Unfortunately for my bank balance my interest was piqued enough to make me want to explore if the perfect set of headphones (for me) did exist. These would need to be ear-bud style, have fantastic sound, exclude the sounds of others and the outside world, and cost £1. I was dubious to say the least whether such dream headphones existed. And was not really sure why I needed them even if I found them. I would never listen to my home stereo with headphones. I am not a music geek. I don't listen to Morrissey and cry with the angst of it all. However, tipping the scales in favour of action was the fact that I do spend a joyful three hours on the train every day (one and a half each way) in order to get into work, and the thought of spending that in my own private world of tunes was a motivating one.

Etymotic ER-4P Headphones and Accessories

In the event I found the dream headphones in an unlikely place. Etymotic Research are makers of high quality hearing aids and as a second string to their bow are makers of the worlds finest ear-bud headphones. I actually found this out within an hour of looking. The reason it took three weeks to get around to ordering them was to come to terms with the fact that they only fulfilled three of my four criteria. On the cost front they fell slightly short of my hopes at $330 if bought direct from Etymotic.

Etymotic's brand of genius comes in three shapes.

ER-4S (Stereo)
ER-4P (Power)
ER-4B (Binaural)

The last of these can be safely ignored by most of humanity because they are specifically designed for binaural recordings. These sound great through headphones, but not speakers so not many folk produce them. Hence for most of us they can be crossed off the wish list. Otherwise the choice is between the 4S and 4P versions. The 4S is the most faithful in terms of sound reproduction and are principally designed to be plugged into a home stereo system, as without some kind of amplifier they are liable to sound somewhat lacking in oomph. With an amplifier however they must be superb, because headphone.com rank them as among the top 5 dynamic headphones in the world (the best headphone system according to them is the Sennheiser Orpheus HE-HEV90 which they sell for a bargain $11,900). The 4Ps are the identical headphones apart from the fact that the output has been increased, and the chord has been changed so that it is less microphonic when tapped. This makes it ideal for portable music players because it doesn't need an amplifier, and when the cord is bouncing around on the tube there is less of the echo type effect that you would get with the 4S version.