After 3+ years of using Sennheiser CX400 Precision-II earphones, they gave up on me (after rough-n-tough use), I decided to treat myself by buying premium quality earphones from Sennheiser. I did lot of research, read many reviews on different models. Finally I shortlisted two and best earphones from Sennheiser, IE 7 & IE 8. Both having price difference of over 7-8K, I decided to get IE7 from Amazon.com for which I got best deal at $160 (approx Rs. 7300). After I broke my CX400 earphones, I have been using Creative EP-630 (which came bundled with my Creative Zen X-Fi 2 player) for a while. So when I plugged in these premium quality earphones, I did not jump out my bed as I had expected for the amount of money I had spent, but then I started burning-in my earphones. (Fresh out of the box, a pair of headphones may not sound as good as a well used pair, as the designers have intended. Often, people want their headphones to sound the way that they are intended as soon as possible. Most people don’t want to wait for weeks or months of regular use, so the choice is to expedite burn in by getting the process over with in the first week of ownership. Others choose to listen to their headphones as they change over the burn in period. ‘Burn in’ is the term used for the settling of the design parameters of the diaphragms into their intended state. The physical process is that the diaphragms loosen up through use and eventually reach a point that could be considered final. A similar situation is breaking in a new pair of shoes. To burn-in you can simply play music through them continuously. Some prefer using pure tones, sine wave sweeps, pink noise, or AM/FM static for burn in. Some recommend using bass heavy music. The method of burning in a headphone does not change depending on model or manufacturer. - Source: head-fi website).

After 50+ hours of burn-in, things started getting clearer, difference between EP-630 & IE7 got more clear and I realized what I have been missing for all those years, listening to music. Listening to each sound track became new experience. Each song I ever heard, sounded different all together on new level. I am no audiophile person, I am a guy who likes to enjoy music like everyone else. So I can't explain you details of lows & mids of audio because I won't be able do so even if I try. Also I won't go into technical specifications of IE7, since you guys can always look it up on Sennheiser website or google. All I can tell you that, these are best earphones, very comfortable to wear, very sturdy cable and overall worth each penny. When I did my little research, I found that Sennheiser IE8 is better in each aspect over IE7, but price difference was too much and out my budget. So if money is no issue for you get IE8, otherwise IE7 is best for the price. Go for it !!

Cheers !!