I just picked these up this past weekend and overall I’m happy with them. Actually, I have no real complaints other than the fact that the volume control doesn’t work with my iPhone (which I already knew before I bought them).

Let me back up a bit.

Over the past few years I’ve gone through three pairs of Sony in-ear headphones. I’m talking about the ones that cost $30-50. I was pretty happy with the sound quality they had. And they also fit well in my ears. But there were a few issues that I wasn’t happy with. First, the removable rubber ear pieces were too easy to remove. This led to me losing a rubber ear piece on three different occasions. By far the biggest problem I had with the Sony’s, though, was the earwax problem. Earwax would inevitable build up on the caps of the earbuds and it was basically impossible to clean properly. Making things worse is that those caps seemed to be made out of paper so the cleaning process would eventually rip the paper caps off resulting in useless earbuds.

So I took the plunge and go the Apple in-ear headphones because those paper caps are METAL MESH on the Apple’s. And, better yet, they screw off so you can clean them properly. And, better still, the headphones ship with a pair of replacement caps. AWESOME. Oh, and the silicone ear pieces on these Apple ear buds are a lot harder to pull off. Time will tell if they’ll stay attached to the ear bud when I accidentally yank the thing out of my ear while I’m running to catch a bus.

Now I’m sure that for $80 you can get earbuds that sound better than the Apple’s. Not that I have any problem with the sound quality. Lots of people complain about the lack of bass, which I don’t really get. There seems to be a plethora of folks out there who judge headphones on one thing: bass. I’d prefer something more balanced and natural. And I’m totally happy with the sound quality of these little guys.

The other thing is I like having the remote and mic built into the headphones. I’d been using one of those Shure adapters with my Sony’s which wasn’t ideal since the mic and remote was always tucked away within my jacket. If I wanted to use it as a mic for phone calls, I’d have to pull it out and hold it close to my mouth. Suffice it to say that I never did this. I’ll probably actually start using the mic now that it’s located much more conveniently right next to my mouth.

Bottom line: I’m happy. I like ‘em. And now I really can’t wait to replace my first gen iPhone with the 3rd gen whenever that comes out. Among other things, I’m sure that the volume control on these headphones will work with the new iPhone :)