Shure SE210

Summary

The Shure SE210 headphones are an interesting set of in-ear headphones. The buds have an angled nozzle, which is a different design. Those who wear the cord around the backs of their ears will like this form factor, while those who wear the cord down will find the ear buds protrude straight out of their ears. There is also a 3.5mm plug at the bottom of the neck split. The plug allows the easy addition of a headset control or other accessory.

Frequency Response (2.46)

In this test, we look at the frequency response of the headphones, which indicates how well the headphones reproduce the sounds you play back over them. The graph below shows the frequency response of the headphones, ranging from very low frequency sounds on the left to high frequency on the right. The green line is the left channel, and the red is the right channel. The dotted black line indicates the limits we would like to see; headphones that go wildly outside these limits get lower scores.

This graph shows the frequency response of the Shure SC210 headphones is fairly good at the lower and middle parts of the graph; the response is flat, so most frequencies won’t be over- or under-emphasized. The high end is not so good, though; the response of the headphones tails off somewhat quicker than we would like, meaning higher frequency sounds don’t get the response we would like to see. This doesn’t mean higher frequency sounds wouldn’t be heard, but they would seem a little lower in the mix, giving the sound a slightly muted feel.

Distortion (4.12)

In this test we measure how much distortion we find in the headphones. Less is better here, as distortion can really ruin the audio experience the headphones provide.

Our audio testing system measures distortion across the audio spectrum, analyzing if there are any particular frequencies that get more distorted than others. We then produce this graph that shows the distortion for the left channel (in red) and the right channel (in green). We measure the distortion at 65 decibels; a typical level for listening to the headphones in a quiet room.

We found the se210 headphones have low distortion across most of the audio spectrum, but there is a small amount of distortion present at most frequencies. This is low enough that it wouldn’t be noticeable by most users, but it is definitely present.

Tracking (9.43)

Headphones have one channel for each ear, so it is important that the two sides produce the same sound. That’s what we look at in this test; how well balanced the two sides of the headphones are. The SE210s did well in this test, and we only found very minor differences between the two channels.

Our test system produces the graph below, which shows the tracking across the frequency range of 80 to 10kHz. If the line is at 0 percent, that indicates the sound at that frequency is identical in both channels. If it goes above that line, the left channel is stronger, and if it goes below, the right channel is putting out more. The SE210s are straight along the 0 line for most of the audio spectrum, which means they produce well balanced sound.

Maximum Usable Volume (10.00)

Some people like their headphones loud, so we test how loud they can go before distortion becomes a problem. We do this by gradually increasing the sound level the headphones output, then measuring the distortion until the THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) hits 3 percent. The SE210 headphones didn’t have a problem with this test; they kept the distortion less than 3 percent right through to the maximum sound level we test at of 120 dB. If you’re listening to music at that volume level, you’ve got other problems; that’s loud enough that extended listening could cause permanent hearing damage.

Isolation (9.57)

You wear headphones because you don’t want to hear the things around you, so we also test how well headphones block outside sounds. We do this by placing a speaker near our testing system and playing back pink noise, measuring how much sound the ear picks up both with the headphones on and off. We then determine how much the headphones block this sound across the frequency spectrum by calculating the difference, which is shown on the graph below. The blue line shows how much sound is blocked; the higher the line, the more sound is blocked at that frequency.

As you can see, the SE210 headphones do a great job in this test, blocking a decent level of sound across the spectrum; we found the best isolation is provided by the triple-flanged sleeves, as they provide the tightest fit inside the ear and the best seal against outside sound. This is typical of in-ear headphones, with their design completely filling the ear like a earplug, blocking most sound.

It is interesting to contrast the performance of these headphones against ones that use active noise cancelling circuits, such as the Bose QuietComfort 2 and 3 headphones. While the SE210s block sound by putting a physical barrier in its way, the active noise cancelling headphones block sound by generating another sound that cancels it out. We found in our tests so far, the active noise cancellation headphones are more effective for low frequency sounds, which makes them a good pick for frequent airplane travelers. In-ear headphones like the SE210s are more effective overall, though; they block a wider range of frequencies more efficiently, making them a better pick for more general noise blocking purposes. As long as you don’t mind sticking things in your ears, that is.

Leakage (10.00)

The in-ear design of the SE210 headphones also means very little sound escapes from them; our test system only noticed a very slight amount of leakage from the SE210s. Even when running the headphones at a high volume, very little sound escapes. And that’s the way it should be, especially if you listen to music on the bus on the way into work. The bottom line is that, if you seat them properly in your ears, your music remains personal and the person next to you won’t know if it’s Britney Spears or Beethoven on your iPod.