Shure E2c Success!

Last week I braved the discount racks at Microcenter down in Cambridge for an hour or two just sort of looking to see what’s available. I would highly recommend this exercise to anyone who likes finding affordable items in the “Gosh, I could use that!” mindset.
This weeks find included a set of opened-but-new Shure E2c noise cancelling headphones for the tasty price of $69.99. These are the in-ear ‘bud’ style, which have traditionally had problems with long-term wear, not to mention no noise-cancellation ability.
The Shure headphones come with a handful of replaceable clear soft plastic and foam inserts. It took quite a while to find a mix-and-match arrangement that fit my (apparently) different sized ears. I ended up with the ‘middle-size’ plastic insert for my left ear, and one of the foam inserts for my right. This arrangement gives me a noise-cancelled environment that’s mobile, small, and plugs into my stereo jack on the laptop (Mmm, Radio Paradise), with the added bonus of being small and mobile. Oh yeah, and they sound GREAT.
The final factor will be long term wear. So far I’m going on 2 hours and they’re still quite comfortable.
Of course, there’s the drawback. They’re noise-cancelling headphones (passive, not active), which means that when the music’s off, it sounds like someone has wrapped my head in pillows. Because of the complex process of putting the headphones in, I tend to unjack it if I need to run to the bathroom or to the kitchen for more coffee or wahtever. Makes chatting in the kitchen a bit of a challenge (though normally I’m working alone, so no biggie).
So the next step is to wire up amplifying mics I can jack into personally, so I’ll have my music at the desk, and have a hearing-aid system when walking around.
My steps toward becoming Cyber-Geek continue.