Creative Labs EP-630/A Earphones

My first impressions when using them were truly awful. No bass, tinny sound, worse than the headphones the MP3 came with AND the darn things kept falling out...........

THEN I figured out how to fit them properly......WHAT A DIFFERENCE.

I'm a bit of a sound nut but for the money these sound great AND they cut out a lot of the background noise such as car traffic when I'm walking the dog. Will be on a plane at the weekend for 10hrs so these should help with the noise there as well.

How do you fit them.

Well first of all try the various sizes of rubber earbuds until you find the right size for your ear. It took me several goes.

When fitting try the following;

Take your left hand over your head to grab top of your right ear with the left hand's fingers.

Pull the top of right ear up to open up your ear canal

Put your ear phone in while you hold up your ear as above.

While you hold in the ear phone, let go the ear held by left fingers.

Keep pressing the earphone in place with your right hand for a few seconds to let everything settle down as this help the ear "grip" the earphone bud and hold it in place

Do the same thing for the other side .... just use the right hand over the head instead..

If its a good fit you can tell as if you tap the earphone (gently) it feels as if the noise is inside your head. You need to get a good seal to give the right sound with decent bass.

I thought I was fairly intelligent but it took a search on the internet to find these instructions (they're not mine then). Now fitted correctly I'm very impressed.

Would I buy these again......you bet. Highly recommended


You won't believe how good they are   April 10, 2006
 70 out of 71 found this review helpful

Before trying these ... I've loved (I mean really LOVED) the Sony MDR-EX71SL headphones. Same earbud design, with the rubber caps ... and oh wow, the sound was fantastic. Very odd thing about the Sony's though is that the cable is just way too short for anything but a top shirt pocket. Or the extention made them way too long, an extra metre or so, too long. And the cable was flimsy (mentioned by nearly everyone who owned them).

The creative headphones are designed better, and cost 5 less (always seems the way with Sony). Perfect length cable for pocket or bag, nice weight, very comfortble to wear. Cable feels stronger too.

I got fed up with Sony's ridiculously sized cable, but really loved the sound (actually I'm convinced that phones at 5 x the price of these wouldn't sound better). I spent a long time testing these headphones, comparing them with the Sony's, and honestly couldn't tell the difference in sound. I really listend for it, absolutely sure that there must be something. But no. Excellent bass, deep, strong, rich (etc). Very clear trebles, and everything in between.

The best sound is achieved by choosing the right sized cups for you. You get 3 sizes, and once you have the right one, you'll know. It might take a little while to get used to it feeling as though you have your fingers in your ears, and being able to hear everything internally, like breathing and walking, and zipping up your jacket ... but it tunes out after just a little while, and you never really notice it again. I sometimes put them in my ears with no music on just so I don't have to hear people's inane mobile phone conversations. It's wonderful, and makes your train journey calmer, and more relaxing, just for that.

Highly recommended over the Sony's, over any others in fact. The tech specifications are identical, the quality is absolutely excellent, the price is ... shocking! I used to recommend the Sony's, but now I recommend these to everyone I know now.

Get 'em - you'll love 'em.


Creative EP-630 Earphones   July 18, 2006
 21 out of 21 found this review helpful

I thought I'd add my tuppence worth as I've owned my EP-630 earpohnes for well over a year now and am still extremely pleased with them. I've not had any problems with them and would strongly recommend them to anyone.

Pros:

-They block out background noise almost completely so they are ideal for use on public transport.

-They don't leak any sound, so when you're using them the rest of the world doesn't have to suffer your abysmal taste in music.

-The sound quality is excellent. Not only can the earphones handle very high volumes without distorting, they also produce a very full bass sound.

-The earbuds are surprisingly comfortable once you get used to them and they won't randomly fall out.

-They're a very reasonable price.

Cons:

-Hmmmm... Well, I guess the wire is bit long, which can very occasionally be a nuisance.

-I wouldn't wear them while eating crisps. They amplify the crunching sounds in your head alarmingly.


Better than the Sony EX-71   November 28, 2005
 33 out of 34 found this review helpful

I've had two pairs of Sony EX-71 both of which developed identical faults (lost sound to one earphone due to faulty connection in the cable). I decided that after two pairs developing the same fault, it was a design flaw with that product and I wouldn't buy again.

That said the passive noise reduction and sound quality the Sony EX-71 earphones offer is excellent for commuting (I'm on the tube for 2 hours every working day). After looking at alternatives for a while I noticed the Creative EP-630 earphones and given that they were only £20, took the risk and bought them straight away.

