Gadget review: Snugs fitted earphones

By Rik Sharma

Published: 20:14 EST, 18 November 2013 | Updated: 20:16 EST, 18 November 2013

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Price: £167

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Sound quality is normally the purpose of a headphones review - but not in the case of Snugs.

This is because Snugs earphones are fitted personally to the internal shape of your ear and can be moulded around any set of headphones.

For the purpose of the review, the standard set of earphones provided with Snugs are the SoundMAGIC E10s (£167), including the fitted caps.

Also available are the Etymotic HF-3 (£257) and the Final Design FI-BA-SS (£1277).

Fitted: The headphones are moulded to the shape of your ear so they sit comfortably

There are three options to get the caps moulded to your ears - one is a VIP appointment, which sees someone from Snugs coming to take an ear impression at your home or office (£70).

A different option would be to visit one of Snugs' impressionists around the country (£15) or to get an ear impression taken on the highstreet (e.g. at Specsavers) and send the appropriate materials to Snugs.

You have to pay for this yourself but get £30 taken off the cost of your product.

Having an impression taken is painless and quick. But also a tad weird.

Snugs describes the process on their website: '(The Audiologist) inserts a “otostop”. This is a little foam sponge on a string that is carefully positioned just past the second bend in your ear.

'Next comes the actual impression. The Audiologist uses a mixing syringe to put impression making silicone into the ear canal, starting from the otostop and gently working backwards to the concha, which is the bowel shape at the entrance to the ear canal.

'As this happens, any background sound will go away from you as they are filling your ear with a silicone that is isolating all background noise.

Options: There are three price ranges of headphones to choose from, or ask moulds to be fitted to your own

'The impression materials cures hard in about 4 to 5 minutes, during which time you must not speak or move your jaw as this will compromise the quality of the impression. Once hardened the impressions are slowly removed from the ears. Voila! Your ear impressions are done.'

They are then sent to partner PC Werth to create the Snugs, which are available in a huge range of colours and can even incorporate glitter.

Enough about the production process - the key question - how do they feel?

The answer is, unsurprisingly, very comfortable. It takes a while to get used to putting them in (because of their weird shapes), but they fit very "snug"-ly and once you work out which way to do it, you don't forget.

They go deep into your ears which helps block outside noise and means you can listen at a lower volume.

Although they haven't been designed as sports headphones, they work well for runners as they fit comfortably and securely in your ears.

They are most similar, in that respect, to the excellent Yurbuds, which use twistlock technology, although the sound quality from the E10s is better.

Although the service is reasonably pricey, you simply won't find a better fitting pair of in-ear headphones on the market, for obvious reasons.

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