Intro
The perrenial champ for iPhone sound is still the (pricey) combination of the Shure MPA and SE530, but for most that’s not the right solution. The requests pile up: Voice Control and good sound at $100. And still, there’s few solutions.

v-moda has been in the earphone industry for a couple of years and while we’ve never delivered a lengthy review on TheMacFeed, that’s not to say we haven’t heard some of their earphones. At first, classifying v-moda as a form over function company was not a problem, but with the Remix line, v-moda promised a focus on clarity in their redesign. It was a breadth of fresh air as far as we were concerned as to say they were lacking in that area in their prior attempts would not be an understatement by any stretch of the imagination.

Out of the Box
There were a lot of shocking moments at first. It starts with the shipping, which was next day. Next was the competition of how much v-moda could stuff in the packaging. The list is pretty comprehensive: detachable earhooks, seven pairs of tips, a carrying pouch and the earphones. v-moda offers an interesting warranty program with their products – including a traditional two-year warranty and a the ability to replace them at 50% of the cost for the life of the earphones, which isn’t a bad deal in our books.

Design
Without a doubt the design is unique. It’s a rubber cable with a recessed tip that includes a flush controller/mic unit that resembles a lengthy pill at the y-connection. Each bud is a combination of black plastic and semi-polished chrome. Still, the leightweight buds seem more reminiscent of a modern era car trim than of earphones. The recessed cables continue onto the buds themselves as the connectors on each of the buds angles slightly further then 90 degrees outwards. There are a few markers printed on each earphone: tiny v-moda text logos adorn the front, while the ends feature solely the v printed on the buds themselves and the insides feature the L/R identifiers

Isolation
You get seven pairs of tips. If you can’t find the right size, you probably aren’t going to have much better look with any IEM. Furthermore, it’s the same tips that are used on about 90% of the industry, so finding replacements to the seven included shouldn’t be that hard. v-moda claims to have combined new material with the Bass Level Isolating Soft Silicone (BLISS) to provide better isolation. While we’d be intrigued as to the isolation performance absent this technology, with it – you get high quality isolation. The style used by Shure and Westone is still top notch in our book, but the difference between those two and v-moda is minimal. While most IEMs block out the vast majority of external noise when music is playing, the v-modas block out a significant amount without sound playing from the earphones, which for users who enjoy music at significantly lower volumes will be a huge plus.

Comfort
We found the sport earhooks to be of use, although it’s not as if the Remix Remotes struggled to stay in our ears anymore then any other IEM. At 17 grams it’s not that hard to forget that the v-modas are in your ears, however it’s not the floating sensation that is produced by some. We wear them for hours with no problem, but that’s just us. Like we said before: You get seven pairs of tips. If you can’t find the right size, you probably aren’t going to have much better look with any IEM.

The Mic
Normally the quality of the mics replicates Apple’s stock buds. For once we really feel like our call quality was improved significantly. The mics ability to pick up our voice in isolation was an unexpected feature that led to us using the v-modas way more then we had planned. Omni-directional? Perhaps. Even if that’s an overstretch, the mic drastically improves call quality, which is good enough in our books. Furthermore, the inline controls and support for Voice Control are features, as we mentioned, not found in most earphones. In addition to iPhone support, the remix remote earphones are both Skype and iChat compatible. If you’d like to Skype Daniel, his info is on the contact page.

Sound
It’s June. June is a big month for us. Quite a few anticipated albums dropped, including one by Marshall Mathers. Hence, these were put through quite a host of genres in various places. From the get go, the emphasis on clarity became apparent. The headphones are aggressive, but not ambitious. Rather then simply reigning in the low-end, v-moda’s approach seemed more to imrpove the quality of the highs and mids while taking a different approach to the low-end. The result is an earphone that falls somewhere in between what people want to hear and what people should hear.

Highs
They are clear and perhaps even vibrant. On delicate songs like U2’s “All I Want Is You” they avoid fall ill to added warmth. For the most part the underappreciated highs deliver the clarity needed to compliment the more dynamic mids and lows. Still, when called upon to deliver an array of highs, such as when the Gorilllaz are played, they prove to be a worthy asset of the Remixes. At times on the extreme deep upper-ends where a lot of earphones just gave out, the Remixes tried and their 9mm neodymium drivers delivered a harshness.

