I blogged before about being an avid podcast listener. In my new job at RBC, my commuting time is longer (about 50 minutes door-to-door), so now I have full 100 minutes to randomly go through my ever-growing list of fluffy stuff. For years I’ve been using Sony Fontopia in-the-ear headphones. While not great, they fit my ears better than the ones that come with the iPhone – which kept falling off all the time. I’m not sure about the precise Fontopia model I had, but it looked like this one:
On Monday though, my 3-year-old decided to play hide and seek with them, and I’m still trying to figure out where they are. I bet that a few years from now I’ll find them inside some old shoes or some jar around the house. After a day suffering of podcasting withdrawal, I paid a visit to the Best Buy store at Yonge and Dundas to get a new pair, and found these Philips in-ear headphones (model SH5910) for CAD$ 9.99:
), but I loved them. They fit my ear canal perfectly – I’m glad I’m not the only one with a wacky ear shape, they have the best isolation I’ve experienced to date, with the exception of those noise cancelling phones that I find eerily quiet, and, well, they are really cheap 
.Of course, take this recommendation with a huge grain of salt. First of all, I’ve been wearing them just for a day. Also, I use these phones mostly for podcasts and audio books. At home, I have fairly good Sennheiser wireless headphones to listen to my favourite songs, but for the road I really need something I can fit in my pocket. Finally, the rush hour ride in the Toronto subway is not exactly a home-theatre like environment, so my number one need was good isolation, not pristine sound quality. The fact that I can now listen to podcasts without having to max out the iPhone volume is probably good for my hearing health anyway.
I like it: earphones for the subway! I think you created a new niche! Seriously, Aaron, these sound (pun intended) like great value. I am going to get a pair also. (My apple ones are shot, and I am not paying $40 for a new pair).
also, I think Philips is vastly underrated as a company.
I might get a pair too!
My son got me into the interesting world of podcast, woah! I didn’t know what I was missing, but the earphones are a challenge!
Bernie and Benedicte,
Just one caveat: like the Big Bad Wolf (or Yoda, for that matter) I have a huge ear channel. The Philips phones may be uncomfortable for “normal” ears. If you can, you should try them out before buying.
Duh, I meant ear canal. In Portuguese, channel and canal are spelled the same.
[...] mysterious case of the missing headphone is now solved 15 08 2009 In my previous post I wrote that my son found a way to hide really well my old Sony headphones, and therefore I had to [...]
Actually, Aaron, you are right. I bought these and could NOT get them to fit. It drove me crazy! I opted for some Sony’s that were pretty cheap and fit nicely.
Sorry to hear that, I suspected that those phones would not be a good fit for you. I’ve heard that at Winners they have cheap, decent phones too.
Actually, for $10, it was worth the chance!