Review: Shure SE102MPA Sound Isolating Mobile Headset (video)

I’ve been the owner of a first generation iPhone for some time now and my original Apple ear buds are not fairing well. It’s common knowledge that they don’t sound that great, but that have one thing that kept me from tossing them aside, that nifty little microphone clicker used for making calls without killing my battery. At $29 a pop, I would really like to invest that money into a more durable, better sounding headset. I found that in the Shure SE102MPA mobile headset.

The SE102 MPA is the least expensive in the line of 5 headphone/microphone combos made by Shure, the leader in performance microphones since the 1930’s. Considering it’s roots, this microphone headset has a reputation to live up to.

The unit is actually made of two separate pieces. One half are the dynamic noise isolating ear buds and the other is the MPA (music phone adapter) microphone. Coming in a bit larger than the average lapel mic, the microphone seems to pick up audio well. Never did anyone have a hard time hearing me when I used it both on my iPhone and plugged directly into my iMac for VoIP calls. Shure also provides a little button on the microphone so you can play, pause and advance tracks on the iPhone and answer incoming calls with ease. I was a little disappointed by the positioning of the microphone. While the old Apple earbuds had the mic much closer to my mount, the SE102 MPA mic is positioned very low since it is a second piece to the headset unit. (Watch the video below for more)

The headset itself is decent. Compared to another pair of headphone I have the sound is not as loud and even for a small headset the bass is not great. At the time of this article Shure has the SE102 MPA headset on sale for $20 off the original price until January 31st 2009.

My Advice, take advantage of the sale and upgrade to the SE110 MPA model instead of the SE102 MPA if your picky about how your music sounds. Have a great paid of headphones already? Then get the MPA microphone by itself for $49.99. I tested it with my existing headphones and it worked great.

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