When Shure agreed to send me a early release version of their new Shure E4g Gaming Edition Earphones last month I was stoked. At an MSRP of $319 USD I expected to be blown away, and I was, just not in a good way.

It has been a long time since I was so thoroughly disappointed in a product I reviewed. The Shure E4g Gaming Edition Earphones did not sound as good as my $140 set of Steel Sound headphones I typically use for my late night gaming sorties.

This was my first review of a Shure product, and I hear good things about Shure from audiophiles, but man the Shure E4g Gaming Edition Earphones just underperformed.

I think to "Become the Game" you need to have some bass, perhaps that is a personal preference. The Shure E4g Gaming Edition Earphones bass reproduction was to my ears very weak, weak with a capitol "W".

Flatulance from my one-year old daughter has more bass than these things, well maybe not but you get the idea. The highs and mids were good, but low end sounds like gun shots were flat and had no depth at all.

Through the entire range of sounds I could hear an irritating static hiss similar to what you would hear if you had an old vinyl album on a turn table playing one of the grooves between tracks.

I tested the Shure E4g Gaming Edition Earphones via the headphone port on my Klipsch Pro Media Ultra 5.1 speakers powered by my PCs Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music sound card, which is the same set up I use for all my earphone and headphone tests.

If you need the small stature of the Shure E4g Gaming Edition Earphones for your portable device rather than a home PC, I suggest you buy one of the lower end Shure gaming edition earphone sets. After all, they can't be worse, can they?

Had I plunked down my hard earned $319 bucks for the Shure E4g Gaming Edition Earphones, I would be taking Shure up on their 30 day money-back guarantee.