Earbuds aren’t normally an item of any interest to the audiophile community. The tiny little headphones that rose to ubiquity with the iPod are much more closely associated with convenience and affordability than high fidelity. But many companies, such as Shure, Westone and Ultimate Ears have begun to change, that with high-end earbuds for more discerning consumers.
M-Audio recently broke into that fledgling market with its IE-40 professional reference earbuds, which claim to boast the same quality of sound reproduction as studio-grade reference speakers, with a price to match. They take many of the same technologies used in full-size loudspeakers and shrink them down into a portable ear-sized package.
