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Well, not really - they don't deal at all with in-ear monitors - which offer many benefits to the home recordist above and beyond over-the-ear headphones. A huge benefit is that proper in-ear-monitors offer much better isolation than any over-the-ear/circumaural headphones, so you can do a better job placing microphones for acoustic instrument recording. Their definition of in-ear monitors is quite weak at best.

That isolation also comes in very handy when mixing as well as when listening in noisy environments like airplanes and trains.

They are much better at multi-purpose use than open backed circumaural phones.



If you're talking about the reverence in-ears I totally agree with you. However not all in-ears are suitable for mixing. My Earproof T2-Pro in-ears (full concha twin driver) are hyped in the mid-high area. This way I can hear my vocals on stage stand out above all far better than when I use my Sennheiser IE8 with custom made earmolds. The Sennheisers tend to sound more bassy; just the way most consumers would like it. Both in-ears are not suitable for mixing.

But again; if you would purchase a good set of reverence in-ears (full concha) you would have a great monitoring system. They are comfortable to wear, cancel out room sounds like computer fans etc and they sound the way they should. Only downside is the price...



Mike, your points are right-on. The referred website doesn't even mention custom manufactured in-ear monitors, even though those were the first created over 20 years ago.

My Westone ES-5 models are expensive, but considering that they function as killer quality products for at least 5 different purposes:

1. Monitoring on stage
2. Monitoring in the home studio
3. Best device for mic placement assistance for the recordist who can't afford a studio assistant.
4. Personal listening in general with any source, iPod, home stereo, etc.
5. Excellent passive noise reduction for plane/train use (where the popular thing is to buy those bulky Bose things that take up tons of space)

They pay for themselves quickly if one is purchasing different products for all of those applications.

You can't wear over the ear cans for purpose 1, purpose 3, purpose 4 and 5 - although if you don't care about looking silly wearing huge over the ear circumaural phones, or care about letting your head lean over to the side while trying to sleep on the plane, then I guess that argument for 4 and 5 falls down. Here in the US, people are buying these 'beats' headphones which have dodgy sound quality and are physically cumbersome - but they look cool, so fashion wins out.

-Scott

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