ve noticed that there is slightly better layering of sound. For example, depending on the recording quality, you can differentiate the position of drums relative to the acoustic guitar almost as if each sound is emitted from a different speaker. These sound especially great for live performance recordings. The frequency range is 25Hz – 18.5 KHz (the SE110s are 22Hz – 17.5 KHz). The SE210s are also have a slightly better sensitivity by 1 dB SPL/mW.

Overall, I would describe the sounds as very accurate, clean, and well balanced. However, the earphones do lack bass, but if you typically don’t listen to heavy bass music like hip hop and rap, you won’t notice much at all, the bass is sufficient. Finally, the earphones are can be played very loud without distortion, however I would not recommend trying this…In addition, on my Zune I can keep the volume at only level 3 out of 20 and still hear the music is plenty loud (on airplanes I usually have to keep it at 7-8).

Comfort
This is the area where the SE201s are clearly superior. First off, the ear phones themselves are much smaller (by 30%) and lighter than the E2Cs, so you can wear them sometimes without even noticing they are there. More importantly, the comfort of the sleeves/fittings is much, much better. If you’re not familiar with the design of sound isolating earphones, they come with sleeves that are designed to block out ambient noise so that you have a clearer sound. To me these work even better than noise canceling headphones and they are much smaller and more portable. The SE210-K earphones come with much softer, higher quality, flexible plastic sleeves/fittings (not the foam or hard rubber ones that come with the E2Cs). I can’t tell you how big of a difference these make! They are so much lighter and softer, and feel great in your ears. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to the E2Cs after trying these new sleeves. Also, the earphones come with three different size sleeves (S, M, L) so you can sort of customize them for your ear size.

Cable
Shure has upgraded the cable to make it a modular design. Basically this means that it comes in two parts, one three foot section, and the other about one foot which encompasses the earphone section. This design is very convenient if you hold your music player in your breast pocket – you simply unplug the three-foot section and now you don’t have excess cable hanging from your shirt!

Case
The earphones also come with a nice black vinyl case that zips together to close.

Warranty
Two years with excellent service.

Here’s a link to the Shure website which features more information about the SE201
http://www.shure.com/PersonalAudio/Products/Earphones/SEModels/us_pa_SE210_content