Last month after posting my review on the Bang & Olufsen H5 wireless earphones, I got a message from the audio brand Shure asking me if I’d also like to try their wireless earphones. I’ve been a fan of Shure ever since I got my first pair of in-ears back in 2004, the Shure E2’s, so of course I said yes. A couple of weeks later I got their new SE215 wireless earphones in the mail.
I had a few issues with my H5’s and was curious to see if the Shure’s would solve them. My main problems with the H5’s were the battery life and the low volume level of the earphones. So how did the Shure’s perform?
Battery Life
While the B&O H5 promises up to 5 hours of battery life, the Shure’s promise up to 8. That doesn’t sound like much but in real-world use, it is. With the H5’s I make sure I put them back on the charger after using them for a couple of hours, with the Shure’s I charge them every couple of outings and still have enough juice for a third outing. But what I like about the Shure’s is that if I do run out of battery, I can just charge them using any standard micro-usb cable unlike the H5’s which require the use of the charging station that came with the earphones.
Volume Level
I’m sitting right now at Arabica having my coffee and typing up this post with the Shure earphones on listening to music. I have the music volume at 80% because at 100% they’re just too loud. With the H5’s I would always have the earphones at 100% and wish I could raise them by at least another 20%.
So yeah, the Shure’s do solve my two biggest issues with the H5’s in addition to solving another issue I wasn’t aware needed solving. When you first turn on the Shure’s, you get a voice prompt letting you know once they connect to a bluetooth source and then the voice lets you know how much battery life is left. With the B&O’s I need to launch the B&O app on my phone to find out the battery life which isn’t very practical. Another advantage of the Shure’s is the price, they cost half that of the B&O’s and sound as good if not slightly better.
With all the positives so far with the Shure’s, you’d think I’d prefer them over the B&O’s but that hasn’t been the case. Whenever I leave the house and need to pick a pair of earphones to take with me, I kept finding myself reaching for the H5’s over these Shure’s. The reason for that is the Shure’s are pretty bulky. The battery pack isn’t built into the earphones but instead is located on the cable so it makes wearing the earphones awkward. On top of that, the earphone wires are too thin making the Shure’s feel flimsy and messy because the wires keep getting tangled up.
But in the end, it really comes down to the person’s requirements. Are you looking for battery life or style? If I’m traveling then I’m definitely going to pick the Shure’s over the H5’s. But if I’m just going to a coffee shop for a couple of hours to get some work done, then I’m always going to pick the H5’s.
If you’re interested in picking up a pair of Shure SE215 wireless earphones, they’re available on Amazon for KD45 [Here]
7 replies on “Review: Shure SE215 Wireless Earphones”
Any idea who the Shure dealer is in Kuwait? I notice that Shure’s American website offers a new cable to make your earphones wireless.
I have a pair of SE535s that sound amazing and I wanted to turn them wireless.
No I asked them and I’m waiting for them to reply.
Mark,
I wanted to buy a shure noise cancellation earphones couple of months back but there seems to be not one dealer here.
Been using Beats X since Feb 2017
No complaints at all
Battery easily lasts 7-8 hours with continuous use
Charges with Apple lightning cable, full charge within 20 minutes
Sound is LOUD and quality is excellent + they get splashed with water almost daily when I perform ablution.. a great product
Mark, I noticed you’re using the silicone tips based on the photos. I just wanted to chime in and let you know the foam tips that come with them make a WORLD of a difference. They offer much better sound isolation (so you can listen to it better in loud places) and better (not louder) bass. Give it a try, and make sure to watch a youtube video on how to put them in, cause if you don’t put them right then they’ll sound like shit.
If you click the Shure E2 link in the post you’ll see I was using foam tips since back in 2004 (https://unex-t.com/e2/). Thats how long I’ve been using foam tips for, I’m a huge fan of foam tips, even got\ the Comply T-500 Foam Tips for my IE80 earphones which are considered to be the best foam tips you can buy and I love them (https://248am.com/mark/reviews/review-sennheiser-ie80-earphone/). The IE80’s sound incredible and they’re my primary earphones which I use when I travel. Neither these Shure’s nor the H5’s sound as good as my IE80, with or without foam tips.
Foam tips aren’t practical if you’re planning to constantly put on and remove the earphones which is why with both my wireless earphones I use silicon tips. I use the wireless earphones as my casual day to day earphones where sound quality isn’t really that important, mostly using them to watch youtube videos. The silicon tips make it easy to put on and off whenever I interact with people around me.
As for now, NMK Elrctronics is the current distributor in Kuwait. NMK is the same distributor of UAE, Watar, Bahrain Kuwait and Oman.
https://g.co/kgs/47Rptx
For support and inquires you can email Shure MEASA which is the regional office in Dubai on [email protected]