One brand of in-ear earphones stands out in the world of professional musicians. Ultimate Ears boasts a client list that perhaps only Fender guitars could best, including Metallica, The Who, U2, and hundreds more. With an 80% market share in the pro audio world and as an emerging provider of premium earpieces for the consumer market, UE is poised to become the leading manufacturer of in-ear earphones. From the entry-level super.fi 3 studio to the reference UE-10 Pro; possibly the best headphones in the world, Ultimate Ears has the most discriminating listener and professional covered. The super.fi models appeal to the iPod user looking for the best sound quality in an in-ear-monitor.

The website is fairly well organized, although there is a lot of professional user content that is likely to intimidate the average consumer. Categories are clearly defined and broken-down making it easy to locate specific products. It took just three clicks to locate the super-fi 5 Pro’s that we were looking for. The site does offer ‘Help’, which we tested to gauge response times and quality of information. What makes the site worth visiting is all of the educational material that explains the technology and what differentiates UE from its competitors.

Our experience shopping online was generally positive. We were, however, surprised to discover that one had to pay for shipping on a $900 pair of headphones. Not a deal breaker, but it makes one wonder about buying elsewhere.