REVIEW: Shure E2c In-Ear Monitors

I'm slow to adapt to fashion and trends.  I've been wearing 2nd hand jeans since 1973 and I've passed through periods of trendiness and tackiness during that 30+  year interval without changing my habit.  It's not that I'm specially cantankerous, I just don't care what other people think.  Decades ago, SF writer Ted Sturgeon convinced me that "90% of everything is crap"; although I think Ted was an optimist.  The opinions of most folks are based on ignorance and the human herding instinct and I can't think of a reason in the world why anyone with half-a-brain would be interested.

All that said, I've viewed the iPod revolution with revulsion.  No, I'm not convinced that MP3 files are unlistenable.  In fact, I think as a consumer format MP3 files at low compression ratios are as good a format as consumers have had ever in history.  I do, however, dislike the hardware related to iPods.  The iPods, themselves, are disgusting pieces of audio crap, producing high levels of a variety of distortion components and low levels of unclipped output for the collection of really awful transducers typically connected to the output. 

As a writer who often works in less than ideal environments, including my own kitchen where my wife feels an overwhelming desire to interrupt my work any time she passes through the room, I've been on a long search for a small, comfortable, and decent sounding headphone for years.  Every couple of years, I give up on my most recent awful compromise and try another miserable earphone product.  I've suffered a variety of Sony failures (excluding a wonderful set of ear buds that I managed to lose in 1991 and for which I have never again found a replacement), Koss ear buds of every variety, and some expensive in-hear monitors that will remain unnamed to protect the reputations of folks who should know better. 

This year (2008), I coughed up another $100 for a pair of Shure E2c in-ear monitors.  My first impression was pretty awful.  Not because of the phones, but because the instruction manuals came in every language but English.  I had to go on-line with www.shure.com to find instructions in a language I most understand.  What's that about? Is the English-speaking world really that insignificant? 

The E2c's are odd shaped.  Fitting them to your head and ears is not intuitive, at least it wasn't for me.  I think they best fit when the cable is run behind your head.  There is a cable sleeve that can be snugged to your neck, helping to hold the phones in place after they are fitted. The cable appears to be very heavy duty and the 2-year warranty is probably an indication of how durable the cable actually is; cables being the usual weak point in this kind of audio equipment.  To get these phones in place, you pretty much have to screw them into your skull.  If they are fitted slightly off center of the ear canal, a look in either direction will shift the image and, sometimes, mute one of the phones.  When you find the right sleeve, though, the seal is solid and independent of movement. 

I pretty much expected to hate these things as much as I've hated every other ear phone experiment of the sort, but I was disappointed/surprised/amazed on the first listening.  After wrestling with the smoother, more comfortable silicon ear sleeves, I settled on the stiff foam ear plugs and found a combination of positions and cable routing that worked for my ears.  Rolling the foam up like industrial foam ear plugs, I managed to insert the driver far enough into my ear canal to keep the phones in place and on-axis with my ear drum.  Once that engineering task was finished, I began to experiment with listening material.

Listening to 320kbps MP3 files through my laptop computer, using Microsoft's Media Player was unimpressive.  Almost awful, in fact.  Everything seemed harsh, brittle, and a lot edgier than I remembered.  If I had needed to make a decision about the E2c's at this point, I'd have said they are tinny, distorted, and harsh.  I didn't, however, so I moved on to better sound sources.  Moving the exact same files to my Sony CD/MP3 player, I found that those tunes sounded much more rich, more dynamic, and less flawed than on the PC.  I didn't expect that, so I went back to the original source files, 44kHz/16 bit CDs.  Everything I disliked about the MP3 files moved even further to the background and the imaging became sharp, pleasant, and more detailed.  The bass, however, needed some EQ to find a balance.  I decided to drive these sensitive, relatively high impedance units with my home system, which includes a Hafler FET power amplifier.  The phones produced an even more focused, more pleasant, tighter, and more detailed sound, which totally surprised me.  What this indicates is that the E2c's are accurate enough to reproduce relatively minor (compared to most ear buds) differences in sound sources.  That's an accuracy not often found in this kind of product.   

