Labs

Etymotic Research's ER-6i sound-isolating earphones come with two sets of flanged rubber sleeves and a set of foam sleeves, which expand in your ear. The foam plugs blocked out almost all background noise.

The earphones accurately produced mid- and high range sounds, but lacked bass. This produced a bright sound that worked brilliantly with most dance and guitar-based pop music, but some heavy bass-driven tracks didn't have their usual intensity. Still, we were impressed by the detail and clarity of the audio.

Although they're the quietest of the passive noise-cancellation headphones in the group, we never needed to bring our audio player's volume above 50 per cent thanks to their effective sound isolation.

The earphones are the smallest and lightest in the group, but their sound is anything but small. The slight lack of bass intensity won't be to everyone's taste, but these high-quality earphones are effective with guitar-based pop, trance and light classical music. Shure's SE210 earphones have a more balanced sound, though.