 "Pretty dang good" | 2008-07-08 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3I42FISB8HCSC |
Bought these two years ago, for my transit to school on the light rail and bus. They do their job well. Even if i sit at the back of the bus, right next to the engine, I don't need to crank up the volume on my music player. Probably saved my ears from a beating.
As far as the sound goes they are better than the stock earbuds that came from with my player. The sound is a lot cleaner and you can hear a lot more in the music.
There are two sounds modes:HD and bass. Compared to HD mode, bass mode is slight louder and brings out the lower freqences. Works as intended I guess.
As far as microphonics(sp?) go, they where not much of a problem for me as i was sitting still most of the time. Using the clip on the volume pod helps a lot if your moving around though.
Overall, pretty good earphone. It's still working after almost 2 years of continuous use and abuse.
On a side note ,if you need replacement filters the ety8 uses the same filters. they can be bought at the etymotic website. You'll want the ER88-50.
http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er88-acc.aspx
sources
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/those-looking-im716-filters-252398/
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| "Bargain sound" | 2008-02-24 |
| - Reviewed By leshalles |
I bought these for $50 from the "used and new" link; at that price,they are 1/7 the list price of the Etymotic ER4P they resemble, and 1/4 their discount price.
At first I thought they sounded tinny and I had trouble fitting them in my ear canal.
I burned them in for 24 hours (someone recommends 7 days) and the sound warmed up a lot. I found the flange eartips give better sound than the foamies. Moistening them made insertion better.
Now I am getting really nice sound from them for the price. In Bass mode, Bass, tremble, clarity, transient response, detail.
Compared to the Sennheiser PC 166 USB, handy for comparison, it is much better in Bass mode all qualities mentioned above. The headset has a slightly warmer presence for male vocals and a very little more efficiency. In HD mode, it is significantly less efficient and bass is much less, less than the 166, but the male vocal is warm and present. I suspect the Bass mode introduces some small distortions in the bass response.
I have read that the Etymotic ER88-50 filters and the ER61-18 eartips available on the etymotic website fit the IM716. Other accessories look like they would work. Good info as Altec Lansing may no longer market these.
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| "Amazing Headphones" | 2007-12-31 |
| - Reviewed By sojss |
| The design is been strange, definity might not fit well for anyone. The most amazing thing about this headphone is offered feature called HD, which really does work depend the quality of audio. However the audio has static sound you can also heard those as well, but you can hear thing u never heard before, the strong point is the vocal, heard clearly as well, major cons is nearly no bass support. But no headphone this size good in bass anyway. Has nice volume control and clip good for running. Perfect for classical music. |
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 "Nice isolation not as good as my Shure" | 2007-12-15 |
| - Reviewed By aleks271 |
| Got it at good price (less than $50). Nice sound isolation and fairly comfortable. Not as good sound quality as my Shure with which I heard the music as I have never heard it before. Also Altec headphones transmit every sound through the wire - so if the wire rubs against desk or clothing you'll hear it - annoying. |
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 "Information NOW! - Review later ':-)" | 2007-12-12 |
| - Reviewed By User: ABSQSZHB9OHWJ |
I just ordered these (121207) at the liquidation price of $45 from J&R (via Amazon). When I receive them, I'll post my impression.
Be advised, for those that may be put off by an earlier post which said that the filters are NOT available, true - Altec Lansing HAS discontinued the product and product support. However, a quick talk with 'Rich' at Etymotic Research informed me that the Altec Lansing IM716, uses the same pink/red filter used by Etymotic Research's "ety8" model. SOOOooooo, you don't have to live with a filter-less IM716. Hope this helps.
Remember, it's about the MUSIC, not the toys!
a. |
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| "Great earphones with a few setbacks." | 2007-09-11 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2EKXHWPSHXJEA |
I had the Etymotic Research ER6i Isolator Earphones for a week before purchasing these earphones, not because of dislike of the Etymotic product, but because the family cat decided to use the earphones as a chewtoy. I really liked the Etyomitc ER6i's and the Altec product seems similar to me except for a few things. Here are what I believe are the pros and cons of the Altec Lansing inMotion iM716 Headphones.
Pro- Very good bass compared to other earphones (much better than the ER6i's)
Pro- Pretty durable construction from what I can tell so far.
Pro- Superb sound isolation, very comparable to the ER6i's
Pro- Switch on cord to switch between "HD" and "Bass", also volume control on cord.
Pro- Case is considerably higher quality than what came for the ER6i's. It's a hard plastic grey case with "grippy" fabric on the outside and foam on the inside.
Con- Case is nice but inconvenient. Takes up more space than my video iPod.
Con- Switch on cord, adds a considerable amount of bulk. Clip on back of switch on cord is pretty impracticle, nowhere near as convenient as say, the clip on the back of the Shuffle. This one is not much but a thin strip of metal.
Con- Aesthetics. Simply put, these do not look like premium earphones, the ER6i's were much more attractive with clear casing featured on the earphones. I know people might say that sound is all that matters, but I would've enjoyed a little sharper look to them.
Con- I found the tri-flange ear inserts to work the best but they can be uncomfortable if not inserted correctly, take some practice and getting used to if not accustomed to this type of sound device.
