Rob Gardner
May 11, 2009

Rating: 9/10

After trying and demolishing many different branded in ear headphones at up to £50 a pair and not being entirely happy with my Sennheiser PXC300 noise cancellers I took the plunge and purchased a pair of the Shure SCL4s at a clearance sale at my local dealer. I wish I had purchased them years ago and saved myself a lot of money. The build quality is superb, the sound quality is simply the best of any headphone I have ever owned by a country mile. Bass sounds deep and controlled, treble is sweet and spacious. Recording quality is the determining factor of performance rather more than the headphones themselves. Using the expanding yellow foam buds they block out most of the back-ground noise of your average Boeing 737. I now live in fear of loosing them as they would have to be replaced with a similar pair. Highly recommended.

paul Annis
June 4, 2007

Rating: 7/10

Pros – Small, light weight, very nice sound and excellent isolation from external noise when in use.

Cons – Expensive, they will expose the weaknesses in your MP3 player and I have to carry around a small pair of tweezers to remove the silicone sleeves as they have come of in my ears when removing the head phone (Hence the 7/10).

I have always been very fussy about my music and after many years of various headphones I took the plunge and got myself a pair of Shure E4’s to used with my Creative Zen Vision. Up until now I have always used the over the head design, mainly Sennheiser PX200 which I have been very pleased with but with that sort of design you hear your music along with everything else around you, very annoying on the train every day. The E4’s sound isolation is superb, no question about it, you find yourself only turning your device up half as loud, if that. Bass extension is good and the level of detail superb but as mentioned above they really do expose the weaknesses of the mp3 player so tweaking the tone controls or graphic is required. They do take quite a bit of getting used but they do come fully armed with various types of fitting for the ears and this is were my problem lies. If you look at the pictures you will see the rubber or silicone sleeve on the earphone, these just slide over a small tube that extends out of the ear phone, that’s it. They are not secured in anyway (they could sit in a small channel for example) and I have found that when removing the earphones this bit has decided to stay in my ear 3 times in 6 weeks. Now carrying around a small pair of tweezers to stick in your ear to remove these from your ear is not ideal and I would strongly advise not doing it, I am surprised Shure have not identified this as a issue. I have found that by pulling the earphone out at a angle instead of straight out this can be avoided (if you understand what I mean?)

Overall they are a great, if not expensive, piece of kit and make listening to music a delight. The fact the rubber sleeve has come of in my ear a few times is a bit disappointing but as mentioned this has been overcome with the way I now take them out, however, for this sort of money you can have custom made in ear monitors made which I believe is the better option.

Nick Pevler
April 25, 2006

Rating: 8/10

The headphone are excellent sound quality but very expensive. They take a few days to get used to due to the tight in-ear design but the vast array of 'Heads' make this process pretty simple. The quality of the audio drivers can show the limitation some sounds sources so you may need to upgrade.