Used the EarPods for the First Time in My Life and They’re Great! (But you need EarSkinz)

2017-01-06 Ken

All that Money that I spent on High-end Earphones…

3GS, 4, 5, 5S, SE, 7

These are the iPhones that I’ve used in the past (currently using the iPhone 7).

iPhones come with earphones and they’re called EarPods (the white ones).
I’ve never used them before, not once.

This was because I firmly believed the following:

“Music should be listened to in high quality sound. Earphones under $100 cannot produce good sound. Stock earphones? Get out of town.”

I’ve tried everything practical to improve sound quality.
Using good earphones was just the start.
I’ve also tried:

import music from CDs in Lossless format only
use headphone amps (the one that I liked best was the Portaphile 627)
use dedicated music playing apps (I used to use the CanOpener)
carry around High-end digital music players (I liked the design of the Sony ZX1 and ZX2, but I liked the sound of the Hifiman HM602)
change ear chips (SpintFit worked well with the EX1000 and EX800ST)

These are just the basics.

Headphone amps and High-end digital music players do improve sound quality.
But the practicality that you sacrifice is even more, so I ended up settling down with the following setup:

good earphones + iPhone

My go to earphones were the Sony EX1000 and EX800ST.

Masterpieces by Sony, the EX1000 and EX800ST

The EX1000 and EX800ST came out nearly 6 years ago but the sound quality is still amazing.

They are dynamic earphones which are like small speakers in your ears.

The sound stage, especially on the EX1000 is super wide and it makes you feel so good listening to it.
The negative side is that it picks up surrounding noise a lot, so I would use the EX800ST on the go.
ex1000 ex800st earpods

After changing to the iPhone 7

iPhone 7 doesn’t have a headphone jack

It comes with an adapter so I can continue using my Sonys if I wanted to.

But I’m using the adapter with my VideMic Me.

Maybe a good opportunity to get a pair of bluetooth earphones?

Just as that thought crossed my mind, so did another:

“EarPods, let’s give it a try”

The EarPods that comes with the iPhone 7 has a lightning cable at the end so it goes straight into the iPhone.

“It’s…not bad???”

That was my honest impression after hearing the sound for the first time.
It’s not great, but it’s not bad.
Phrased a different way, it’s enough.

There was one big problem though.
It would easily fall out of my ears.

That was something I had to fix if I was going to use these everyday!

Got the EarSkinz EarPod Cover（ES2）

Rubber earphone covers seemed like the cure to the problem so I searched Amazon to see what was available.

There were some cheap ones but they had negative review comments and I didn’t want to waste time testing multiple products so I went with the EarSkinz EarPod cover (ES2).

They seemed reliable, having come out from a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Here are some pics with the EarSkinz attached.
EarSkinz earpod
earskinz earpod iphone
Some tips when putting on the EarSkinz:

Turn the EarSkinz inside-out
Align the hole with the air hole on the EarPod
Turn the EarSkinz inside out to its original form

That should do the trick.

The results?
It’s fabulous!
The EarPods won’t fall out even when I’m walking around!
They fall out occasionally when jogging but it’s doable!

I am satisfied with my purchase of the EarSkinz!

After using the EarPods for 2 weeks

Very convenient

It made me second guess my strong belief for high-end earphones.

Of course, the EarPods can’t match the sound quality.
But it beats the high-end earphones in the area of convenience, and by a long shot.

can use the remote control
can use the mic
don’t have to worry about how you treat it (its cheap so don’t have to worry too much about breaking it)

I still have the EX800ST but I already sold the EX1000.

In the end, I took convenience over sound quality.
And I thought about why I did that for a second and this was my assessment:

It’s not that I don’t care about sound quality any more, or that my interest in it decreased.
It’s more simple.
I can’t hear good sound any more.

Everyone knows that hearing high frequency sounds becomes harder as you grow older.
It’s hard to admit that your own hearing ability is deteriorating but it’s happening.

There are a lot of videos on YouTube that let you check this so it might be fun to give it a try.

I could barely hear 15000Hz.

It was interesting to acknowledge that what got me out of the endless (and expensive) search for better sound quality was my deteriorating hearing abilities!