I purchased a set of these from Amazon based on all of the sterling reviews and after using and subsequently returning them I can only surmise that Apple's earbuds (which most reviewers replaced with these) must be horrendous. I was utterly shocked at the tinny Am transistor radio sound that these produced. The earbuds that came with my Sandisk Sansa player were infinitely better, though they broke very quickly. After returning these I tried many others and was very pleased with the sound, price and comfort of the Phillips surround sound earphones (14.OO) at Walmart. I then tried the Maximo earphones after reading the reviews on Amazon. The sound of these is phenomenal for the same price as the Sony'. I ended up keeping both pairs because the Phillips were so comfortable and the Maximo produced such wonderful sound, though the Phillips sound is quite respectable and I would have been happy with them if I had not tried the Maximos