An Introduction to Canalphones, AKA Earbud Headphones

Most people really don't care about headphones. They buy an iPod, and, thrilled that they have an iPod, stick its crappy little white headphones into their ears and go merrily off about their way, without any clue of what they are missing. I was this way for a long time, until, about two years ago, I tried on my friend's pair of relatively crummy noise canceling headphones, which, while being relatively crummy, were a whole heck of a lot better than the five-dollar-at-Walgreens things I had been using. Now, two years later, I just returned a pair of $300 Bose QuietComfort headphones, on the grounds that they don't sound good enough. My search for excellent audio continues.

The kind of headphone that this search has lead me to is one that has only really become popular within the past few years. Canalphones, or in-ear monitors, as they are sometimes called, actually go in your ear, rather than over it, as even earbuds do. They form a tight seal, and thus direct all their carefully-tuned sound strait to your ear drum, giving you the best, most accurate audio quality.

Canalphones have a number of advantages over other kinds of headphones. First, they do an excellent job of noise reduction. While on-ear headphones like the afformentioned Bose QuietComfort 2's devote a great deal of effort, not to mention a great deal of their value, to blocking out the noises of the outside world, canalphones, since they work like earplugs, do an excellent job of blocking out all noises, not just the drones that noise canceling headphones do best against. In fact, a well-fitting pair of canalphones can block out so much noise that it can be a problem! Don't get hit by a car wearing them. But seriously, when you spend $300 on an excellent pair of canalphones, all your money goes toward the sound, not the noise reduction.