Shure SE846 Wired in Ear Earphone, Clear, Transparent (SE846-CL-A)

All this good clear & crisp music, but the voices in my head won’t go away

Please help ! !

If you really looking for greatest sounding IEM’s then go for it if budget is not a constraint. Do not buy those just out of curiosity as you can only get most out of it with proper setup and this is not the only thing you’ll be buying to enjoy this IEM. Really great quality, sound and performance in each of the frequency range.

one thing I must talk about it that I have received sealed box with missing item such as foam sleeve and 1 of two mentioned 3.5mm cables so I had to replace it to get all the mentioned box items. So I guess Shure is only focusing on sound of this IEM.

You do not need a mobile to use it, a virtual mobile inbuilt in it which work on voice command and it give guarantee of 7 life

If ter is something called god made .. its this piece… U can even hear the voice of god whispering at u and the best part is it cancels the voice of ure dad shouting at u as u spent 80k from his card

As with any consumer product, there is a point of diminishing returns with earphones as well.

These earphones are aimed at people for whom price is not an issue, and they want the absolute best the money can buy. (Well, sure, there is a KSE earphone from Shure that costs three times as much, but well, you get the picture.)

Going from really cheap earphones to slightly good ones will buy you a lot of bang for buck, but as you start spending incrementally more, the gains that you get gets smaller and smaller. Where you stop on that curve is a personal choice.

If you’re planning on getting these earphones, (as an enthusiast and not a professional) here are questions you should ask yourself,
1. What is the source you will be using this with ? Do you have a good collection of Lossless music ? If you listen to poor quality mp3, then paying as much for a pair of earphones is a serious waste of money.
2. Do you gave a good DAP ? (Although the DAC/Amp matters the least of source, headphones, dac/amp in my opinion for portable earphones/headphones, having a capable player helps.)
3. Do you have better use for the money ? 🙂
4. Do you definitely need an isolating pair of headphones ? If you are someone performing on stage, and want to focus on say your vocals and not be deafened by the percussionist, these are obviously helpful. They isolate the sound around you, and the response is pretty linear. So, you will actually be able to hear how you sound as you are performing. (Same for people playing instruments)

I do not own any other earphone in it’s price class, so I’m going to compare it to a couple of headphones/earphones. (1) A Philips SHE 9700 in ear earphones. Will run you Rs 1500 or so. (2) A Shure SRH 1840 – which costs half as much compared to the SE846 – 500 USD compared to 1000USD, but is an Open back headphone.

If you are going to be listening to music dedicatedly, and are going to be home while doing so, I suggest open back headphones. They sound better IMHO. But they are going to leak sound in an out. So, if you’re commuting on a train, it’s not going to be ideal – you will hear the outside noise, and people around you will be pretty unhappy. They are also headphones, so not the most portable obviously.

I did some A-B between these and the (i) SHE 9700 and (ii) SRH 1840. Here are my conclusions,

(1)
Compared to the SHE 9700, these are clearer sounding (could be an effect of being more linear), but at the same time have better Sub-Bass. Now, this is with the default neutral “filter” that comes with the package. You can use a “brighter” or “darker” filter – meaning more treble or more bass. I did not do so. If you listen to something like “Jodha Akbar”, (some tracks have pretty deep bass.) you can clearly hear the difference between the two in term of bass. The Shure is better. Even at the top end, the clarity of instruments is better. I would also think the resolving speed of the SE846 is higher. (Resolving speed translates to better clarity.)
Is the difference worth an additional 70,000 Rs ? Probably not 🙂 Most people will be content with something like the Philips SHE 9700. (For people who have not heard of these earphones, they are similar to a Creative EP630 or 890 if I am remembering the Creative earphone names right)

