Introduction

Thanks to the folks at 9Wave and Head-Fi user swbf2cheater for sending me a sample of the 9Wave Studio earbuds for review.

I’m no stranger to earbuds. I’ve owned quite a few pair before becoming a self-proclaimed audiophile about a year ago but for portable use, IEMs have become my listening devices of choice. But despite that, I’ve always had a certain attraction to earbuds. They have a certain charm about them that keeps drawing me back, on occasion. So, when I was offered a chance to review the 9Wave Studio earbuds, I jumped at the opportunity and within a few days, I found a pair of them sitting in my mailbox. Read on for my impressions of the 9Wave Studio earbuds.

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Introduction

Some time ago, I was browsing a few of my favorite sites when I came across a deal for two pairs of the MX400 earbuds. The price was right and given my lack of quality earbuds, I decided to jump on this deal, if only to have a decent pair of earbuds I can use to listen to my music at times where isolation from the surrounding environment is not quite ideal. When I received them after a few days, I began burning them in as per my usual, listening to them intermittently throughout the process. What I heard was actually quite surprising.

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Introduction

In today’s market, earbuds are plentiful from a plethora of companies all looking to get a slice of the market all to themselves. Apple has commanded a great deal of marketshare with its iPod line of products to the point that it’s hard to walk around and not see a pair of earbuds dangling from someone’s ears and, more often than not, they’ll be stock earbuds. After so many years of using IEMs and quality headphones, I couldn’t see how people could enjoy using stock earbuds, assuming that they were nothing short of sonic garbage.

A few weeks ago, I began to think, “How do people actually enjoy these things?” I also began to wonder if they sound better than I’d previously given them credit for. Well, seeing as I had a pair of iBuds lying around that I received with my iPod Touch and never used as well as a pair of Zune stock earbuds that came packaged with my first generation 30GB Zune player that I also never used. Considering that I had never used either of these IEMs and the rivalry between Microsoft and Apple is quite heated, I decided to pit the two against each other in a comparison and contrast review. With that said, I invite you to read my thoughts on the Zune and iPod earbuds.

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