So far, I've found these earphones surprisingly good. They are as comfy as the Sony headphones (which is not surprising since the ear buds seem to be identical). I think audiophiles are dopes, but I can say that I *believe* the sound quality is pretty good from these headphones. I get sufficient bass and there isn't too much screechy treble like you sometimes get with cheaper earphones. In fact, I might even say that the sounds quality is better than the Sony's, since with the Creatives I can actually hear the very quiet digital distortion that I know some of my CD rips have got (from ripping from some specific copy protected CDs).

All this said, I haven't had these long enough to be sure they won't develop similar faults to the Sony's, but at first glance the earphones themselves seem to be of better build quality (nice little grills rather than Sony's wax prone single little holes) and the cable quality seems fine.

One final point, these earphones come with a full length cable and not a short cable with additional cable extender like the Sony EX-71 earphones do. This isn't a problem for me as I don't have an inline remote for my player, but might put some people off as there can be a lot of spare cable to deal with if you do.

All in all a nice little pair of earphones for commuting, and comfortable enough to use for several hours in the office too.


Unreal bass if you follow my ear canal guide below. CX300 wish they were this good   April 24, 2007
 15 out of 15 found this review helpful

Let me first acknowledge the dippy reviewer below who has said these have no bass. They will have no bass if you dont use them as they were designed for, which judging by that review you just got them out the packet and shoved straight in, not going to happen mate. You need to spend a minute or 2 getting them prepared, heres how.

I recommend starting off with the medium size rubber bud, fits the average joe, slide that on at a half angle is the easiest way to get it on, so now you should have the earphone itself held in your fingers with the rubber bit sticking out as normal. Very firmly twist it into your ear as far as it will humanly go, may be uncomfortable first few days, but your ear adjusts v.quickly. The key is the twisting i find. Then when you let go your ear should be nicely sealed and feel like it is solid in your ear. If it feels like its almost hanging out then you havent twisted hard enough or your ear isnt ready to accept it. So either switch down a size or just keep twisting until your ear has made the minor adjustments it needs to, it will do so in minutes rather than hours. Once the thing is in solid, the bass will be stronger than on my 1000 technics system, it really is mammoth bass for all you Drum & Bass, HipHop & Rock headz like me!

After a week or two, i found the medium earpiece began falling out easier, so i switched up to the largest rubber bud. Now once again this took a few days for my ear to adjust to. But now i have what can be only described as the PERFECT seal from any heapdhones ive ever tried which is a lot! If you push and press down on the rubber bud so that it slides back over the earphone itself, it may stay there, more than likely it will spring back out. This is the genius part though because its bigger and more flexible than the medium bud and is able to surround the earphone itself and kind of become one whole piece rather than two. This means after a few uses the large rubber bud ends up staying in that position which is what audiophiles everywhere want. Now because the rubber is wrapped around the earpiece itself it makes the rubber bud wider than it should be, and when you twist this into your ear the fit is totally perfect. Its tight enough it stays in your ear as often as is possible with earphones, gives the perfect ambient seal blocking out a huge amount of external noise, and finally the bass reproduction is truely incredible, the bass-seal ive been looking for all my life. You can only maximise bass on any earphones if you get the seal done right, which the reveiwer below has totally neglected to play around with by the sounds of it. Fiddle and poke yourself and whack on the prodigy and i dare you to try to get better bass for under 30 on canal phones, they are beasts. (see my other headphone reviews for more helpful honest reviews)

Finally, if theres anyone considering buying cx300s then dont. If you check the sound frequencies they dont even come close to the ep630s. Sound frequency btw is the important bit about bass, mids & treble on headphones. The cx300s have a frequency response of 18-21 khz whereas the ep630s have a gigantic response of 6-23 khz! The cx300s are shockingly bad phones as with most sennheiser productions im afraid.(see my other reviews) The fact the ep630s dip down to 6khz is incredible and is the reason why when sealed correctly the bass is truely incredible. They also manage to go up 2 khz higher in trebles too which is useful. Word of caution dont buy any off e-bay/amazon where the seller has less than 99% feedback and you will be fine. Hope this helps you audiophile hunters like me!

In summary, the bass is 5/5, mids/trebles are 4/5, value for money is 5/5.
Ive listened to 40 shures that didnt beat the bass on these, with only a slight increase in mids/trebles, and a worse seal. Bow to creative, not all their products are top-notch but this one definitely is. Rejoice audiophiles!