Tremendous sound quality, exceptional detail and balance, sturdy design, customisable sound signature using nozzle filters
Expensive choice, unlikely to suit very small ears
Shure's range of earphones has expanded greatly over the last eight years, with the SE line covering price points from £50 to well over £300. Until now the flagship was the £389 SE535, which replaced the SE530s that launched in 2007. That changed this year with the introduction of an even higher-end set of in-ear headphones – a £949 model, the Shure SE846.
Having used the SE530s, and their successor, on and off for several years, this reviewer raised a quizzical eyebrow at the introduction of a pair placed so radically far up the price and, hopefully, performance ladder compared to its next-best sibling.
But it follows a trend over the last few years of manufacturers releasing sensationally priced consumer earphones that make even devout and self-professed audiophiles take a deep breath. AKG's K3003 made a splash as possibly the world's most expensive high-performance consumer earphone, closely followed by Sennheiser's £600 flagship IE 800. Then there's the realm of custom in-ear monitors (IEMs) from the likes of ACS and Ultimate Ears, which can be custom moulded and tuned to your own ear canal (it feels like being dunked head-first into a bath of Polyfilla).
Shure's new SE846 sits somewhere above the high-end pure consumer earphones and amongst the custom IEMs, with a price point to justify it. The question is: who's it for? And is it worth nearly a grand?
Find out which headphones WIRED Recommends with our guide to the best headphones
Performance
The answers, in order: the most demanding travelling and wealthy audiophile; and musicians and artists hell bent on being able to critique their recordings, or those of others, regardless of location. If you're reading this and fall into both categories, consider yourself a target market.
Inside each of the translucent earphones are four custom armatures (speaker drivers): two jointly handle bass frequencies, another handles the mid-range, and a final one handles the high-end. That's a setup greater than most on the market and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the rest of the Shure range.
The resulting performance is one that's a great improvement over the already tremendously good SE535 model, yet still retains Shure's signature sound for the most part. Detail and accuracy is above and beyond other models we have tested in recent years, and particularly when paired with Shure's most heavy duty foam in-ear tips -- which reduce ambient noise around the listener -- gives a quite remarkable impression of isolation even in noisy environments.
Where it differs most notably over its family is that bass is lower and smoother -- although not to say "boomy", which is all the rage with the kids right now -- and the high-end is lifted to be more revealing, open and "brighter" than previous models.
But it retains the punch all of Shure's earphones have had over the last few years, which benefits its mid-range strength when it comes to acoustic instruments (particularly percussion, we found).
Instruments have real body here, where some models emphasise the high-end to sound "clear" and the low-end to sound "bassy". Overall it's a smashing balance, wrapped in tremendous overall detail.
In contrast to IEM
However, Shure ships an extra set of toys in the box: nozzle filters. To the uninformed these might sound like tools to shove down a blocked pipe or into a nostril, but they in fact slide into the tip of the earphones to customise the overall tone of the audio. As sold, a pair of tips are fitted for a "balanced" sound.
Certainly this is the most neutral on offer. But they can be switched, with a bit of fiddling with the provided tool, for a pair that promotes a "bright" sound signature; another promotes a "warm" sound. It is the latter of the three we preferred, although the difference this makes is entirely subjective so it's worth experimenting with each to decide upon a preference.
Design-wise the SE846s borrow from the over-the-ear design of much of Shure's range, favouring a chassis that suits medium to large ears best (few with very small ears had much luck wearing these). Their translucent casing reveals the hardware and circuitry on the interior, which offers a modern, high-tech appearance rather than the AKG or Sennheiser models mentioned earlier that appear to have been designed to appear as luxury items first, high-performing headphones second. As far as audiophiles will be concerned, Shure chose to execute things the other way around.
Conclusion
Recommending a pair of headphones that cost close to £1,000 is difficult, because the law of diminishing returns is ever present.
This pair being truly stunning examples of what can be done with audio engineering in 2014 does not make the next-best pair that costs less than half the price bad. Indeed, Shure's SE535s remain stunning performers in their class and for most people are as expensive as anyone needs to go.
But some people will want to go further, and with a budget in the vicinity of what Shure is asking for, personal preference counts for nearly everything -- hence many manufacturers offer custom moulds for individual ear canals.
At this price point it's Shure that wins our choice over, say, the AKG or Ultimate Ears equivalent. A ruggedly designed, audiophile-ready, nuts-to-luxury-snobs approach has produced an expensive but rewarding way of enjoying and reviewing music.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