Mids
These headphones aren’t balanced, but it’s not the mids’ fault by any stretch of the imagination. They are clear, yet vibrant. Slightly warm, but still incredibly accurate. They embody what is the concluding characterization of the earphones: a balance of accuracy and pleasure or at least a combination of the two. Transitions weren’t necessarily as graceful as we would have hoped, but they were clean. The mids are the last thing that need revision as far as we are concerned. Rather then being bold, they are consistent. Rather then overextending, they perfect what is needed. And at the end of the day, they are the last thing one would complain about it.

Lows
Dynamic? Yes. Balanced? No. We are a fan of being a tad bit bassy and while this more then tolerable, it does challenge are comfort zone. But in a lot of ways, the low-end is the most spectacular part of the earphone – there’s no denying that it’s the most exciting, one wouldn’t need to state the obvious. It’s worth marveling at. For example, the length of each strike on the low-end is absolutely incredible. The various types of bass from punch to pop highlight was a phenomonal rendition of all the low-end. Is it overpowering? Oddly no. More importantly, the bass didn’t destroy any of the songs that didn’t benefit from the additional low-end.

In the End
We have some odd thoughts regarding the sound, but at the end of the day we really enjoy it. We still haven’t heard the Klipsch earphones, but the bar has been rasied – quite high in our opinion. Let’s face it, most of you aren’t going to have your iPhone filled with lossless tracks played through your portable amp and for those of you that do – these aren’t for you. But for the rest of the world that is looking for high-quality earphones with all the bells and whistles at $100 – you’ve got a solution. The v-moda Remix Remote earphones are avaiable at a variety of retailers and directly from v-moda at $99.99.

Note: While we haven’t heard the oppurtunity to listen to the v-moda Remix Audio, our understanding is that it’s the same earphone minus the mic/volume controls.

Related posts:

1. Review: Wicked Little Buds
2. Review: thinksound rain
3. Review: Wicked Empire (Bones)

Out of the Box
Of course we don’t have a video. I mean, why would we keep up with anything. Anyways, you get the headphones, two different cord (more on that later), a 1/4 inch adaptor and a soft carrying case. Burn-in didn’t seem to have much effect on the headphones. The bass settled down a tad bit after the first listening session and the highs increased ever so slightly, but for the most part these changes were minimal and easily could just be our lapse in memory.

Design
Retro with quite a bit going on. The cups, which are relatively small for housing 40mm drivers are lime plastic. On the left, a tiny “é” and on the right “eskuché.” The chrome grills that adorn each side are one of the few features that separate these and another headphone we are reviewing besides performance. (That review is coming, we think) Similar to the Panasonic RP-HTX7, cotton cords run from the cups up through the headband. Metal wire allows for you to adjust the height of each side and the plastic pieces that connect the joints to the headband feature left/right identifiers. The left also features an interesting “dznd[n]LA” text on the inside. That’s “Designed in L.A.” for the over forty crowd. The headband is thin leather and metal wire. The thin wire runs above the headphone and doesn’t actually make contact with the head, although it does help the whole retro thing. A one-inch cord runs below the left cup and serves as the connection point for one of the two included cords.

The Mic
There are two cords included: one with a mic and the other with a unicorn. Okay, the latter is not true, just trying to see if you were paying attention. The mic worked with our iPhone and MacBook Pro. Eskuché claims it works with a host of other devices and we see no reason to doubt them. Call clarity was what we expect and if nothing else, it can serve as an extension for the other cord. The unicorn cord is the same cloth cord sans microphone and with a L-shaped tip, instead of a straight one.

Comfort
We aren’t really sure how to classify these headphones. They aren’t around-ear, at least for our huge ears. Yet they go around almost all of our ears, even if they are pretty tiny for the around-ear segment. In the end, comfort and isolation tells us these are probably around-ear. They aren’t the most comfortable around-ear we have had in our possession, but it’s not discomforting enough to prevent us from wearing these for long hours. These stayed onto our head like they were glued which is always a plus. In addition, their light weight isn’t going to detract from the score. The pads could have been bigger, we think, and they could have been more comfortable, but they get the job done.

Isolation
No debate here, these are around-ear. It’s not as good as some of the top of the line around-ear models, but there’s no point trying to put this in the on-ear category. For the most part noise stays out and quite honestly better then we thought it would. The one are isolation struggles is keeping the sound in, but these are still airplane safe as far as we are concerned.

Sound

We have two playlists: one is hip-hop, one is everything else. These two playlists of lossless masterpieces (yes, “A Milli” is a masterpiece) serve as the basis for our critical listening. With the creation we were given from Eskuché, we were almost entirely limited to the former. Sure, there were a couple of songs that didn’t get transformed into unbareable renditions. Bob Dylan’s “Shelter From the Storm” was still relatively humble and not reminiscent of a Lil Wayne performance, but in general it was difficult for us to acknowledge that most of the music from the latter playlist was being represented in a correct way.

