Customer Reviews

Sony MDR-EX81LP Bud-Style Stereo Earphones (White)

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(63)
3 star:		(48)
2 star:		(34)
1 star:		(52)

 

 

I've had Sony's MDR-EX51LP and MDR-EX71SL Fontopia headphones, and this are decisively better. The 52LP's at around $27 are still the best option for someone on a budget, but I'm very happy with the extra ten I paid for these. The sound quality is VERY similar to what you get from the 71SLs (which is lower bass than the 51s, but much more clarity), but the earhook design of these 81LPs overcomes a MAJOR design flaw of its forebearers. I've had a huge problem with the earbud coverings flying off into oblivion when the plug was pulled out on the othermodels, rending the unit unuseable until I found the extra buds (infuriating when they're in another state).

The earhooks on this one ensure that won't be a problem and are thus infinitely better for use at the gym and elsewhere. Of course the sound quality and clarity on all of these is excellent and although you won't get any directional audio, the plug design locks out surrounding sound like a champ, fuctioning just as well or better than any noise-cancelling headphones in this price range.

These headphones offer good portability, comfort, and good sound at an affordable price. The bass and treble are slightly muddy but all the sounds are there (I am comparing them to a pair of Grado SR80's). In addition, the bass is clearly enhanced with the EX81's but not as exaggerated as other Sony "DJ style" headphones.

I am a 5'7" male with normal sized (and shaped) ears. They fit my ears perfectly with the medium buds. They do a good job of blocking out ambient noise but outside sounds can still be heard.

I bought these earphones to go with my Sandisk mp3 player. I really enjoy using them "on the go". They are easy to put in my pocket and roll out when needed. One caveat to those who want to use these for jogging. The cord has kind of a "stethoscope" effect whereby the sounds are transmitted from the cord directly into your ears. This can be very annoying. It is because of this I would not recommend these for joggers (stationary bike - yes, joggers - no).

** Addendum **

I paid around $50 for my EX81LP's around Feb 2005 due to the fact that it was only available in Japan at that time (bought from Ebay). I cannot confirm this, but it is possible the EX81LP's now available in the US offer a hard egg shaped carry case which would in essence render previous comments discussing the soft cloth carry case useless. By the way, I find the soft cloth carry case to be useful although it does not offer much in the way of protection.

The EX81LP I purchased is black. I noticed many people complaining of their white EX81's cords "dissolving". I have had my headphones for 4 months now and my cords are fine. I have not seen any complaints regarding the black EX81's cords dissolving.

Many people complaining of tinny distant sound music. It is necessary to pull the ears back (or up) and then insert the earbuds inside the ear canal to get the best response. If you don't place the buds inside the ears you won't hear anything. This has been a common complaint regarding "canal" type earphones.

I would recommend these headphones to a friend.

After trying several different kinds of earbuds, I decided to go ahead and give these a shot. They are noticeably better than any other earbuds I have tried (sennheiser, koss & panasonic). They have good bass and excellent clarity. I use these at the gym and they fit very comfortably and don't move. They also work really well for running. I would recommend these to any MP3 owner.

Most ear buds are far too large for my ears and make my ears hurt after 20 minutes of usage. These are great and I can wear them for hours. I picked up the original 71's a few years back and bought a new pair of 81's when I misplaced my 71's.

Bass is less heavy than former models. Mids and Trebles are clearer than the 51 and 71 models. Decent sound isolation for an inexpensive set of headphones.

Here are a few tips to get the best sound-
1. Use the correct ear bud tip to fit your ear with a snug seal. If your ear buds feel like they're falling out, your tips are too small. If they're not fitting in your ear because you can't pop them in, go to a smaller size. There are three sizes of tips and they are flexible, so the likelihood of one pair being the right size is pretty good.
2. Bundle the cord if it is hanging past your mp3 player. The LP cord is very long and the weight of it may pull the ear buds from their proper fit. This also helps the ear wires stay put.
3. The headphone wires go around the back of your head and not below your chin. This is the way they were designed and will help the ear wires to stay on.
4. Follow the placement instructions on the back of the packaging to angle the bar forwards towards your temple or eyes. This helps the ear wires balance properly on your ears. Just to clarify, the bars shouldn't be a vertical line pointed towards the top of your head.

