Shure SE 420 Sound Isolating Earphones
Shure recently announced a new line of sound isolating earphones featuring soft foam or flex sleeves that seal out background noise allowing a small yet high-performance MicroSpeaker to deliver high quality sound to the ears. These luxurious earphones were originally developed for musicians and deliver top notch quality from the case and accessories all the way to the earphones and their amazing audio.
This line of Shure earphones offer 5 models ranging from $100-500 with varying MicroSpeaker technology. The SE420 is the 4th model, pricing at $349, and packing Dual TruAcoustic MicroSpeakers with a dedicated tweeter and woofer. As described by Shure, an internal crossover sends lower and higher frequencies to dedicated drivers so that lows, mids and highs are distincts and defined, for accurate reproduction of all the details of your music. The sound isolating technology works a lot like earplugs using foam earpieces or soft sleeves that fit snug in your ear. This technology can block out up to 37 dB of ambient noise, as opposed to 20dB blocked by the leading noise-canceling headphones.
As I have mentioned in the previous two paragraphs, the SE line features soft foam and flex sleeves that use the sound isolating technology to block outside noise better than the top noise-canceling headphones. The SE420 Premium Accessories Kit comes with two different sized pairs of foam sleeves, two different sized pairs of soft flex sleeves and a pair of triple flange sleeves. My personal favorite is the foam sleeves. At first the up and over the ear design seems ackward and hard to keep the earphones in right but that's probably because you have them in incorrectly like I first did. The trick is to squeeze the foam earpieces down, stick them in your ear, hold them their for 10 seconds allowing the foam to grow outward fitting snuggly in your ear. Once you have them in correctly, you will instantly see how well the sound isolation works as it blocks out ambient noise around you. Again, this technology is far better than any noise-canceling headphones as it doesn't add bulk, need batteries and blocks out more unwanted sound. They work great in crowds, around loud fans, in the passenger seat of a vehicle, or anywhere there is loud external noise.
The audio quality is virtually unmatched. Shure has been a leader in professional audio for years and years and the SE line shows that. The SE420's seperate tweeter and woofer deliver extreme audio clarity that match several hundred dollar headphones I own.
The design is both sleek and portable. They are lightweight and comfortable to wear for prolonged periods of time including during long movies. The premium kit also comes with a hard carrying case, a 3' cable, airline adaptor, external volume controller, and a 6.5mm adapter. A very nice deal for the price considering the quality of these headphones.
