Clearance Shure SE315 Sound Isolating Earphones Clear

The plug would disconnect from my phone with any little touch.

The sound signature on these is flat with a nice low-mid presence and slight upper mid boost (1k), they are also very detailed and present in the treble range when compared to most other non-armature headphones. I initially found them far too bright only to realize they were revealing poorly tuned audio, not hyping it up (like ALL KZ/Tin/CCA/etc do). These are excellent for critical listening, EQ tuning or any work to do with how something sounds, and sound nice enough to use as everyday/media buds (for a pro who is used to flat-ish sound anyway). For me, the perfect balance of flat without being stale. These are the only headphones I was able to use at FOH position effectively. I could use the 215 SPE a bit, mostly for lows, but they struggled with treble. I don't mean to say I built a mix on them, never do that. But they were good enough to use as FOH reference tools and do EQ work with throughout the frequency spectrum, very impressive. My main headphones are Sennheiser HD 380's and these immediately felt familiar in comparison. Shures have been the only IEM that can handle FOH type work (boosting/cutting EQ, sweeping, etc. - almost no other brand (haven't tested Etymotic) can provide tonal clarity and focus during this exercise.) Sound isolation is excellent, on par with Etymotic particularly in a live setting. In a quieter setting with more ambient noise (think shopping mall or something similar - constant wide band droning) the Etymotics tend to sound a bit more isolated. The closest comparison to these are the Etymotic ER3XR. I didn't care for the ER3SE but didn't test it against the 315 either, maybe if I would have I would have liked it more. The one thing to note about the 315 is its pretty noisy on most gear. Cpu/gpu chirp on a phone but pretty low, moderate hiss on a laptop (old macbook, newer ones might not do this), and even very loud hiss at FOH on the headphone out which was surprising. Fantastic for flat, critical use.

Use for gigs for in-ear monitors

As a weekend warrior not wanting to spend $1,000 on a set of molding in ears,, these work Fantastic Four the price great low in and they come with several sets of rubber and foam ends..

I unplugged my SE215's and plugged in the new SE315's and was immediately disappointed. They sounded TERRIBLE! I had to EQ the bass all the way up and take all the mids and highs out for them to sound even remotely like my 215's. I can only think that they must be defective, it was that bad. I fooled with them for a few minutes and then started using my SE215's. I will be attempting to exchange them or return them. I use my 215's for practice as well as performing and they are getting old. Since I need some back up in ear monitors and really liked my SE215's, I thought I would spring for the next level up for improved sound but that was not the case..very disappointed!!

I wanted to try out some higher end ear-buds and rather than spend $500 or $1000 on Shure's higher end products I thought I would test drive these. (I actually wanted to buy the $100 product, but these were the only one's in stock at the time) The sound was okay. I didn't care for the bass, but otherwise I could hear most of the same detail as I can with studio monitors. These were better sounding than some bose headphones they replaced but not completely satisfying either. They are not the most comfortable. I struggled with this issue and bought several 3rd party tips to see if this would help. After trying a dozen different tips, I went with the medium foam originally installed on the product and thought this had the best sound and comfort. But still, I didn't like to wear these more than an hour and found them uncomfortable to my ears. Quality, I noticed after about a week, that my left earbud had some static if I was adjusting the piece. After about 3 months the volume on the left earpiece cut drastically, and gave some serious static at the slightest movement. They are unusable at this point. Rather than replace these, I'm going a different direction. I look at the 3 months these earbuds worked as an expensive lesson (although much less expensive had I gone with the flagship model) and will try a different vendor. I'm typically a big fan of Shure, and as an engineer myself can appreciate some of their accomplishments (their SM57 and SM58 mircrophone models are legendary in my opinion). Somewhat disappointed that these didn't work out, but also a little grateful because I wasn't crazy about them either and this will get me looking for something else.