We boldy proclaimed the one product that we wished to spend more time with after CES was not Bluelounge’s Desk (yeah, we want that thing bad.) Actually according to this post, it was actually Pineapple Electronis Rumble K. There were a couple of reasons why. First, these were a totally new headphone technology that we had never even heard of before we got to Vegas. Second, we spent about three minutes with them and it was playing a video game loop – not exactly the way that we would go about testing. We thought the potential was… well limitless and the unfortunate part is, that’s how we feel after getting to spend some quality time with them.

Editor’s Note: The following is not part of 32Reviews32Days. This review was written almost two months ago. Pineapple Electronics requested that we not publish the review due to concerns over the review. While we didn’t revise the review, we waited to publish until all technical concerns were addressed. Pineapple Electronics never followed-up with their concerns and after our repeated failed attempts to contact them, we feel that it’s appropriate to publish the following. -TheMacFeed Staff

Out of the Box:

Inside the box you will find: the earphones, three sizes of silicone tips and a leather carrying pouch. It should be noted that the end (part the silicone tip goes over) is a fairly common one (actually the same one found on Wicked’s Little Buds) so finding another set of tips more suited to your comfort isn’t that difficult. Other then that it is fairly standard as to what’s in the box. You will find some information about Pineapple Electronics’ ten-year warranty – which is always a nice addition.

Design

On first examination these look like your average earbuds. The Rumble K’s house is slightly larger than most earphones. Each bud is composed of a combination of glossy black plastic and a chrome finish. The Pineapple Electronics’ logo (a Pineapple) adorns the end of each bud, while the chrome portion gets the word “Pineapple” wrapped around it. The left and right buds are discreetly identified on the rubber coverings that protect the wire. The fifty-five inch thin black cable served as our largest annoyance. For the most part we see two different cables: the y-cable and the single-side. Earphones use almost exclusively the former, but Pineapple opted for neither, instead they went with an unbalanced. The Rumble K’s feature a single wire that splits into two like a standard y-cable, except rather then both earbuds measuring equal distance, the left measures around seven inches while the right earbud measures around twenty inches from the split. What dose this mean? It means that not only does it look awkward, but the earbuds are often pulled out by either the excess cable or the shorter side.

Comfort

The tips of each bud are angled, but not the way that it would naturally conform to your ear – it’s oddly the opposite. This makes for an awkward fit to say the least. Given their shape they actually stick out of your which only further complicates the problem. We rarely got a seal that we would label good and as we’ve stated in prior reviews, that creates devastating effects when it comes to sound. The awkward fit is more annoying than uncomfortable, but the largest consequence is the adverse impact when it comes to the Rumble K’s staying in our ears. The unbalanced cord didn’t help it all when it came to keeping these headphones in our ears and while we found the silicone tips to be comfortable – none could keep the earbuds in place.

The Technology (Bone Conduction Technology)

What makes these headphones special has nothing to do with the name, but rather the way that they put the sound in your ears. For mid and low-range sound the Rumble K’s produce vibrations that ripple your inner-ear bones. Pineapple cites the implementation to have a couple of unique advantages. First, they claim that the bone conduction transducer allow for the most dynamic surround sound because the sound is no longer compressed like traditional headphones. Secondly, it allows for greater sound without damaging your ear since the waves are only transmitted through the bones. Pineapple claims that this creates a 4D sound – more on that later. (If you want more information, check out Pineapple’s site, which explains it far better then we can.)

Sound

One of the reason’s we made a point to tell you about Pineapple Electronics when it came to recapping all that was CES was because of the potential. We only got to hear the earphones plugged into a video game and we had hoped that when playing music, the Rumble K would reintroduce us to our music library and make us rethink the way we listen (sort of like 3D TV.) After spending some quality time with these, we came to the conclusion that these are probably best served when playing video games or watching action movies. It should be noted that the Rumble K is a hybrid between conventional earphones and Bone Conduction Technology. The upper ranges are still exclusively handled by a traditional driver and some mids are still produced in a traditional nature.

Highs

It’s not good. The lack of seal means that the sound doesn’t get a fair shot from the start. The sound is flat and lifeless and when contrasted to the lows – this only becomes magnified. We wouldn’t classify the sound as muddy, it’s just not there. In general the mids seem to sweep up the highs preventing the notes from being fully articulated.

Mids

You hear mids and feel lows – and this mixture is not the greatest. The mids, like the highs are generally dull, which paired with the lack of bass tones (see below) creates a disappointing sound. The mids are easily heard, but the reproduction is not as clean as we would like. Some mid-range sound is felt via vibration, but it doesn’t seem right. Violins aren’t among the tones that get replicated via bone-conduction, which seems – well illogical.

Lows

It’s odd, on first thought you would think that the bass would be rather dynamic given the vibration that is delivered on your ears – the reality is a bit distorted. Perhaps it’s that we are just traditionalist – but, the sound that is created is rather hollow and it’s because of the lack of bass tones. Because the bass is delivered exclusively via the bone conduction method you don’t hear any bass, you just feel it and this creates a sound that is unique, but not one that is exactly favored by us. When you are listening to music this characteristic becomes overly exposed and we begin to seriously question if this bone conduction thing is a good idea after all. The lack of bass tones mean that you do feel the music, but you can’t hear it and our ears quickly register this as being overly artificial. We have no clue how to measure accuracy when it comes to the bone conduction method, but there were times in which we were unable to truly distinguish the exact nature of the low-end.

We cannot stress enough how devastating the combination turns out to be with the non-existent low-end tones, average highs/mids and vibration all mixing in your ears. The mids deliver the tones that are made to compliment the bass and our ear wonders why there is no bass. This phenomenon occasionally creates situations where the mids and the vibrations seem off-beat. For movies and video games the problem is significantly less noticeable. Gunshots are transformed into new realities while dialogue remains how it normally sounds. Yet, the end result makes us wonder how this technology could ever see a form that would be suitable for our ears.

Our Take On 4-D Sound

It’s odd. Pineapple Electronics claims to have created a 4D sound experience. By no means is the sound stage on 4D scale – it’s more 2D if anything else. The irony of the Rumble K is that the depth is worse then most earphones we test. We find the depth of an earphone to be the most scrutinized quality when it comes to the way we review headphones. While we found Pineapple’s work on the innovative Bone Conduction Technology portion to be good, the more traditional parts of the sound were bad. We feel that creating a more refined mid and upper-range sound is a must.

We Calm Down

We like the idea and we think that this won’t be the last we hear (or feel) about the technology or Pineapple Electronics, but we can’t say that we were impressed. The problem we describe with the pairing of low vibrations with the sounds of mids and highs is not an experience that we would consider pleasurable. Perhaps, we are in the minority? We think the hybridity of the headphone must extend to all parts of the sound spectrum in order for a pleasurable listening experience to exist. You can purchase the Pineapple Electronics Rumble K from Amazon for $79.99.