Creative Aurvana Air Earphones Comments

I'll be honest - you may say these have incredible styling but they look very similar to the Bang & Olufsen headphones I've had for about 5 years, and probably don't sound as good!

I agree with Colin, but I'd go as far to say that the design has more or less been nicked from Bang and Olufsen's A8 earphones.

Given that the Bang and Olufsens are around £60 cheaper, have the B&O name, and are nicer to look at (and probably to listen to as well) only a fool would splash out on these!

Stuart, I think you should should convince Logitech to send you their new 'competing' (i.e. similarly priced) Ultimate Ears 700 earphones for a comparison... I own them and Grado SR80s, and I actually prefer the UE700s. I've always thought that Creative was all about marketing and gimmicks, and Logitech seems to spend their time actually making good products instead. Be interesting to see what you think.

It's "Aurvana", not "Auvana" ;)

Just to put in my 2 cents. Are there any stores that have a demo pair of in ear headphones? I wanted to try a pair before I bought them. Neither Sony Centre or Currys digital would let me, citing 'hygene' reasons. I also would not be able to refund if purchased and did not like them. What is the best way to purchase and select in ear phones?

@ Peter

This troubled me when purchasing "good" earphones for the first time. Since no outlet will let you try them on, you have to go on the good reviews from trusted outlets online. That is what I did when I purchased my cx-95 in-ear phones. Firstly reading the review from this site, then aggregating it with reviews from other places.

I guess if you truly want to be an audio buff, you need to have deep pockets and accept that some earbuds won't be for you (despite what reviews say), and be able to replace them without feeling the deep loss associated with spending sometimes upwards of £100 for earbuds, when you could be purchasing, say the latest ipod for the same amount of money.

I don't know about the UK, but in Germany Amazon apparently takes back everything within two weeks, including in-ears, no questions asked.

@Peter

I'm pretty sure that under EU distance buying regulations, if you bought the headphones from an online supplier you'd have 7 days to return the product and cancel your order (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=1161020 ). I'd recommend your current course of following good review sites but following my own experience I'd also bargain on getting a set of Comply memory foam earpieces. I've got a tiny ear canal (I couldn't go running with any earphones because the shock and vibration would cause them to work loose within 100 yards) but the Comply replacements are excellent, the Comply 100's are even better than the ones I got with my Philips 9850 headphones.

The Nitinol wire arms on the earbuds will be hypoallergenic (the metal is used in stents for heart patients) so I really don't know what the inert coating is supposed to add other than a bit of 'bling'. I'm currently using SMA's as transducers for a product I'm designing, they're amazing materials but not quite the sci-fi marvels some futurologists would have you believe.

@Stuart Dark and Vivid

Thanks for the responses and comments, there are some interesting threads about distance selling ( http://www.avforums.com/forums/lcd-televisions/423610-distance-selling-regulations-slightly-off-topic.html ) . I guess the high street stores are missing a trick by not doing in store demo's for the top of the range. (maybe if asking consumer to sign disclaimer before use of demo pair + store to provide cleaning wipes).