Yup - finally here (ordered on the day they became available through the German Apple store), shipped via Ireland, arrived yesterday and I was able to pick them up this morning.
Just had a couple of minutes to play with them in a less than ideal setting, however, a couple of points:
To sum it all up: Very happy, looking forward to running around, seemingly talking to myself like a weirdo.
Just had a couple of minutes to play with them in a less than ideal setting, however, a couple of points:
- I can compare them to my Shure E2cs which I love but they lack a microphone and I am on my third pair now - the first two died of wire/isolation failure at the point where you wrap them around your ears and a pair of Sony EX71SLW where a decent replacement to the stock headphones but not much more (see below).
- Remote works as expected on my 3G iPhone (and iPod Classic for that matter), i.e. everything is working except volume controls - I am fine with that. Thankfully the remote is small an light, I would've preferred an even smaller remote without the non-functional volume control though.
- Microphone quality seems to be excellent - two test calls and people were unable to guess that I was on a headphone mic.
- Fit is great, although a bit to small with the medium tips and a tiny bit to large with the large tips, sound isolation is less when compared the the Shure's (especially with the medium tips) but not much when used with the large tips - looks are slightly better, the Shures always reminded me of a hearing aid.
- Cable noise is definitely worse than the Shures, might be due to the style the Shures are worn.
- Cable quality can by no means be compared to the beefy Shures, however, the Shures kept on breaking on me so I'll see how much mileage I get out of them. I am somewhat worried that the white cable isolation feels slightly "sticky", much like Sony's EX71, which compacted to a gooey rubber ball at one point in time - better not keep those in a hot car for extended time periods.
- Here it comes: Sound quality - very positively surprised (I listen to classical music, some Dave Matthews and similar sounding bands and a bit of whatever I like - usually no bass heavy stuff). More bass than the Shure's and very, very crisp highs. I don't know whether this is typical but when I hear compression artifacts its usually in the highs and even in less than ideal settings I picked up some that I previously overheard with the Shures (then again, if you know it you'll find it...). While the Shure's felt heavy in the mids the Apple In-Ears don't push the mid range that much - I will have to get used to it, for now (after 15min) everything feels much "cleaner" and better "defined". I used to work as a (classical) musician so I hear stuff but I am obviously not an audiophile, so give me some slack .
- Build quality is stellar if you ignore the cables - I love the little metal screw-on metal mesh, much better than Shure's solution (little stickers) or Sony's (not replaceable)
To sum it all up: Very happy, looking forward to running around, seemingly talking to myself like a weirdo.
