John Scalzi complained yesterday about earbud headphones because they don’t fit in his ears. Scalzi wonders if his ears are weird, but from the comments, it’s obvious that he isn’t alone. I’m with Scalzi–earbud headphones don’t fit my ears well. I absolutely hate the Apple earbuds, especially because you have to crank the volume to hear anything while ride the metro and I that wasn’t good for my ears. After some searching I have found wonderful headphones for commuting and excersizing–Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pros. They sound great, they keep out extraneous sounds (such as the sound of airplanes, subways, etc.), and they stay in my ears.

If you clicked on the link and went to Amazon, you are probably saying, what in the &$%@ are you doing buying $180 headphones?! The answer is simple–I went through multiple pairs of less expensive headphones and then I decided to upgrade.

When I decided to upgrade my headphones from the cheap headphones that came with my MP3 player, I bought at pair of Etymotic Research ER6i Isolator headphones. I liked them, but after the warranty period expired, the sound went out of one side of the headphones. I was bummed, but I liked them, so I bought another pair. After the warranty period on my second pair of Etymotics expired, however, the same problem occurred. Much to Etymotic’s credit, they replaced the headphones. Even though Etymotics customer service was great, I decided to upgrade my headphones.

To research headphones, I went to the best site for headphone information–Headroom. Headroom has a lot of great information about headphones, including headphone ratings (though it appears they no longer carry the Super.fi 5 Pros). From the information on Headroom, I decided to buy the Super.fi 5Pros. I haven’t regretted it for a moment.

Sure they are pricey, but they sound awesome. Also, I justify the prices because I listen to headphones for about 15 hours a week (on the Metro and while exercising), so I’m happy with paying a bit more for wonderful sounding headphones. It’s a matter of personal preference, but I much prefer the sound of the Super.fi 5′s to the Etymotics. The Super.fi’s sound much richer and less tinny (you would hope they would sound better because the Super.fi 5′s are $100 more expansive than my Etymotics).

If you listen to to headphones a lot, I strongly recommend you check out Super.fi 5 Pros. If you are interested in other options, here’s Headroom’s list of ear canal headphones.

As a side note, if anyone would like to buy me some new headphones, I’d like a pair of Ultimate Ears UE 11 Pros. They only cost $1150, but by all accounts you can’t get better headphones. If $1150 is too steep, I wouldn’t complain about a pair of Sennheiser HD 650s. They are a mere $500. Like the UE 11 Pros, these Sennheisers are as good as it gets.