This is the first is an occasional series of things that I assumed were complete bo****ks, spouted by vested interests or fanbois but actually turned out to be correct……

#1 Replace the earbuds that come with your MP3 player with a separate one.

An earbud is? just an earbud right ?

I mean that aren’t that big and surely the difference in sound can’t justify shelling out over 50 quid for 2 small bits of plastic and a lump of wire.

Earphones maybe, but not the little buds.

Well, through general hamfistedness, I managed to cut one the earbuds off the one that came with my little iRiver, so I went to Argos and got a set of “not quite the cheapest” earbuds.

Phillips ones I think.

The difference in sound quality was quite amazing.

So while I’m never going to be able to justify shelling out huge sums on such things, I can definately see the wisdom of doing it…