Cracking open the E2c's case the headphones certainly look small although unconventional, where you expect in ear headphones to be a single piece moulded to if the ear the E2c's have a secondary section that turns the corner hinting at just how deep a fit can be achieved with these Shure units.

Deep is the word that sticks in the mind as you first run the cable from your MP3 player and loop the cable over the back of your ears, a last nervous look at the almost medical earphone unit and you slide the rubber shielded e2c's into you ear. This is more of a 2 stage fitting unlike other headphones, first you locate them inside your ear and then slowly and easily press them home to form a barrier, blocking our background noise and entering a much quieter world.

The e2c's are clearly pitched at users of portable devices and here the blocking of background noise is essential, this model from Shure has possibly the best shielding from the worst that the London Tube could throw at us. To achieve this level of background blocking requires a tight seal and this is accomplished by use of either the rubber shields which come in one of 3 sizes or foam wedges again available in 3 sizes, these are applied to the main earphone giving a very tight fit.

To be honest it takes some getting used to, when you first wear the E2c's you can hear and feel every gulp and breath right in your eardrum but over time this feels more and more natural to the point where you just appreciate the noise cancelling effect of this seal.

So to the audio performance of the E2c's, the tight seal means that you don't even get close to full volume on your MP3 player, hooked to our 3G Ipod it was difficult to get to 3/4 volume on most tracks and beyond half on others.

Perhaps the first part of the sonic performance that makes you sit up is the clarity of the audio reproduction, using the Shures for just a few days we started to discover elements to tracks that escape us even on a good HiFi system.

Of course it depends on the track but on music with real instrumentation and depth like LP's favourite Hammond Organ artists you can really hear the keys as a punchy sound  and not just the overall whirling Hammond sound. That said this clarity can expose the compression used by some portable devices and quite a percentage of LP's collection encoded at 128mbits sounded decidedly poor, 192kbit MP3 seems to be the minimum if you intend to use quality audio components like the E2c's.

While we loved the clear and precise sound there is a downside to having such a deep fit, the bass response was a little lacking for our tastes, perhaps this is down the amount of air trapped between the E2C's and the eardrum and the ability of the units to stimulate this for good bass reproduction? Whatever the reason we did find some of the drum sections and deep organ grooves lacked that richness that we so enjoy.

We are getting quite critical here and the E2c's are designed as ultra portable which at 31 grams they certainly are, in terms of sound isolation they are possibly the best we've ever tested so perhaps it is unfair to expect them to be a perfect sound reference as well. The Shure E2C are the lowest in the E series of headphones and also therefore the cheapest with a suggested retail price of £79, so bang for buck these do represent excellent value.

Overall the Shure E2C headphones are a tight and punchy package, they are ideal for travelling and will block out even the loudest background disturbance, the fit takes a little getting used to but its worth the adjustment. If you are expecting them to be as accurate and well balanced as reference headphones then you will be disappointed, however when you consider the size and portability the sound quality is very satisfying.

For personal taste we'd prefer a smidgen more warmth in the bass reproduction but with the price through our partners Amazon @ £56 it feels cheeky to even try and find fault with the EC2's.

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