Storage: There were two cases included, one which includes an area to wrap your headphone cord, and the other which is just a cover for the ear buds. I only use the small cover but am careful not to bend the ear wires. While the ear wires are flexible, I worry a bit about them breaking at a certain angle. Keep this in mind if you want to jam them into a tight pocket.

These ear buds are a bit more of a hassle to get on and off than the 71 or 51 but I feel the improved sound and reduced noise (from the cord brushing against your body) is worth it. If you are a bass head, the 71 or 51 might be a better choice. If you want ease of use, I suggest the 71s instead. To my knowledge, the 51 is the same as the 71 except the 51 has firmer molded ear tips while the 71 uses the same flexible soft tips as the 81.

I had originally picked up a pair of Sony MDR-EX71SL earbuds and found they had phenominal sound, but a very poor design that made it nearly impossible to keep the them from getting pulled out of your ears. I purchased these MDR-EX81LP earbuds because they appeared to be the same drivers with ear hangers to rectify this problem. Although they definitely do stay in my ears better, the ear hangers were apparently designed for someone with huge elephant-sized ears. Anyone with small or even normal size ears will probably find that the hangers wind up sticking up 1/4" or more above the top of your ears when the buds are inserted properly. Other than that, they sound pretty nice, but I thought the MDR-EX71SL's had deeper bass, and a louder fuller sound. Sony needs to invest more effort in the ergonomic design of their products.

I had the earlier model (EX71SP) but the cable got snagged a lot and finally lost sound on one side. Hopefully the hangers will reduce the effect of snagging.
The sound on this model has definitely improved. The EX71 's bass can be quite overwhelming. The EX81's bass is gentler. I'm hearing details in the soundtracks that I never heard before. And I'm driving it at lower volume than the EX71. I encode my music at 192kbps with the OOG format on my Rio Karma.

I've purchased many,many headphones over the years.From Bose to Etymotics,to Shure..I've paid anywhere from $15 To $350 for headphones. As a drummer I've played with these while practicing to music and they do a great job blocking out extraneous noise while delivering good quality bass and sound.I also wear these while riding the train back and forth to work everyday and they are a pleasure to wear..I have not tried to run in them so I dont know how well they are for running. For the money these are the best value for such high quality, out there right now. I have a pair of Shure headphones that I paid $180 for that have better sound but they tend to keep falling out no matter how much I adjust them.I tend to wear the Sony's most of the time because of this...

I've been through a bunch of headphones for my iPod and iPod shuffle, and I wanted to upgrade to something that sounded better but that I could still use while running. I've been using the cheap Sony "Sport" headphones that cost about $10.00 without any major problems.

I received the EX-81s this week. I thought they looked cool at first, but as I started unpacking it, I noticed the weird cord. Rather than the traditional "Y" where the individual phones split from the main cable, these goofy things are more like a lower-case "y" where the left side is very short and the right is very long. The slack, which isn't adjustable, hangs loosely either behind your head or under your neck... neither a good solution for running.

The real problem, though, is getting them to fit into the ear canal properly. If you insert them too far, the sound is muffled and boomy. If they're not in far enough, you get too much high end and almost no bass. When you get them in "just right," they sound terrific, much better than any other bud-style phones I've tried. The other downside to the audio is they aren't very efficient. The iPod has to be turned up substantially higher to achieve the same volume level as any other phones I've tried.

It is impossible, at least for me, to keep the earphones (particularly the left one) in the ear canal properly while walking. I didn't even TRY running as this would probably cause them to fall out altogether.

Also, as another reviewer mentioned, the clips seemed to be sized for Dumbo; my ears would have to grow another 1/4" vertically for the clips to fit properly. If anything, my ears are already bigger than average.

In summary, if you A) have very large ears; and/or B) generally listen to music sitting perfectly still, these may be a great set of earphones for you.

Otherwise, look for something else.

