Alright, so I've been looking for affordable but great earphones with nice build qualities, with a pricetag of under 30 bucks. My requirements are that it should be one of those earphones where you put them in your ears and listen to a song that you always listen to and you hear something you've never heard before. Another requirement is aesthetics, I'd like a pair that don't look too hideous. And lastly is build quality. It shouldnt be easily broken, i'm not asking for top build quality because that would probably cost alot more that 30 dollars but decent build quality would be nice.
I listen to electro/pop/dubstep/rock/ballad songs mostly if that helps.
A pair that I've been eyeing are the JVC HAFX1X xtreme - xplosivs
only recommend shit i have used. these are amazing. i was given some 120 dollar bose headphones as a gift. i use them as a guage to rate earbuds. if the bose are a 5/10... these are a solid 9. not a big fan of sony headphones, but for iem's they are amazing.
they have decent bass... you can actually hear low bass, and feel (although lightly) the lower 17-20 hz tones. normally for earbuds to do that, they throw in larger drivers, and the highs are not as clean... did not notice that happening with these. i listen to clasical as well as metal / EDM. so i feel like i got a good representation of the full sound they make. as i said, the bass is good... however the cymbals in the metal are very sharp still, and the mids from the piano are also nice.
pros:
comforatable
sound quality is unbeatable for the price
they are durable (mine lasted over 2 years, with me biking 20 miles 3 times a week + daily computer use)
cons:
the colors are a bit 'different' however the colored rubber ear peices make the L/R channels easy to tell appart.
Ztrain, if you ever get hold of the KSC75, I would love to know what you think about them. They're really cheap. I don't know if Logan would be willing to have a quick listen through them. He sounds like he knows his shizzle with audio equipment too.
With so many choices it's difficult to recommend something and even what people on here have had a listen to is still limiting as to what may be out there that tops it. And there is then also your personal taste... The Head-fi reviews are rather analytical and point out nuances which you can only appreciate if you can actually do back and forth listening between the different options.
I owned several ear-buds and a few iems, but lately I use a protable headphone for everything (the Sennheiser HD 25-1 II) and really like what it does for me.
Considering what you are going for I suppose that the VSonic GR99 is a nice compromise - but there are probably others as well. As always if you can spend more there are even more interesting options (by the looks of it).
i have seen them, but im not a big fan of the over the ear earbugs like that (or the "sport" style earbugs with the plastic ring that goes behind your ears)