Highs
There are highs? That’s probably not the right way to start this off. Unfortunately, that’s sort of our feelings. They are lost behind the mids and the thunderous bass. At times, we got a decently sharp high, but for the most part they were plain. The accuracy in the lower-high region was by far the best in the upper-ranges. The highs had a unique crispness, it’s not something we want to disticinctively classify as good or bad, but it’s unique and clearly something we struggle to describe. Vocals emerged when called upon, but it was nothing to rave about. Still the overall sound we are left with leads us to wonder what to do with the highs.

Mids
We are going to go out on a limb: the mids are the problem. No, it’s not the fact that the bass literally pushes the headphones off your ears – it’s the mids. The mids offer pretty good clarity, but that’s the problem it’s just not as good as it could be. Clarity is consistent, detail is missing. It doesn’t help that the low-end seeks to redefine excitement. The detail is missing to an extent, but it’s still pretty good. (If you want, we’ll repeat that again) The mid-range is still rather bass-heavy, but that’s just the complexion of the headphone in general.

Lows
And here we go. Overwhelming. The bass literally pushes the headphone off your ears. The overall spectrum of the low-end is full with added thumpings on the mid and low range. Bass guitarists will enjoy the added bass as they become front and center. There were some problems. If you aren’t playing hip-hop (or anything else bass-heavy) there are quite a few. “Two Coins” by Dispatch was shreaded apart by the overextension of the bass. For the record, we at TheMacFeed don’t believe that acoustic songs are supposed to shake. Sprinsgteen’s “Jesus Was an Only Son” also fell victim to the bass. “Empire State of Mind” was a different story. Seriously, these things really want to redefine the definition of bass-heavy.

The majority of headphones we get our hands on our bass-centric, it’s just the nature of the business we suppose. But it’s odd. Even some of our favorites remain contained enough to allow for the less bass-focused genres to be enjoyed, they have control. Apparently Eskuché was going for irony when it came to the whole naming process. Bassgalore. Bassfest. Bassparty. Basscentric. Bassheaven. Call it what you want, you get the idea. We actually first chuckled once we heard the sound. We were happy.

In The End
We wonder what would happen if the bass was turned down. B.o.B’s “The Kids” starts with immense quality, then at the fifteen second mark: bass. The clarity drops a notch and while the rendition is still pretty good, it definitely was a decline. There was a lot of problems with the overall mix of sound, U2’s “40″ had cymbols massively devalued, while the moderate guitars have an overexaggerated presence. One side-note, the headphones do work better with the extra power, not to say that they aren’t going to shock you via your iPhone or anything. In the end, we like these. You have to know what you are getting, but if you want to feel dirty induldging in that extra low-end, these are a great place to start. In addition, the iPhone features make the $60 price a whole lot easier to swallow.

*Note, these currently are not available from eskuché’s store. They are available elsewhere it seems and there is no technical difference between these and the rest of the Control line, just colors – at least to our knowledge. We are also unsure if the massive amount of stickers we received are limited to orders directly from eskuché.

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1. Review: Muse The Disc Jockey
2. Review: Urbanears Plattan
3. Some Thoughts on Headphones

All it took was one pass of Clarence Clemons’ sax through our Shure SE530s for us to tell you that you need the DPS Plug-In. Anytime you decide that you are going to somehow make the SE530s better, we are going to call you names and make fun of you, but if for some miraculous reason you do acheieve what you set out to do, all we can do is tip our hats and swallow awards. Case & point: the DPS Plug-In. And remember, if you don’t believe us, there’s a free trial.

What was your background before Bongiovi?
I’m a musician first and foremost. I started as a musician when I was thirteen and that was in 1967, so I’ve been in the music community for quite a long time. I started my recording studio here in Port St. Lucie in 1996 as a development studio and that’s how I met Tony (Bongiovi) and how this whole thing with Bongiovi Acoustics got started. I worked with a couple of national acts and that’s how we got together. Concurrent to that I also do systems development. I’ve always been in the technology field, doing consulting for that community and I always had an interest in digital recording and all things digital…so my background is multi-discipline in this regard and I’ve done audio engineering in my studio.

