upgrade from stock iPad Mini Tablet's earbuds?

[RamblinE]

I read that the only apple buds to get are the; MA850G/B.
It has dual voice coils with an x'over.
Supposed to sound terrific.
Seen often on the auction site.

Paul

They are excellent. Crisp and precise, I have them. I'm not sure if 'dual voice coils' is the best way to put it. They're two way balanced armatures technically speaking.

Now the part where you ask me how they work and I'll just shrug and take a sip of my seltzer water.

 

[illinoisteve]

I read that the only apple buds to get are the; MA850G/B.
It has dual voice coils with an x'over.
Supposed to sound terrific.
Seen often on the auction site.

Paul

Paul, how do I know if these are actually what come with an iPad Mini? And if they are as good as you say, am I being foolhardy imagining that I might find other earphones in the 30-40 dollar range that beat them?

Or are they the Apple product which Apple zealots consider as the only suitable (and possibly very worthwhile) upgrade from the stock iPad earbuds?

I don't orbit in the Apple universe, so I really, really do not know these things, and must appeal for other AKers' guidance.

 

[Zonker92]

My iPad Mini (bought in June of this year) did not include earbuds.

The new style Apple earbuds (iPhone 5 forward) are quite nice for freebies, IMHO.

 

[transmaster]

Yes the Apple Earpods are an improvement of the Apple Earbuds but are very uncomfortable in my ears. Believe it when I say of all of the sub $50 dollar earphones I have tried, and there are a bunch of them over the years, I always found the JVC's to be the best. The Ultimate Ears are very good but the cabling sucks stiffening up into a tangled mess. as did the Klipsch. But once I found the Etymotic's my earphone home was found.

 

[RamblinE]

Apple fanboys don't seem to know the balanced armature iems exist. The third party Apple store I bought mine at tried to talk me out of them and into the Klipsch because he thought I was just buying crumby buds. The balanced armatures are about $80, worth the money and certainly don't come bundled in with any iproducts.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

[transmaster]

Balanced armatures is what makes my Etymotic HF-3's what they are. As I said when I first plugged them in I was totally gobsmacked by the sound, I though of the ESS's banner “Sound As Clear As Light". No bass, My God how much bass do you want beyond what is actually there These HF-3's are driving bass that my Polk Monitor 10B's would have trouble reproducing. I know one thing any future earphones I try, and I will always have Etymotic's now, will have to have balanced armatures. Klipsch; yes I have been down that road, and they all now reside in my drawer of discarded, and forgotten earphones.

Wonder who makes the Balanced Armature drivers for Etymotic?
http://www.knowles.com/search/

 

[illinoisteve]

Apple fanboys don't seem to know the balanced armature iems exist. The third party Apple store I bought mine at tried to talk me out of them and into the Klipsch because he thought I was just buying crumby buds. The balanced armatures are about $80, worth the money and certainly don't come bundled in with any iproducts.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

RamblinE, I found the Apple MA850G/B that you are calling dual balanced armature new for around $40.00. Maybe that is just one aberrant discounter, or possibly new/open box.

Remember that one poster early in this thread said they knew of two ipad minis that came with earphones. I would hope that if that happens they are not these better Apple earphones that not all of their salespeople have heard of. (I am reluctant to ask my friend about earphones with his ipad mini, since I don't want to give away the surprise.

The Sony XBA-1s are single balanced armature. The XBA-4s have 4! Unfortunately user reviews I've found say the affordably discounted XBA-1s don't sound like they have the frequency response Sony claims, or they'd be my top contender ... at least up until hearing about these Apple MA850G/Bs.

 

[illinoisteve]

The more research I do, the more reports I get that iPads and iPad Minis DO NOT come with any earphones -- except there is always at least one comment saying that so-and-so's brother's, son's, or grandma's iPad DID COME WITH earphones. So has Apple been inconsistent about this, or have vendors bundled earphones of some kind with them, or did people order earphones at the same time and only their silly relatives think the earphones came in the iPad box?

In the same searching, I have also run across several complaints posted about iPad/iPad Minis with earphone jacks that Apple earphones don't fit all the way into, and about iPad/iPad Minis that didn't turn off the speakers when earphones were plugged in or didn't play any sound over earphones that were plugged in. Hmmmm. I wonder how common those things are?

I am trying to learn stealthily whether or not the person I'm buying for got Apple earphones in or at the same time as the iPad Mini purchase and if so whether they got the ma850g/b model. If the latter, I will probably skip the whole thing, since with their dual balanced armatures they might be around as good as anything else I could in the price range I'm thinking about.

I found out about another dual drive (maybe not balanced armature) in-ear phone model: "3Eighty5 E5200." I can't find reviews of them, only what the mfr, "3Eighty5," says about them. Any AKer's know about those critters?