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I finally received my pair of Shure E2C earphones. These are some strange puppies: in ear-canal phones. You put on silicone or foam sleeves and shove them right in. In addition to giving you added incentive to use Q-Tips every morning, this tight seal is supposed to improve sound isolation. Mainly, I bought them because I seem to be travelling a lot and read that they have superior sound isolation to noise-cancelling headphones. Also, I have a pair of Aiwa noise-cancelling headphones and when you turn on the noise cancellation the left phone gets very quiet and the right phone whistles.

So the idea of earplugs with a transducer attached sounded pretty good. Do they measure up?

They sound decent, but are not the best sounding headphones I've ever tried (I once sampled a pair of $900 Sony electrostatic phones; they are on the short list of stuff to buy when I make my zillions). To be fair, I haven't yet tried them on any truly high-quality audio sources. These are for travel, so the important quality is that they're well-insulated and comfortable. I'm still getting used to the comfort, but fairly certain I will get used to it.

The. Sound. Isolation. Is. Amazing.

Josh is ten feet away yelling obscenities or something—I can't tell. I am in a happy quiet place where I cannot even hear the sound of my own typing. I can't wait to try it on a plane this weekend.

Highly recommended.

More info: Shure E2C, list $99; paid $65 via Froogle. Feedster should have vertical search for product reviews. One review with pictures.