Sweet deal alert! Today I stopped by Staples Business Depot to pick up a pair of these for a steal-price of $19.99. They are on sale from the usual price of $40. As I suspected, they are the updated version of my now-ancient RP-HJE50 (the first pair of in-ear earphones I bought and raved about years ago). They have almost identical specs (11.5 mm drivers, 16 ohms impedance, etc.). These have a frequency range that’s slightly smaller than the E50s (6 Hz-23 kHz rather than 6 Hz-25 kHz, but realistically, anything above 20 kHz is more or less ultrasonic anyway).
The one thing I didn’t like about the E50′s was its short cable, which was patched up somewhat by shipping them with an extension cable. Panasonic has since gotten smart, and made the cable length 1.2 meters without need for extension (which makes the whole thing lighter, since there are no heavy connection adapters in the middle of the cables). This means the E240′s are pretty much a fixed, honed version of the E50′s.
They come in a variety of colours, three of which I saw at Staples. Specifically, they had gunmetal carbon earbud/black cord, silver earbud/white cord, and aqua blue earbud/white cord models, and I obviosly picked the carbon/black one. I fear white cords age/yellow too easily and the aqua blue just looked girly.
In any case, if any of you are looking for a pair of mid-high end in-ear phones for your iPod or whatever, I’d definitely check these out and give them a chance. You really can’t get a much better price on such a solid product. I have no idea when the sale ends, but it wouldn’t hurt to be speedy.
For reference’s sake, my dad found this deal first at the Staples near his office, downtown, at Yonge and Adelaide. Where we ended up buying, however, was at the Staples on Steeles, near Kennedy (down the street from Pacific Mall). I’m sure those two have these in stock. No idea about any other Staples.