We're gonna be talking in-ear earbuds—canalphones, really, or in-ear monitors, if you're snooty—since all the good stuff goes deep into your precious earholes. We aren't talking about headphones because great headphones aren't the most discreet things around—can't defeat physics, children. Unless you derive some sick pleasure from jogging with a pair of giant cans bolted to your head, earbuds are the way to go.

It's All About the Drivers—No, Not Those Kind

Whether you're talking about headphones or earbuds, they work a lot like loudspeakers, just miniaturized. The key element in both are drivers, though earphone drivers are a lot smaller, and do a lot less work to make the same music.

There are two main types of drivers: The a dynamic driver works just like a traditional one in big ol' speaker. The benefit of the dynamic driver is that it produces a nice bass response, though it can be hard to miniaturize.

A balanced armature driver is pretty common in serious in-ear monitors, since it's easy to shrink down. Originally found in hearing aids, it houses a magnetic armature that moves when an electric current runs through the coil, putting pressure on the diaphragm, creating sound. It can be, and often is, paired with a dynamic driver.

Most earbuds just have the one driver, though more and more have multiple drivers. That costs more 'cause it's harder to cram more than one into a tiny casing meant to rest gravity-free in your ear. With multiple drivers also comes a "crossover network," circuitry meant to divide music into different frequencies and route them to the appropriate drivers, an additional payload to stuff into that tight space. Once all that is crammed in, however, multi-driver earbuds typically sound better than single-driver ones, because the woofer, tweeter and mid-range horn are more innately equipped to handle their own domains of sound—from boomy bass to sizzly treble.

Among the least expensive multiple-driver earbuds are Apple's fancier $80 in-ear earbuds, which use two drivers, a tweeter for highs, and another for everything else. It gets more expensive as you creep up. Shure's three-driver SE530 lists for $500 (but can be found for much less). Ultimate Ears' UE-11 Pro, which will run you a ridiculous $1150, come with a correspondingly ridiculous four drivers. That's one for mid-range and one for highs and two for bass.

Some companies opt for a single driver because they think it's better, since there aren't complications with crossover networks, trying to get all the drivers to work together to produce seamless sound. On the other hand, with a single driver, you're asking one driver to do everything: highs, lows and mid-range, says Stereophile senior contributing editor Michael Fremer Fremer. (Yes, that Michael Fremer.) That's why , FutureSonics, for instance, makers of pro monitoring gear, charges so much for their single-driver earbuds. "A really good single-driver can sound really good," says Fremer.

What It's Made Of, How It's Made

Besides more drivers, what you get in pricier earbuds is (surprise, surprise) better materials, finer build quality and a more focused design. Michael Johns, headphones manager for Shure—known for earbuds with MSRP ranging from $100 to $500 but rarely double digits—told me that most of the really cheap ($20) headphones on the market are basically rebranded crap from no-name factories, and that when you buy those with suggested retail pricing between $50 and $100, you're mostly paying for style, not sound. The top-tier brands, of which there are many, tend to design and engineer their own headphones. The expense of that is, unfortunately, passed on to you.

The cost of raw ingredients is also passed to you—the cable material, the magnet behind the diaphragm, the diaphragm material itself, the overall quality of the driver, and the enclosure. (Again, all of the stuff that jacks up the price of higher quality loudspeakers too.) None of that stuff, when it's well made, is cheap. Fremer says, for instance, that better headphones actually use stronger magnets than cheaper headphones. As you might guess, the more powerful the magnet, the higher the cost.

The Fit

With legit in-ear buds, fit matters a lot, because the seal is critical. Not only does a good seal mean less ambient noise infiltrates your ears—allowing you to keep your volume low while still catching the full dynamic range—but an airtight seal is how you get decent bass response. And you want something shoved deep down inside your ear to be comfortable, as well as fit, so there's a lot of different kinds of tips earbud makers have come up with. Besides the standard rubber bulb, there's squishy foam, and the Christmas tree-lookin' triple-flange sleeves. What works best often comes down to your own ears and personal preference, which is why better earbuds come with a ton of tips.

What Do I Buy?

So, uh, what's the sweet spot price for great headphones? If Shure and Fremer had their way, everybody would spend upwards of $200 on their earbuds, but if you twist their arm, they'll agree that $100 is where buds start getting decent. The real trick, according to Fremer, is just getting people to "spend that first hundred bucks."

The law of diminishing returns tends to kick in above that point: The difference between $300 set of buds and a $400 pair is nowhere near the jump from $20 to $100. Even smaller is the difference in models between generations. The best value on the market might be a previous-gen version of Shure's 500 series buds at a cut rate ($290), but if you can find $100 earbuds for 70 bucks, it's even better.

Interestingly, Fremer says what you're looking for in great earbuds is "a relatively flat frequency response so no frequency is accentuated above another," so "the product that sounds the best is usually the one that impresses you the least at first." Buds that tout big bass, for instance, don't actually have better bass, just more of it. (You can always adjust the EQ if you want more bass.)

Whatever you do, for Christ's sake—and yours—ditch the iPod earbuds.

