When my wife went to Taiwan a few month ago, she bought me a pair of these in-ear earphones or canalphones). Which is nice, because since my Sennheiser HD570 hifi headphones died due to my own stupidity, I have no good head/earphones to listen to. All I could find at my house were some old Sony earbuds that came with Discmans and mp3 players.

Of course, these canalphones are nowhere near the quality of hi-fi personal listening devices, but the sound quality tops anything I currently and used to have. Maybe even the Sennheiser, but I couldn’t be sure because the thing has been broken so long ago that I forgot how it sounds.

Because the canalphones sit IN the ear canal, it’s able to deliver wider sound frequencies and louder volumes which basically means better sound quality. Lots of bass (especially for technoheads) clear midrange and clear treble. And they’re relatively cheap compared to the sound they produce. My wife won’t let me know how much she bought it for, but here in Malaysia it’s about RM120, I think. Maybe way cheaper. If you want to go further and have lotsa money to burn, you can look for Ultimate Ears Super.Fi 5Pro and Shure E4c. Here’s a review, but don’t ask me where to find them.

I’ve heard of canalphones several years before, but my first experience using them was with a pair supplied together with my wife’s Nokia 3250 phone. The sound, while not in the same league as the Sony ones, were surprisingly good! And then I tried my colleague’s Edifier and another Sony canalphone model in the office, and I immediately thought that it was time to shelve the idea of sending my long-dead Sennheiser headphones for repairs. With canalphones, I don’t even need a headphone amplifier due to the low current needed to power the drivers.

But if you’re trying out a canalphone for the first time, be warned that you’ll feel a little uncomfortable at first, having something shoved into your ear canals for the first time. Hmmm that sounded a little dirty huh… Anyways, most canalphones come with several sets of rubber sleeves to fit a wide range of ear canal sizes. But if your ear canals are wide like your mouth or tight like your anus, I don’t think canalphones are for you.