Etymotic mc5 Review

I'm sure many of you travel on the train quite often, or are also frequent flyers like I am. If you are, I am sure you will have come across many expensive, heavy and impractical noise isolating/canceling headphones. However, there are also lightweight, cost-effective earphones, such as the Etymotic mc5's which I picked up for £59 at Heathrow a couple of weeks ago.
At first I was rather dubious, wondering what such an exceptional brand could offer for such a low price (since most good noise isolating headphones are well over £100) . The box itself seems very high-quality at first-glance, and really stands up to the high-quality, refined Etymotic reputation. 

Inside the box lie the earphones, the carrier-pouch, the filter-removal tool, and the extra earpieces. The earphones feel very high-quality, since they are made of polished aluminium, as oppose to rubber or plastic, and are available in black, blue, red and green. The earphones are accompanied by four different earpieces, two three-flange earpieces, one pair of foam earpieces and a set of standard earpieces. All of these are part of the ACCU-fit assortment of earpieces. There is also a filter removal tool, and two extra filters, the filters act as a barrier to stop ear-wax or other dirt getting in to the speaker. 

When first put in the ear, many people will find them extremely uncomfortable, as I did, however after one or two days, you will get used to the way to insert them, and will really appreciate the amazing sound quality that these headphones boast. The reason for the uncomfortable feeling when inserting them for the first time is partly due to the fact that these earphones are products of years of research, and the best way to isolate noise is to have the speaker inserted relatively far into the ear. As a result of this research, Etymotic have managed to achieve up to 36dB-42dB of noise isolation, equivalent to 98% ! This is the highest amount of noise-cancelling of any in-ear-monitor on the market! You may think that in order to achieve such high isolation figures, the sound quality must have been sacrificed, however, the earphones are extremely accurate, and have a frequency response of  20Hz-15kHz. The earphones have a 4ft long kevlar-reinforced cable. The earphones can also be paired with the custom-fit ear-tips which you can have custom-produced for you, and will be more comfortable, and extremely noise-isolating, these come at the price of £89. 

All in all, the Etymotic mc5's are a pair of very good value, high-fidelity, noise isolating earphone. They are ideal for someone who flies frequently, takes the train often, or just for someone who likes to listen to their music, in high-quality, without all the background noise. They are great earphones that you can now pick up from around £55 on-line form somewhere like Amazon.