This EQ requirement I noticed with the CD player was partially true because I was able to listen comfortably at dramatically lower levels than I do with most phones.  The upside to this is that I have found myself wearing the Shures for hours without fatigue or loss of enjoyment.  My 58-year-old ears are becoming very sensitive to volume, so this has multiple advantages.  After a morning of writing and listening to music, I suffer no tinnitus effects and I've enjoyed hours of acoustic isolation and productivity. 

Headphones are incredibly personal.  The phones that I like, or love, can easily be the phones you hate.  I haven't yet decided that I "love" the E2c monitors.  I do like them for the moment and that is about the best thing I can ever say about this kind of equipment. 

2010 Update: While I still like the sound of the Shures, the reliability has been suspect. I'm going on my 3rd pair (all in warranty) of the E2c set I bought in 2008. Both failed sets failed the same way; attenuated output from the right earpiece. The cables are not damaged. There was no obvious wax in the ports, but the output suddenly dropped about 12-15dB only on the right side. Shure's warranty policy has been terrific, but the downtime is irritating.

REVIEW: Shure KSM141

The Shure folks loaned Musictech College a pair of KSM141s, probably with the expectation that they would  get them back in a reasonable period of time.  Six months later, we're still "testing" them.  This is Shure's blurb on the KSM141:

"Th e Shure KSM141 is an end-addressed condenser microphone with mechanically switching dual polar patterns (cardioid and omnidirectional)."

The list price on these little guys is about $1500 for a "matched pair."  Street price is closer to $800 for a pair.  Compared to many of the products in this price range and with these product features, the KSM141 is incredibly competitive.  However, there aren't many microphones in this price bracket with comparable features. 

The advantage of a mechanical polarity selection system should be obvious to anyone who has dealt with multi-pattern small element mics and their fine-threaded capsules.  Even with years of experience, I lose a little piece of self-confidence every time I thread an omni/cardioid capsule on to a mic body.  I haven't yet managed to cross-thread a capsule, but it will happen, eventually.  The combination of fine threads and aluminum bodied microphones is an accident waiting to happen.  My initial concern was that the mechanical polarity selection switch would be . . . delicate.  Maybe too delicate for the heavy-handed tactics of music school students.  Nick Wood, from Shure, assured me that wouldn't be a problem and was actually interested in seeing how his product held up under our less-than-ideal conditions.  At the school, we've used these mics several dozen times in the past few months and every person who's held a KSM141 has had to hold the mic up to the light and watch the acoustic baffle open and close, at least a few times.  The mechanism has had a workout and it's as solid feeling today as it was when I first used the mics.  I'm no longer concerned with this aspect of this microphone's reliability.  Shure's polarity pattern switching mechanism was designed to work over time and through abuse.

Shure sells the KSM141s in a "matched pair" set, including a case, shock mounts, storage bags, and miscellaneous hardware.  However, "matching" is something the Shure engineers say is unnecessary with this product, since their quality control is tight enough that all of their high-end products could be called matched sets simply by model numbers.  I found that these two mics, placed 4' from a grand piano and summed out-of-phase into a pair of Trident preamplifiers, matched each other at least as well as the two preamps with a single source.  This is the 2nd Shure "matched set" that has performed this well, so I'm beginning to suspect that Shure's quality control is exceptionally tight.

The polar patterns are as predictable as you'd hope a small to mid-sized condenser element would provide.  The cardioid pattern provides an excellent off-axis response curve and only becomes non-directional at very low frequencies.  I couldn't detect any caving of the polar pattern at audible high frequencies.  The omni pattern is equally predictable and is as smooth and flat as my calibration standard microphones.  

I compared the KSM141's sound quality to AKG 451s, SM81s, Neumann KM184s, and the Studio Projects C4 small element condensers.  While all of these instruments had identifying and worthwhile characteristics, I consistently found the KSM141 to be a highly accurate and warm condenser for the applications I normally mic with this type of instrument.  The 141's discrete Class A amplification is probably a contributor to the transparency and low self-noise of the microphone.  With a high-quality low noise preamplifier, the KSM141s are practically invisible in the signal chain. 

The KSM141's flexibility is enhanced by the built in features, such as a 17Hz subsonic filter, a 3-position (0 dB, 15 dB, and 25 dB) pre-attenuator, and a 3-position high-pass filter.  I used the 141s individually or in a pair for overhead drum kits, percussion instruments, a small horn section, acoustic guitars, violin, acoustic bass, snare drum (top and bottom side), and high hat.  The worst I could say about the KSM141 is that it reproduced the acoustic environment in which I placed it accurately and without coloration.  Sometimes, coloration is a good thing. 

