Shure E3G
January 1st, 2006 | by Brandon King
Full Review - Performance
Performance In our previous reviews of the E2C and E3C, we noted the difference in clarity and bass response. To sum it up, the E2Cs offered nice bass but lacked some clarity, and the E3Cs had great clarity but weak bass. So, how does the E3G fit into this arena? We used the same music selection that we auditioned the E3C with, along with some other updates, listed below: For sources, we used We also tested a few games: We also dusted off our copy of Spiderman 2 on UMD. Rather than go through each combination here, we will try to categorize the sound. Also, we used the soft rubber sleeves for all testing. The difference in bass between the E3C and E3G is like night and day. The E3G offered much deeper, atmospheric bass, and reached down into levels we did not experience with the E3C. In fact, all of our music tests resulted in complete satisfaction. The mid-range clarity was very slightly muffled during fast-paced music, and the highs didn't quite reach the highest frequencies, but we're really nit-picking more than is necessary. Sound quality in the most general sense between each of the music selections was comparable, and we found no “weak links”—no single category of music seemed to shed light on a particular audio flaw. The sound stage was appropriate, but lacked a little expanse. This is common to nearly all canalphones, though. Driving the E3G was average, and slightly better than the ER-6i. We did push the limits on the iPod volume control here and there, and the Creative Nano was usually set to max volume (no different from several headphones we've tested). Gaming performance on the desktop side was decent, but really shone on the Playstation Portable. The PC games are more tuned to surround sound and environmental effects, which are usually lost in headphones. 3D positioning via software did little to compensate for this. Sound localization requires a combination of reflection off the ear, echo, and intra-aural time differences. The canalphones somewhat thwart the sound card processing for earphones by placing the driver closer to the ear drum, and removing and reflection. That said, the sound quality while gaming was great, and sources within about 130˚ were easily localized in PC games. Because the PSP is designed with stereo sound in mind, it fared much better than our desktop gaming behemoth. All PSP games performed very well, especially Lumines, most likely because of the music-based atmosphere.
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by John on May 6, 2007:
“Well Shure audio is the best I have ever experienced! The quality, the noise reduction, the style; Shure takes audio to a higher level! First, I bought this pair of E3Gs but later on I just switched to the E5Cs. ” More...