How did Bongiovi Acoustics get started?
When we first started this company, it originally was an entertainment company since everyone in our company has a music industry background as either a player or engineer. We started back in 1999, as an entertainment content company and as of course as we all know, the record industry is a mere shadow of what it used to be. In 2003, we revisited the analog circuit that eventually became the Digital Power Station plug-in, the originally analog box that Tony had built in 1982 when he had this concept. We pulled that box out of the closet and cranked it up and we found that it did amazing things to audio. At the time when Tony was originally developing it, the DSP technology was really in its infancy and it wasn’t until the late-1990s/early-2000s that the DSP technology really came to the fore with enough horsepower and built-in math functions to really make it an economically feasible platform to do the processing that we do. We embarked in that mission in 2003 and we started with automotive because we figured that was a good place to start because everyone complains about their car stereos and we branched out from there. As part of the development process for our various platform products, the plug-in was a natural byproduct because it gave us the ability to test these various profiles.

How did you guys decide to expand into the medium of computer audio (from car audio)?
It was by accident. The concept is relatively different in that we assume that the mechanical pieces (speakers, amplifiers, etc.) can do a function, regardless of what the function is. From zero to x, somewhere in there is the quality spectrum for a speaker/amplifier combination. As you know, most people agonize over the engineering of the components. Tony’s vision, when he engineered this, was the reverse of that: let’s take and adapt the content (the program material) to the environment, rather than the other way around. Most manufacturer’s view this as taboo because everybody assumes the thing that you hear on the disk is the artist’s vision. That’s true. However, we all know that they listen to them on expensive studio monitors in a pristine environment that few people can replicate that in their home – so there is always some form of alteration of what the artist heard in the studio to what gets played back in a typical home system, whether it’s the most expensive or the cheapest thing you can buy. So, given those assumptions, Tony was looking for a way to, in real-time, essentially to do what the mastering engineer does when he is fine-tuning and mastering the final product – to match the product to the medium. So that was the premise the product came from. Once we had the analog box with all discrete electronics, circuit boards and that kind of stuff – it was far too expensive to manufacturer. I think the component price was somewhere around $2500 if you had to buy all the pieces: the resistors, the capacitors and the ICs. It was just too expensive to commercially manufacturer for the average consumer to plug into their system.

We picked cars because, at the time, Tony was doing some consulting for 3M for marine acoustics products that he developed and was traveling quite a bit. He has a very unusual background, he is a recording engineer, an acoustic engineer and a record producer rolled up into one package and it’s a very unusual combination. It was by virtue of the acoustic engineering discipline that he was doing consulting and renting a lot of small cars to drive to the various consulting jobs. He was renting various small cars like a Dodge Neon or a Chevrolet Avero – and finding that the stereos were horrible. You probably have had rental cars or small cars and don’t pay any attention to the stereo system. So, he thought this would be a really great place for this technology because the only alternative is to go to Best Buy, Sound Advice or some high-end stereo place and spend $1500-$2000 to get a nice stereo system. So we picked cars, took the analog box, put converters in a rental car and had to deal with all kinds of noise issues – it was quite a challenge, but it worked. We got interest in Detroit and that was when we decided to make the jump to digital – we had interest from a market – it was cars. We designed a circuit board and at the time based it on a TI DSP, a mirror of what the analog box did and we contacted a digital programmer in Gainesville, Dr. Glenn Zelniker. He started in the whole digital realm when it was in its infancy. He was a professor at the University of Florida and he is also a mastering engineer in the musical field. A lot of digital software tended to be kind of harsh back then because it was still 16-bit it was more sort of stair steps then a curve when they were redoing the frequency regeneration. He was able to prototype for us on this piece of hardware. But we found it kind of cumbersome to work with. He said, how about if I give you a computer interface to tune and prototype with where you could just feed an audio stream either from the Mac hard disk or from CD or other sources; process it using the Intel processor in the Mac computers and then spit it back out in the speakers or the headphone jack. We said fantastic because it would give us a portable platform that gave us a consistent and repeatable interface from which to work. So it was kind of the precursor to what the plug-in became. As we began to branch off from cars into other fields, we would use this tuning program for pretty much everything. We’ve tuned everything from cars to transducers for overhead headliner systems; we’ve even tuned coffee cans with transducers because the technology has so much power. You have something like 60 dB in cut or gain in any one frequency and 16 bands of parametric EQ to play with and 120 different calibration points between dynamic sections and ways that we can manipulate the audio signal coming in – so we can have surgical precision in the tunings. So we have experimented with lots of things. One of our fun demos was we had a pair of speakers we bought from Radio Shack for $4 each, mounted them in cardboard boxes and put them on the table and use the tuning program to demonstrate how good we could make them sound. If you take your time and you tune your speakers, you can make them sound like several hundred dollar speakers. By subjectively listening and knowing what you are listening for, you can tune them quite well.