Still something you wanna know? Send questions about buds, tips or hot waitresses who deserve big tips to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

The Price: As you saw above, these babies are brand new, and list for $230.

The Verdict: $230 is an awful lot to spend on earphones, but as we learned last week, sound matters, and the quality in the $200 range really is twice as good as it is in the $100 range. In fact, in sound testing, the UE700 gave Shure's $300 SE310 earphones a run for their money.

I'm not spoiled, earphone-wise, but I'm not slumming it either—I usually carry Shure SE110s. When the SE115s came out, I had to check them out, and sure enough, what Adrian mentioned about fuller bass is totally true. It's not overpowering, and for the price, they're brilliant, but like all headphones in that $100 range, I still feel like there's something missing, a kind of three dimensionality.

Last night I carefully listened to my favorite songs, spanning many genres—"Bullet and a Target" by Citizen Cope, "California" by Joni Mitchell, "Ms. Jackson" by OutKast, "All This Time" by Sting among others—constantly swapping headphones from UE700 to Shure SE115 to Shure SE310 to listen for the minutest changes in experience. The jump from the SE115 to both more expensive ones was clear, literally. Instruments were more defined, such as the bari sax in the Decemberists' "16 Military Wives," and you could hear more real life behind the recording, such as the buzzing and rustling in "Please Do Not Go" by Violent Femmes.

For a while, though, it was a deadlock between the $230 Ultimate Ears and the $300 Shures, especially since Amazon lists them for under $180 (!). The real breakthrough came when I put on Prince's "7." It has so many layers of percussion and Eastern instrumentation, not to mention vocal harmonies, that it truly benefits from the three dimensionality that only higher-grade audio can manage, and lo, the most 3D experience came from the UE700s. I checked again and again, back and forth, with more songs still, and it was true. I was floored.

There are some downsides to this pair, particularly compared to the Shures. Fit matters when it comes to making the most of good earphones. Because of the way the speakers are arrayed inside the UE700s, they're wider at the opening than the Shures, meaning they may not fit everyone. In addition, they only come with one size of memory-foam cushion (my favorite) and three different sizes of the rubber sealing kind. Shure SE310 comes with like a jillion different "sleeves," and even the SE115s come with six options.

(They do come with a carrying case and an attenuator—pictured below—which limits high-volume bursts, so you can use it on an airplane's sound system without fear of going deaf every time you change the channel or hear the captain come on.)

The other issue that some might care about is cable noise. That's not a buzz or anything, it's the sound you hear when you run your finger along the cable. I didn't notice cable noise while listening to the UE700s, not even when I took a walk with them, but since they do make some noise when you intentionally rub your finger on them, they may be annoying for people who are using them while jogging or aerobically working out. Just a thought, really, but worth noting.

I didn't pit these against every earphone known to man, and I'm interested in seeing how they stack up against our $150 Headphone Battlemodo winner, the Etymotics hf5. But if the performance against Shure's SE310s are any indication, it would handily beat them too. My final judgment is that these are sweet—and worthy of their elevated valuation—but you should wait until they start coming down in price, as all headphones do in time, before plunking down your hard-earned cash for them. [Product Page]

First, some ground rules on the scope and purpose of my testing:

The headphones tested are all what you'd consider "upgrades" rather than "replacements" for the crap headphones that came with your MP3 player. While I capped pricing at $200, my "cheapest" pair started at around $40. The three tiers are under $100, $100-$150, and $150-$200.

The most practical measure of sound quality is to just sit and listen. I focused on in-ear headphones because they are built not just to jam a driver right next to your ear, but to block outside noise. It's simple: less ambient noise = better experience.

In the spirit of cutting out the vaguely scientific marketing jargon, my tests were unscientific, but consistent across the board and based on real-world situations. The methodology was simple: a current-gen iPod, a sonically diverse playlist of music and, for isolation testing, a seat on the 14 bus in San Francisco, then some time next to a white noise machine.

With so much of the earphone inside of your ear, rustling of the cable can cause some serious noise. If the cable isn't properly buffered from the earphone, the deep, annoying shuffling can interfere your music when you try to walk or turn your head. That's why I made note of "cable noise"—this isn't to suggest there was some kind of buzz or white noise from the cable itself.

The Losers: This is a tricky price point, as some stock earbuds (Apple, Sony) are actually pretty good. Slapping a rubber cuff on a half-baked product doesn't justify a price of $50+. In the case of Apple's in-ears and the CX300s, you aren't really experiencing a different class of audio than with stock buds, though there is a marked improvement. The CX500s put on a good show for bass junkies, but that's about it. Creative has a nice product with a great price, but it just can't measure up to the metro.fi on the performance front.

$100-$150
The Winner: Shure SE110 This price point offers the highest price to performance ratio, and the SE110 is the best of the lot. If you can get over the deep penetration and the over-ear looping, you'll find that the SE110s are comfortable, block out plenty of ambient noise and most importantly produce stunning, immersive sound. The tones are wisely balanced, and quality is at the level that you'll be noticing new things about songs that you've heard dozens of times. Decent discounts are available at various online retailers, as is the case with most of this category.

