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Hey all,

My lady is a surgeon, and she needs good quality earbuds as she does her rounds walking around a hospital or in the OR.

She is content with cheap-ish ($30) ones, both because she is not an audiophile and because she is concerned with knocking the about in her pocket or bag, but with her birthday coming up in April, I am considering getting her some nicer premium ones if there are known ones that stand up to a little abuse.

Requirements:

• Must be true in-ear. She doesn't really like the feel of the ones that sit just outside your ears and is concerned about them popping out, and since she feels no discomfort from the ones that sit in your ear canal, this seems like an argument not worth having.
• Must be reasonably rugged. Water-resistant is a plus, but not really feature-necessary.
• Needs to have or accept the option of an in-line mic, and work with an Android phone.
• If it requires batteries, must last up to 12 hours of mostly continuous play (which pretty much knocks out most of the high-end BT ear buds; asking her to remember start plugging in her headphones every day is not a good present).

My initial search revealed the Shure 215-Ks and the Klipsch S4i Ruggeds, but they both have some issues.

Though the Shure set is built like a tank, they don't come by default with a phone cord, and the Shure official cord is an extra $50 and is apparently a POS. They appear to work with other phone cord accessories, but many of them are POS as well. If someone has any thoughts on a good phone cord, that might solve that problem. (They apparently don't work with other cords, so this option is out too! )

The S4i would have fit the bill perfectly, but apparently the in-line controls don't work with Android phones (no idea why not), so they're right out.

Thoughts?

Amazon product


Not necessarily this brand, but I love this style of bluetooth earbuds. Audiophiles are going to say that you can't get true high quality over bluetooth compression, but since I'm mostly streaming music over google play, or just playing plain mp3s, I don't really care. What I do love is the lack of a cord, making them incredibly easy to walk around while at work (which I do a lot on overnight shifts, when I'm by myself) and they're easy to take out of your ears and just put the earbuds to the magnetic neckpiece to easily hold them when you don't want them in your ear. Combine that with being able to receive and make phonecalls over it, and it's highly convenient.

If she can charge her phone, she can charge these things. I frequently forget to charge them, and putting them on the charger for 30 minutes before going out still makes them last all day, with a good 12+ hours on a full charge with continuous use.

The only downside is they do look kinda goofy around your neck.

While I personally like that style, the more I consider it, the more I am leaning away from giving her another thing to plug in, especially since I've seen her call-room and see how there is already basically no room for her and her colleagues to plug in that many devices at one time (they're basically 12 people using an "office" that is slightly larger than a bunk-bed college dorm room).

(I also don't know what her need is for stuff that comfortably fits under her scrubs; these could do the job just fine, but the uncertainty there gives me additional pause)

Thanks very much for the suggestion, though! [DOUBLEPOST=1456083459,1456083368][/DOUBLEPOST]In a perfect world, the Bragi Dash-style ear buds would have no connectivity issues and last 24 hours at a time, but I don't think we're there yet!

SpecialKO said:

In a perfect world, the Bragi Dash-style ear buds would have no connectivity issues and last 24 hours at a time, but I don't think we're there yet!

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Ugh, those things are great in theory, but awful in practice. Avoid like the plague.

Ravenpoe said:

Ugh, those things are great in theory, but awful in practice. Avoid like the plague.

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Oh believe you me, I am staying very far away until I hear that they (or something like them) are perfect, no caveats. So basically, for a good long time.

Koss KEB30's?
I know nothing about this market, really. But the Koss look like something where you won't feel too bad if they're not perfect ($20).
Mee Audio has a model (the M9P) that might do the trick also, but they're more like $50.

I have not researched durability/performance/etc, this is just what looked like the top two from Newegg's listings based on your criteria.

--Patrick

Maybe you could also give her a power strip or two for the office?

Get thee to head-fi.

I thought about that, but then they'd lose desk-space. That's how small their call-room is.

The idea is that they're surgeons, and anything that takes any attention/time at all away from how they do their craft is an annoyance they won't bother with. Which is why they play music in the call-room for 18 hours a day on shitty laptop speakers instead of sticking a small standalone speaker on a shelf with a dangling cord, or just buying a Jambox or the smallest Sonos.[DOUBLEPOST=1456154721,1456154675][/DOUBLEPOST]

DarkAudit said:

Get thee to head-fi.

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I didn't even know these guys existed. Thanks very much!

SpecialKO said:

I thought about that, but then they'd lose desk-space. That's how small their call-room is.

The idea is that they're surgeons, and anything that takes any attention/time at all away from how they do their craft is an annoyance they won't bother with. Which is why they play music in the call-room for 18 hours a day on shitty laptop speakers instead of sticking a small standalone speaker on a shelf with a dangling cord, or just buying a Jambox or the smallest Sonos.[DOUBLEPOST=1456154721,1456154675][/DOUBLEPOST]

I didn't even know these guys existed. Thanks very much!

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Nope. Plugs right in to the wall. Adds 4 plugs per outlet. No desk space lost.

Dave said:

Nope. Plugs right in to the wall. Adds 4 plugs per outlet. No desk space lost.

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I like it!