After my shift yesterday, I met up with a guy who was selling these Sennheiser CX300-B canalphones. It was a weird feeling, I had never spent over P1,000 for earphones before. But taking into account that I had already spent P14,000 for my MP3 player and P2,500 for a leather pouch, it would just be plain stupid to not go the extra mile for an item that will let me fully enjoy the device.

So he handed me the earphones still in its packaging and urged me to try them on. He suggested I try the small size silicon rubber eartips first. It was a very uncomfortable feeling having a foreign object stuck into your ear canal. It didn’t feel right at all. I pressed play on my player and I got this horrible tinny sound, there was no bass at all. Utterly disappointed, I paid him P2,300 anyway and took them home to give it another shot. I wasn’t keen on looking like an idiot in public.

At home, I pulled out the small size eartips and attached the medium ones. I read somewhere that people, usually westerners, have a comfortable fit with the mediums. Maybe I have large ear canals, I thought.

I gently pushed them into my ears. It felt like there was a vacuum inside, after all there are rubber sleeves stuck in my ear blocking out the rest of the world. Must be what a butt plug feels like. I could barely hear the vehicles right outside the window, that’s probably a good thing. Probably. I mean, that’s the point right? I adjusted it some more and once I had a good seal, I picked a random song and played it.

Oh wow.

The tinny sound was gone, the bass was strong, everything was clear and it sounded like the band was playing from inside my head. It was earsex, I swear. Once you get past the discomfort of having rubber sleeves plugging up your ear, it’s all sonic paradise. Mind you I’m no audiophile, but this is the first time I’ve heard music sounding this clear and this good.

I shuffled around through other songs, through different genres, and each song I played sounded entirely new simply because I’ve never heard them like this before. Even the testicle-shriveling power metal wails are divine with this thing. I popped in a 24 DVD, looked for an action scene and enjoyed all the rumbling explosions and gunfire. I could’ve sworn my head was vibrating.

I’m 95% satisfied. The other 5% went to the weirdness of being able to hear my own footsteps, breathing, and talking via low inner ear vibrations while I have them on. Overall though, these canalphones are worth every peso I paid. Besides, it will take only like a day and a half to earn it all back, so it’s all good. If I ever lose these or if they ever break, I wouldn’t hesitate to pay another 2k to replace them.

I’m not even going to proofread this post, I wanna get back to using them.