http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/jvc-fx33-mod-2236... ^link to the infamous Kramer Mod - highly recommended, works well! =] Also, I personally feel like "pink noise" burn in helps too, so here's another link http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/pink-noise-burn-2... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_noise Hope this helps everyone looking for affordable earbuds with great noise isolation =]

i had a set of marshmallows with a broken cable so i gave this a try. for me, it was harder than this guy made it look to open up the marshmallow earbuds & expose the wires. in the end i managed to make it work and it did for a few months before they failed probably because i had soldered it badly. in trying to fix it i believe i made it worse, and so gave up and bought a new set of marshmallows, and when the cable finally goes kaput i'll try this hack again...

So, the sound is great for the price. Prior to these i owned a pair of JBL inear headphones ($50), which arguably had the most terrible treble range ever (not to mention no base). These were a wonderful replacement. The 'memory foam' suffers from Alzheimer, but overall not too shabby!