Copyright © 2007 Wirebender Audio Systems

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Shure KSM44 Microphone Review

All Rights Reserved © 2006 Thomas W. Day  

(NOTE: This is a review moved from the Wirebender Audio Systems site. The product may have changed from the hardware I tested in 2006. Musictech College is now the McNally Smith College of Music.) 

Back in 2005, I had the opportunity to experiment with the KSM44. The Shure folks loaned Musictech College a pair of KSM44s, probably with the expectation that they would get them back in a reasonable period of time. Our definition of "reasonable" is probably different than theirs. I have no idea when we're planning on returning the 44s. (NOTE: We eventually bought a pair for the school's microphone inventory.) The list price on this mic is about $1300, but street price is nearly half that price point. At this price point, the KSM44 is a fairly expensive microphone in the current market. So the question is, is it worth it? 

Shure says, "the KSM44/SL is a multiple pattern (cardioid, omnidirectional, bidirectional), externally biased, dual large diaphragm condenser microphone with extremely low self-noise (7dB)." The KSM44's features include dual 1-inch 24-karat gold-layered diaphragms and a discrete class-A transformerless preamplifier, which provides a low self-noise factor rated at 7dBA. The 44 has a subsonic filter (17Hz), a three-position LF filter, a 15dB pre-attenuator, and gold plated connectors. Shure sells the KSM44 in a "matched pair" set, including a case, shock mounts, storage bags, and miscellaneous hardware. However, "matching" is something the Shure engineers say is unnecessary with this product, since their quality control is tight enough that all of their high-end products could be called matched sets simply by model numbers. 

I found that these two mics, placed 4' from a grand piano and summed out-of-phase into a pair of Trident preamplifiers, matched each other at least as well as the two preamps with a single source. That's the second time a pair of Shure mics has successfully passed this test (the KSM141s were the first) and I think that's a pretty good indication of Shure's repeatability. One downside to the KSM44 is that it isn't much of a distance mic. One of the Shure engineers warned me that programmable polarity microphones are inclined to lose their directivity after 2-3' and that is certainly the case with the KSM44. 

However, several of the microphones we used in comparison were less inclined to exhibit this tendency at normal studio distances than the KSM44. For example, Studio Projects' B3 hung on to it's cardioid characteristics at almost double the KSM44's mic'ing distance. The same was true for the bidirectional pattern. AKG's 414 and the Neumann U87 were also slightly more directional at distance than the 44s. 

Several Musictech staff members used the KSM44s and we all had good experiences on male and female voices and a range of acoustic instruments from drum kit overheads to grand piano to tuba (seriously). If I had to put words to a description of the sound of a KSM44, I'd describe the mic as being "full." Sometimes the KSM44 is full to a fault, making it hard to find room for a vocal in a mix without some EQ'ing to compensate for the muted upper midrange. In a direction comparison, on female vocals, with the Studio Projects B3, the Rode NTK, and the AKG 414 ULS, the KSM44 was more natural sounding than 414 and U87 and warmer sounding than the B3. One of Musictech's golden ears thought the KSM44 was perfect as it stood without any EQ, which is unusual for that engineer. 

In several head-to-head solo comparisons, my students and I consistently picked the KSM44 as the "best sounding" mic but the Rode NTK often won the shootout with the same vocals in a mix. We usually pulled out a little bottom end and bumped the upper mid-range on the 44's recordings to find real estate for the vocal, once the voice was blended into a mix. The same held true for the U87. In our comparisons, the 414 and B3 recordings didn't hold up well enough to be considered in the final mix. That's saying something because the B3 has been a studio favorite in many of our classroom shootouts. 

 One of the weirdest experiments to which I subjected the KSM44 was jazz tuba. That extended, warm bottom end placed the tuba exactly where I wanted it to be in the mix without a breath of EQ. The same was true for acoustic bass, where I convinced an experienced studio bassist that this mic combined with a KSM141 near the neck was a dramatically better recording system than his expensive built-in bass pickup. The low end of the KSM44 is incredibly detailed and full, making it a likely candidate for any instrument that produces lots of bottom end. 

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