In Defence of the EarPods
A lot of people seem to dislike Apple’s EarPods (and by extension, the wireless AirPods) for their apparently “bad” sound quality for the price. They’re the earphones that come in the box with every iPhone and iPod and so perhaps it is natural to expect them to be of inferior quality to other options.
I own a pair of Sennheiser CX30’s which I bought before my iPhone days. These are really popular and are known to offer some of the best quality audio for the price. And I really like them. I found them to be bassier and louder than the EarPods which ask for a similar price (or more now that the CX30's have come down in price).
But ever since getting the EarPods, I’ve found myself gradually picking the CX’s less often. What I’ve come to like about the EarPods is that they sound more open, and it feels like the sound fills the room rather than being pumped into my ears. So it’s a more pleasant experience for longer sessions but still maintains a pleasing bass balance (apparently, the AirPods are even bassier). Apple’s deliberately gone for an open-back design to achieve this sound quality and I love it.
The other thing that makes them a better listening experience for me, is that they’re not in-ear earphones. One problem I often have with the CX’s is that I need to maintain a seal with my ear canal to maintain its good audio quality (and they tend to come loose when I move my facial muscles, which is annoying in its own right), but that seal also means I can’t hear my surroundings.
As I randomly picked between EarPods and CX’s in my first year on iPhone, I seem to have gotten increasingly uncomfortable with being isolated from ambient sounds, more so when walking about in the city. And when someone needs to talk to me briefly, I don’t need to take my earphones out. Overall, it just feels more natural to have the music balance out with ambient noise and the popular wisdom is that this is better for your hearing as well.
When people compare the EarPods to other earphones, it’s usually to in-ear style pairs, but you hardly ever see them compared to other earbud-style earphones because it’s just not a common style these days and I think the EarPods might just be the best in that category. Even when you see comparison between the AirPods and other wireless earphones, they’re all in-ears.
So as with many things, it comes down to preference, but they aren’t trash. They just have a different goal from the in-ear style earphones and I think they do really well to make that goal.
The only real issue I see with them, as with any earbud-style earphones, is that because they aren’t designed to plug your ears canals, it may not fit ears that don’t have a “notch” to hold these in. Maybe Apple needs to consider a ear-hook design so that EarPods and AirPods can be an option for more people.
TL;DR
EarPods aren’t trying to be in-ear earphones. They’re deliberately designed to be of the “earbud” style and sound really good for earphones that don’t form a seal with your ear canals. I especially love the open-back design that creates the effect of sound filling up the room.
