Best In-Ear Earphones

Bose In-Ear Headphones
Rating: 4/5
Price: Rs 5625

Bose doesn’t provide specs for this product on their site

No, I have not forgotten to mention the model name, that’s what they are called. I like the way Bose carry out their operations, and especially the way they package and market their products. This one comes packed up neatly with a couple o’ accessories (Bose always give cool accessories) which include spare silicone earbuds. The buds are a translucent white material, very soft to touch. The wire has a black and white covering that appeals to the eye.

But that is the aesthetic part of it. Putting the earphones in takes some time initially, as the design requires you to insert only a small portion of the actual driver into the canal. The driver juts out sideways from the casing, and in perspective looks rather like a combination of a regular earphone and a canalphone. Once on, they are very comfortable. The acoustic sealing is decent just as in the ATs. I'd like them to have had a bit of noise cancellation, but that’s fine for now.

The sound is great, the bass is awesome, better than the ATs, but at this price I was expecting good sound. Subjectively speaking I’m from the school that like a mellow laidback sound, with rounded edges at the extremities of the frequency spectrum, which the Bose had. I would not say it’s cheap; Bose always carries a premium.

Creative Zen Aurvana
Rating: 3.5/5
Price: Rs 4600

Sensitivity (1kHz) - 115 dB/mW
Impedance 42 Ω
Earphones Frequency Response 20Hz-20kHz

How can we not have a Creative in the list? So here is their latest and swankiest offering called Aurvana. It entered our studio last, but you know what they say: better late than never!

The Aurvana is a well-packaged and designed piece of ear gear, capable of pitting against the higher end pro audio brands mentioned here, at least where quality of build and looks are concerned. It has a thick tubular design for the enclosure, with a glossy black-finish bearing silver logo. The sleeves are made of rubber, and variants in size are provided as options.

The fit is very good, and the wire length etc is perfect. Acoustic sealing is best amongst the lot, but still just passable, as with the other models – it surprises me that none of the aforementioned models actually block as much sound as some of them state in their marketing pages.

Sound-wise these are decent, but for the price I think they don’t have as tight a bass as the Sennheisers. Their EP630s are better. What is good is the clarity at the higher end of the frequency spectrum, and I liked the crisp mids, but i don't prefer this to the better flat sound of the shure. This should have been a little cheaper though, then it would have cool.