What are the two most aggravating things about the ear bud style of earphones? For me it's the fact they never seem to fit comfortably in the ear and even those with the little loops for draping don't seem to ever want to stay in place. The second thing is directly related to the first as I'm sure the lousy fit is a major cause of how poor a job they do of blocking out background noise. The concept of earphones is so you can listen to a portable music device when you're out and about. But what good are they if they're either falling out of your ear or the only way you can hear your music is if you crank the volume so high you risk deafness.
I'm amazed I made it to my fifties without any discernible hearing loss after spending so much time in clubs standing right up front next to the stacks of speakers listen to noisy punk bands. The last thing I want to be doing is blowing an eardrum while listening to my iPod - the irony in itself would be mortifying. Ever since I started reviewing music I've been looking for a decent set of earphones. I want something I can use in a variety of circumstances ranging from walking down the street next to traffic to the middle of the night when I don't want to disturb anyone else. While there have been a couple that have been fine for when I'm stationary and in a quiet atmosphere, no matter how good their sound quality is once I'm moving around amidst the noise and bustle of the world nothing has really proved to be reliable.
So when I first heard about the idea of earphones which could be sized to fit an individual's ear canal I was intrigued. Developed by a company, Sonomax, which has been making industrial ear plugs for workers for over a decade, each set of sculpted eers ear buds is supposedly tailored to fit the shape of your ear canal. Not only would this keep the earbud comfortably in place it would also provide a seal to drastically reduce the amount of extraneous noise leaking in. The idea sounds great, but how in the heck were they going to accomplish that? It's not like buying shoes or clothes where you can send a company your measurements so they know what size to send you.
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