When I saw these pop up on the internet, I couldn't wait to get my hands on them. I have a pair of the B&W P5 headsets and I like them very much. They're somewhat colored but they're fun sounding, and a sexier piece of audio kit you'll hardly ever see. I was expecting a similar experience with the C5.

Didn't get it though.

With 20-some years of experience in audio and the venerable ZEN mp3 player line under their belt, the folks at Creative are well-qualified to inject some serious fidelity into an earphone.

The Logitech Ultimate Ears Personal Reference Monitors are truly bespoke audio, hand crafted just for you. They'll fit your ears only, the sound is your sound, with a tonal balance tweaked by you, for you. Accuracy isn't part of the PRMs raison d'etre, not in the slightest, it's pure audio self-indulgence. That level of customization doesn't come cheap, the PRM is $1,999!

If there is any one product to be credited with catalyzing my love of in-ear earphones, the HiFiMan RE0 is it. Over the years Dr. Fang Bian & co expanded the lineup to much more than just earphones, but the latest-gen RE-262 and RE-272 in-ears, like their progenitor, are audiophile fantasy through and through.

At the heart of the Ultimate Ears 900 are four balanced armature drivers with a three-way passive crossover. The design utilizes dual bass transducers and single drivers for the midrange and treble--a setup similar to that of the Westone 4 and many custom-fit earphones. Impressive as that may be, the UE 900 will need to provide a very compelling case for its performance in order to justify the $400 price tag.

In a recent reddit AMA Tyll mentioned that Philips offerings have surprised him the most in recent years. Listening to the new Fidelio earphones, I have to agree---Philips did a spectacularly good job with these two earphones.