The Losers: Manufacturers know that this is a sweet spot for consumers, so the market is crowded with good options. The hardware starts to look a little more "professional," or more accurately, "weird." Etymotics, always fans of producing earphones that are really good on paper, fails with the ER6 not because of quality issues, but because the buds are awkward and overwhelm with the high and middle tones. The company's new earphone tips, however, are amazing (more on this below, in the more expensive category). Ultimate Ears loses their luster at this level. Creative is yet again a nice runner-up; the Zen Aurvanas are very capable, but couldn't supplant the crystal-clear SE110s.

$150-$200
The Winner: Etymotics hf5 Ostensibly designed with portable music players in mind, the hf5s solve the balance problems of the er6 models and much, much more. They're cool looking (with the right tips, they look like sci-fi laser pistols), have little to no cable movement noise and reproduce sound in a way that is both perfectly clear and highly enjoyable. Everything about these gives the impression of quality, from the brushed aluminum finish to the way that music suddenly sounds distinctly layered in a way that it didn't before, and that it doesn't on many similarly priced units. One caveat, though: the hf5s (and the er6s, for that matter) must be used with the new foam rubber tips, called "Mushrooms." They're a little phallic and sort of a sickly gray, but they are leaps and bounds better than Etymotics' trademark flanged tips. The tighter seal that these offer to most people is conducive to better listening, and the isolation properties are superb. You can't hear anything else with these guys in. Every manufacturer should have something like this. According to the Etymotics people, by the time the hf5s ship these will be standard issue. Good.

The Losers: To sum up the category: Expensive without enough added benefit. Spending $100 will get you a phenomenal listening experience, so it's hard to justify spending more. The $200 cap was intended to filter out the luxury market/audiophile products that tend to show up at about that price, but hints of both are apparent here. The Shure SE210s are a wonderful pair of earphones, but the large premium over the SE110s is a dealbreaker, as side-by-side comparisons expose only the slightest variation in sound quality. The Klipsch Custom-2s are more of a luxury item than the others, with woven cable housing and a case that is ready for you iPod as well. Harman Kardon is just batting out of their league here, and Ultimate Ears doesn't improve on their cheaper models, even introducing some pretty terrible cable noise.

If you're looking to get the most out of your MP3 player, you'll have to spend some money. But as it turns out, the general rule is that once you pass about $100, your audio improvements will become smaller and more expensive. After reviewing all of these earphones, one simple fact is very clear: If I were in the market for a new set of earphones, I would buy the SE110s.

•Wireless Audio: The Sonos ZonePlayer ZP80 and the Olive Opus.

•Headphones: The Shure E500PTH and the UltimeEars triple.fi 10 Pro.

Some of the other winners... meh, a little impractical, methinks.

•Too Big For Its Own Good: Open Labs MiKo Portable Media Workcenter. Now, I saw one of these during the summer, and while it's definitely got a "Wow!" factor going for it, it's entirely too large to be even mentioned in the same sentence with the word "portable." Better have a giant desk with plenty of room on it for this guy.

The rest of the round-up is fairly spot-on, so if you're itching for some audiophile info, it could be worth a few seconds of your time. After you're done with our own efforts, of course. – Nicholas Deleon

Holiday Buyers Guide 2006: Audiophile Gear [CrunchGear]

The only downside was that they're not quite as comfortable as their nearest competitor, the similar-sounding $500 Shure E5c high-end earphones I've been using around these parts for the better part of two years. But I got used to the triple.fi earphones, nestling them snugly into my ears with the included fit kit. Another nicety was their grand arrival enclosed in a swank roadie case with my name embossed on the front.

See a pic of that case and more commentary, after the jump.

In one part of my review, I rigged up a testing scenario where I listened to an identical mono signal in one Shure E5c earphone in one ear and one triple.fi 10 Pro earphone in the other, and even after listening to almost every type of music from a variety of sound sources using this system, it was difficult for me to tell the difference between these two worthy competitors. So, I have to give the nod to the triple.fi earphones since they cost $100 less.

The first batch of a limited edition series of these earphones are just becoming available now, and another batch will be created sometime next month. They're priced identically to the standard edition at $400, but they come with this way-cool roadie case and will be individually marked and numbered as a collector's item.

Nice cans. I'd still be listening to them now, but I gotta work and it's hard to concentrate on anything else with the sound of heaven in your head. Spectacular. 9.6 out of 10 stars. – Charlie White

Full Review: Ultimate Ears triple.fi 10 Pro Earphones [Digital Producer]

We're big fans of these types of earphones, bringing you monster sound in a tiny package, equal to that used by pro musicians on stage. These bring that Ultimate Ears sound down to earth, requiring no custom fitting and pounding your skull with sweet, sweet music for under $400. Yeah. – Charlie White

Product Page [Ultimate Ears]

Ultimate Ears metro.fi 2 Earphones [iLounge]

Super.fi 3 Studio [Ultimate Ears via iLounge]