These are good headphones. There are a couple of things that should be mentioned.

First off, I bought these headphones to walk around my college with, as they would not fall out during longish walks (up to about 25 minutes from my dorm to class with a major road [which is loud]) because I don't like earbuds, as they fall out.

1) Size: The earbuds are great sizes. For my ear canals, either the middle-sized ones or the small ones will work (I actually haven't even tried the large ones...), so I effectively have two pairs of earbuds, in case one of them breaks/deteriorates/whatever. However, the over the ear thing is ALMOST (but not quite) too big for me. I have slightly larger than average ears (I'm 6'2", with kind of large ears, but not very large). This clip is great, because I can tug on it all I want, and the earphones won't fall out. (I have oddly shaped ears, so the little flap below the ear canal doesn't stick up, but rather out, so normally earbuds will never stay on me. These do, though, because of the clip. Great!)

2) Good sound... kind of... The bass is good. The treble is good. Basically, they sounded really good. But, the treble did kind of weird things. There's a more pronounced hiss with these phones than with my last phones (Sony MDR-Q22LP open air phones). This kind of bugged me at first, but I'll get used to it, and it's a worthy sacrifice, because the sound is good other than it.

VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE:
I am now returning these headphones to amazon.com. The sound, while impressive in it's treble and bass heaviness at first, is unbearable after awhile. What happened was that I discovered that in fact, there's no middle sounds at all. A usually warm classical passage now sounds harsh and substanceless (the bass is used to cover up the lack of substance in the headphones). Rock and other stuff actually still can sound pretty good, but classical music is horrid. Violins are painfully unbearable. Drums that are not boom boom drums (like bass drums) have no body whatsoever (e.g. snare drums sound like the snare part [the little metal chains of beads on the bottom] without any of the drum part). I like the warm sound produced by, say, larger speakers that resonate well. These do not do that at all. My other headphones do this very well with this warm sound, but these headphones just sound... cheap. However, if you're into rock or rap (or basically nothing legado like certain types of classical music), you'll probably be okay with these, but I hate them (because I love classical music and the warm sound that larger drivers produce).

3) Sound- Blocking. This works, but not as well as one might think. Earplugs do a better job of blocking out sound. However, the sound blocking is good.

UPDATE
If you do strenuous activity, you can hear your heart beat, which is kind of annoying. Also, they shift when you walk/jog/whatever, and you can sometimes hear that.

4) Volume. I figured that a pair of headphones like these would have a better volume output than my last headphones. They do, but not by much. This, however, doesn't bug me, because I am fine playing my mp3 player (a Creative Zen Xtra) at 11 volume level (25 being the loudest).

5) Durability. The cord doesn't feel that durable. (I have the white version) It's odd; they feel kind of chalk-like. I haven't had the headphones for a long time, so I can't comment on how durable they actually are. That the cords don't feel durable doesn't bother me too much, as I'll just cover up any holes with electrical tape. As a whole, the headphones feel cheaper than I thought they would, but this is actually a good thing, because they are lighter due to this.

Summary: I like these, and would recommend these to anyone with normal to large sized ears for whom the normal ear buds fall out all of the time (my last pair of canal phones Koss's "The Plug." They would not stay in for more than 10 seconds). If you have smaller ears, I would recommend the other fontopias. I haven't tried them, but they look like pretty much the same thing except without the hook thing. These headphones are not perfect, but are pretty much the best that anyone can expect of a pair of 30 dollar headphones. I am satisfied and happy with them, but they are not the answer to all of my dreams.

UPDATE: I would still recommend these to some. Read the other updates above. I would lower my review to 3 stars if I could.

Overall, the MDR-EX81LP is a decent replacement over the Apple supplied earbuds that came with my iPod shuffle, but too much bass for my taste, the midrange is a little weak and vocals suffers. The hangers are a bit large for my ears and as such, don't fit snug around my ears, but they aren't falling off. After useing them for a couple of hours of listening, my ears don't feel fatigued. I would have liked the EX81LP's to be more 'neutral' sounding, but good value for what you pay.