Not Sure Why Others Like These...

...although I'm pretty sure most reviews on these earphones are not from "audiophiles." And I think that is the difference between this review and some others, which means these earphones are probably perfectly satisfactory as far as sound quality to the average person. I write this review as someone who looks for, at least, good sound quality in anything playing audio and who has been through many headphones and earphones over the years.

I have had these earphones for maybe two years, and I generally do not use them for music because they don't meet my standards in that aspect. I have generally used these when I have not particularly cared for sound quality to be at its best at all, such as a few times at work or on a train ride to/from work, or watching online videos.

What's wrong with the sound quality?

Mainly, there's zero bass. Even iPod earphones have more bass to offer than these. Having no bass might be tolerable for some genres of music, like rock and alternative, and maybe even country or classical. But there's absolutely no loving these for genres like R&B, rap/hip hop or, for me, even pop. Personally, I like bass with even my rock/alternative music. I also find that having some bass softens the harshness of sound quality, particularly when you're using something like earphones where the music goes directly into your canal. So, you could end up with a headache using these for music, unless you have the volume relatively low or maybe midway.

I'm also not sure I'd use "surround sound" to describe these, especially with the lack of bass. I don't get the impression that I'm playing music without earphones or headphones but with a bunch of speakers placed throughout the room at all. If anything, the music sounds more acoustic or like a concert hall totally devoid of the "thump, thump" you feel even inside you. Regardless, I'd rather have bass and that advertised to move the product than the advertisement of surround sound.

As with most earphones, the sound quality probably would not be better even with bass. But as it stands, these sound like typical earphones (i.e. they don't begin to compete with the sound quality in a lot of headphones), except with more of that acoustic sound to them.

Uncomfortable, Too
I have the black pair, and like people have written about both these black ones and the white ones (the HE-592, I believe), these are not comfortable at all. In fact, one of the first things I did when I started using these was ditch the ear cups because even they were uncomfortable (and I also wanted to see if sound quality would be a bit better without them). For me, they feel better without the cups but still are uncomfortable. They basically remain in my ears both ways, but I do have to keep adjusting when they feel like they are slipping out. These are also not necessarily for lying down, as far as slippage. And as some reviews have pointed out about losing the cups...I am not sure where mine are. But I'm not concerned since I prefer the earphones without them.

Conclusion
As far as sound quality and slippage, even though my review on this other product is not the best, when I want to do something like work out or be on the go and don't need great sound quality I actually turn to my iPod earbuds with Acoustibuds on them (you can look up my review on the Acoustibuds). At least there's more bass, and they completely stay in my ears while working out (have not tried these Philips while working out, though). They also are more comfortable. But for hearing music in good quality, I stick with Sony headphones (I also have a review of that here somewhere). Since getting the Acoustibuds, these earphones basically just lay around now. But hey, at least they were cheap (about $15) and they still work after the amount of time I've had them.