All in all, I think these earphones are a great product for the price ($104.99 as of today). I would give them 78 out of 100. Compared to 32 out of 100 I gave the earphones that came with the iPod. Considerable step up in terms of sound quality. |
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 "Medium quality for high price product" | 2007-09-07 |
| - Reviewed By User: AF7S43D0I0TDZ |
I bought an iPOD (8GB) and I thought to upgrade my listenning experience by buying extra high price earphone from a very good company (altec lancing are great in speakers).
When I plugged them into the iPOD i was supprise by the sound image mediocracy.
The original iPOD earphone are much better.
So, I thought maybe impedance do not much the iPOD. So I test on my Denon Hi-Fi, Still iPOD earphone had much reacher sound.
Most of the time I never regret buying in high price. This time, I don't know what to do with these earpohone.
I can say that sound seemed to be accurate, but lack of Bass, treble is not smooth (I wouldn't pay $20 for these earphone).
Joel |
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| "AWESOME Sound." | 2007-09-05 |
| - Reviewed By s_gil |
These phones are not for everyone. You can see by the number of reviews panning the iM716 that some people either can't stand putting stuff in their ears or just weren't patient enough to get the proper seal. In either case it's good that most retailers offer a money-back guarantee on purchases from them.
I use an Etymotic in-ear headset with my home phones. It's the greatest thing--you can talk for long periods without getting 'phone ear.'
If I could have afforded the Ety ER-4 I would have bought them. But then I would have missed out on Altec Lansing's excellent iM616.
Yes, I said iM616, not iM716.
The 716 has that atrocious volume control thingy in the cord. It flops around, gets in the way, and causes a lot of noise to be transmitted through the physical wire of the headset into your ears. It sounded great, though. I returned it.
I then bought the iM616--the identical headset without the inline volume control. I'm perfectly happy controlling the volume from my Zen.
The sound and microphonics issues are otherwise similar between the 616 and the 716--except that you don't have to lug that stupid volume control around by your ear canals and it's not forever hitting stuff and transmitting that noise to your ear canals.
I use a homebuilt dual-9v headphone amp designed on a modified Chu Moy circuit to allow for the two batts. Even with double batteries, the whole thing still fits in the standard Altoids tin. It puts out plenty of punch to power these phones. If you have a pair, you know your DAP or Walkman or whatever cannot power these things to anything over very tame listening levels. Furthermore, the levels you can listen at without additional amplification are constrained by insufficient power.
Enter the Chu amp--or your favorite headphone amplifier. Even if you don't crank up the volume to ear-damaging levels, you will find gigantic improvements in the sound of your headphones by using a good headphone amp. With inefficient phones like these, the amp is practically mandatory. Good thing it and your player will still fit in a single pocket of a backpack.
Sound is good enough to make me forget about purchasing the ER-4. Got these 616s $46 shipped. Sucha deal.
So if you're obsessive about sound and want to fool around with headphone amps and such, you will just love these. |
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| "good sound quality at discounted price; has some ergonomic issues" | 2007-07-26 |
| - Reviewed By bighojofan |
I replaced my Etymotic 6is with these because the Etys developed a short in the cord. My immediate impression was that these do have superior sound quality to the Ety 6is. I've never heard the Ety 4s, so perhaps these are more comparable to those -- and the Altec Lansing IM616's comparable to the Ety 6is -- a common assertion I keep running across on the 'Net.
The IM716s have a bit better bass in the HD position (and A LOT more in the Bass position) than the Ety 6is. They also sound a bit more detailed. Quite nice considering I got these for about the same price as the 6is.
As for eartips, I dislike foamies so I didn't even try those. I don't like the 3-flange tips that come with the IM716s because they have to be pushed farther into the ear that I'm comfortable with in order to provide decent bass response. Fortunately the eartips for the Ety 6is also fit the IM716s, so I was able to put some 2-flange tips on the IM716s -- comfortable fit and good sound!
I don't know whether any of the filters for any of Etymotics' models fit the Altec Lansing 'phones; I suspect not because the barrel that holds the speakers looks larger on the Altec Lansing 'phones than on the Etys.
My main complaint about the Altec Lansing is the inline module that allows the listener to switch between Bass and HD modes. The module adds considerable weight to the cord. This wouldn't be so bad if the clip on the module was designed well, but it's a shallow metal clip that can only be slipped onto something like a shirt seam. (In contrast, the clip in the middle of the Ety's cord is a plastic alligator clip that allows you to open it up and "pinch" it on any kind of fabric area you want.) Having a clip like this -- particularly in the position it is in -- is not good for exercise clothes. The module and the clip would have been much better with a better clip design and a better location on the cord (much closer to the jack that plugs into the player instead of a foot away from the listener's ears). The end result of this poor design is that when I exercise, the cord is left to flop around. Given the microphonics issues involved in many IEMs, having a cord flopping around like this is far from ideal.
Overall I am happy with my purchase. I definitely prefer the sound quality of these to the Ety 6is, though I do like the design of the 6is more. |
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 "DO NOT BUY THESE. NO CUSTOMER SUPPORT!" | 2007-07-17 |
| - Reviewed By macal425 |
| Although these headphones sound great, Altec Lansing no longer sells filters for these headphones (even although they still sell the headphones). Once your filters get clogged (may only be after a few months) you will no longer be able to use them. The filters are not available anywhere so these phones may become throwaways after a few months of use. |
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Expedited Available
