Tube Train Tunes

Listening to music through earphones on London’s Tube trains is a three-way exercise in balancing one’s need to actually hear the music against the roar of the train without imposing one’s taste taste in music on surrounding commuters.  Whilst the iPod’s earphones are more than capable of producing a decent enough quality of sound, the noise of the Tube is sufficient to cancel out the top end treble and the low end bass notes, leaving the listener with just mid-range waffle.  To combat this, I took Emchi‘s advice and grabbed a pair of Sony Fontopia earbuds to plug into my iPod’s remote cable. 

With three different size earbuds to choose from, the Fontopias are designed to fit directly into the ear canal so that the tight fit provides a deep and fullsome bass and crisp trebles without the need to jam them into your ears with your fingers.  Having just tried them with a quick ride out to London Bridge and back (for a liquid brunch at The Market Porter in Boro Market), my low-fi ears can vouch for the great sound quality and concur with the rave reviews elsewhere on the web, although they are more expensive than most.  With that, I’m off to try them on the DLR whilst picking a sprog up from dance classes. 

my lo-fi ears are listening to Sing It Back (Boris Musical Mix)/Moloko

One Response to “Tube Train Tunes”

  1. Jon Husband says:

    Thanks for this write-up. I recently purchased an iPod for my wife, and she blew out (one side of) the earphones that came with it. We haven’t replaced them yet, and now thanks to this description/review I think I’ve found the ones that we will get for her.

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