(2)
Compared to the Shure SRH 1840 – I very much prefer the SRH 1840 over these. If you have not heard of the term “soundstage” – it is basically being able to place the instruments in a recording studio spatially. i.e., a good open headphone with a wide soundstage will sound such that you can separate out the instruments – they don’t sound like the sound is originating from the same point relative to the recording microphone. (Now, I am not a sound engineer, and I know multiple mic’s are used in recording studio’s and later mixed in, so don’t ask me details about how this soundstage effect is created and can be discerned. 🙂 I do not know.) But if you were to listen to a live recording, you can definitely tell that the different instruments are in different spots on the stage.
The SRH 1840 is a very linear pair of headphones, so you will definitely not like it if you are a bass-head. But see, bass generally comes at a cost – the rest of the spectrum sounds muffled. This is not the case with the SE846 however – i.e., bass is good, while the clarity of the rest of the spectrum is still maintained. The bass is there on the SRH 1840’s but it is not emphasized. It is pretty tight without sounding muddy. I might be slightly biased, but I definitely like listening to music on the SRH 1840’s better in spite of the fact that bass is better on the SE846. (I can never carry them to work though)
This is a slightly unfair comparison though, because I think I might prefer other open-back headphones over the Shure SE846 as well. For instance, the AKG K712 Pro or the Philips Fidelio X1/2. This is in no way a knock on the SE846 – just my personal preference.

Equipment used for testing:
I tested the headphones with lossless music (FLAC format) played through my MacBook Pro, an iPhone 6, a HTC One M7 and a Fiio X5 DAP. I had previously also used a Schiit Magni/Modi DAC/Amp stack to test my SRH 1840, but did not have it around while testing the SE846.

Tracks listened to:
None of my tracks were DJ mixes or rap/hip-hop so YMMV. I listened to plenty of rock including Floyd, The Who, Queen, Zeppelin, Beatles …etc. I also listened to Tamil and Hindi songs of AR Rahman. (I use several of his tracks for A-B listening.)

In terms of comfort, both Shure’s are very good. In terms of packaging and accessories, they are hard to beat as well.

Finally, even if you afford this, you probably should buy something cheaper. Because eventually the “I need a better pair of headphones” bug will bite, and it is better to upgrade slowly from the lower end than to start with $1000 earphones, and realize you want something better. I have not tried the rest of the SE line as well, so I do not know how the 535’s 3xx’s …etc compare.

P.S: I don’t consider myself an audiophile, but can assess headphones reasonably well. Now, all of these headphones are meant for serious listening – meaning the activity you are involved is, is “listening to music.” If you’re buying these to keep you distracted at work while you code away to glory, earphones much cheaper will do that job for you.

There is no question that these headphones sound quite splendid. They are very linear – reproduce bass, vocals and high frequency very well.

A couple of other points I wanted to make, since people were making comparisons to iPhones and such. You have to understand that for anything that is not mass produced and sold, the R&D cost and the cost of Engineering cannot be amortized over millions of units sold. Companies generally produce lower priced items to amortize the cost of their flagship models. This earphone must have cost Shure a decent fraction of what they are charging the consumer in terms of hiring people who do their R&D, Engineering, QC …etc. It’s even possible it costs them more if this earphone is taken on it’s own. So, yes, they are expected to be more expensive than the TV that tens of thousands of more people buy.

For anyone claiming this is just a piece of plastic – I suggest you google search ‘Toaster Project’ – if you try to make something as simple as a toaster from scratch , the amount of effort and money you will spend on the process is quite phenomenal. To then write off top of the line earphones which are in fact extremely good as a piece of plastic is not correct.

As for the wire being stiff- the cable itself is Kevlar reinforced (you know, the stuff from which you make bullet proof vests 🙂 ) And the stiff portion near the termination at the earbuds is by design – to keep them in place. I don’t find this inconvenient when wearing the earphones, but it is mildly annoying when putting in the ear buds.

As to why I took one star away, I guess Price/Performance is slightly weak on this one. I’m sure this falls at the top right of a Price/Performance Pareto curve. It will be interesting to compare these to something like the SE535.

P.P.S:
If you are new to this, and are an audio enthusiast, then you should probably buy “Chesy Records – The Ultimate Demonstration Disk” – it is available on Amazon ( http://www.amazon.in/Ultimate-Demonstration-Various/dp/B00000I780
)- this will guide you on how to evaluate musical equipment. Every song is preceded by an introduction on what to look for in the song. This is also good for A-B listening of audio equipment. But in the end, knowing your music preferences is actually probably more important.

Also, another way to evaluate the overall performance of a pair of headphones is to listen to Symphonies – it need not be Bach, Beethoven, Mozart – it could be something as contemporary as the soundtrack to Star Wars or the Pirates of the Carribean. 🙂 These tend to have a good range in terms of instruments – so your evaluation will be more thorough.