Anyway, the plug-in itself was sort of a byproduct of that tuning program because we kept using it everywhere and since it is patented, we wanted customers to be able to experience the difference with their own devices to better understand what our value proposition was with the product we built-into to their devices. We developed the plug-in as something that we could leave because it worked with pre-existing profiles that we did for that particular device, and it could be toggled it on or off anytime as desired. So we just kind of glossed it up a bit to make it more stylistic for a demo platform. We have a lot of young people in our office and studios who use Macs and they told us that this would be a great product for their computer as well. So we said, let’s go with it and see if we can commercialize it. We then added a nice wrapper and modified the interface to provide the user with a complement of tools to manage their plug-in. We also started looking into how we wanted to handle the multitude of different devices (speakers and heaphones.) We decided that we could develop a library of profiles over time depending on needs. If someone says, “hey, I got a pair of JVC VM361 headphones” and if there’s enough interest for that device – we’ll go buy a pair, we’ll tune them and now that’s part of our permanent database. There is a feature in the plug-in tool menu that allows the user to check our on-line database for new profiles. These custom profiles take best advantage of those headphones/speakers and then for those who aren’t as discriminating to what they are listening to, there is a series of universal ones.

Okay, time for a shorter question… What’s your favorite part of the DPS Plug-In?
It’s portability. It depends on how you are asking me. As a business person my answer is: it’s a great way I can show someone what my technology can do. My personal listening: it’s flexibility. Because I have a bunch of different devices (speakers/headphones) that I listen to here in my office. The fact that I change it on the fly and use the same interface and screen this and the fact that I can just chose what profile I want is magical. I love that. I can then make it be anything I want it to be.

How would you differentiate the DPS Plug-In from other iTunes plug-ins like SRS Labs’ iWow?
Before we decided to launch this as a commercial venture we looked at the competition out there and of course SRS was pretty much the one and only product except for the EQ you get in iTunes. We found that most these processors, once you’ve set it, is passive sort of one size fits all. There is a very different mixing paradigm when you mix a movie versus mixing a record. A record is mixed on my stereo, close proximity monitoring and all that. A movie is done in a large movie theater with a console to hit the sweetspot and you have a lot of room for air and sound to fill up and then you put it on a DVD and then you stream it, movies go to heck in a handbasket pretty quick because it’s not designed to be played back in a small space. So with iWow and others, it’s fairly passive – it doesn’t do a lot of adapting to content. You find something that works, like a Swiss Army knife. It works generally well and that’s about that. Since we are actually readapting the content to the listening environment we have a much broader base from which to work and the results can be more profound. We are not only providing perceived audio enhancement, but also are able to work with the leveling control. Since we are tuning it subjectively, our baseline are certain records that have digital maximum – we kind of set threshold where our loudest piece in a theoretical record. So we are doing a leveling as well as an EQ to adapt the content to what the speakers are capable of doing and at the same time also making sure that the speakers do not exceed their mechanical limits.

What is the future like for the DPS Plug-In?
We are working on an audio product that can work at the full system level. There is a lot of content out there in different places other than iTunes. So we have identified that in our roadmap and the next release will be a broad-based plug-in that runs on all audio on the Mac and also for Windows as well.

What was the product that you noticed had the biggest difference with the DPS Plug-In?
The 17″ is really profound compared to on and off. We are very fortunate, one of our engineers works in New York City. It has a relationship with a company that sells a lot of Apple computers. We were able to sit down with every notebook, Cinema Screen Display and the whole nine yards. That’s how we did all of our original tuning for Apple specific devices. It was neat to hear them all in the same day. They are all very different. The unibody machines sound very different then the Titanium ones like the MacBook Pro while on the 13″ MacBook the speakers are just so small. The difference is notable, but not as dramatic as the MacBook Pro. One of the things we have always had discussions on in-house was: What do people listen on more? The machine itself or external devices. So we’ve been experimenting with a bunch of external portable speakers. Personally, I bought the iHome IHM79 $49 capsule speakers. I found that for the price they are very effective portable speakers. If I were asked what would I want to have for a traveling companion for the field, it would be: a MacBook Pro (17) because it has three speakers – two speakers and something near the front you could call a speaker and then those iHome speakers for the price. It’s got really nice low-end and real nice characteristics and they are very portable because they are very small.

How do you use the DPS Plug-In on a daily basis?
When I have to do demos, I use a regular Samson headphone amp that you would use in a studio just to match the impedance because often times what happens when you do a closed turning system like we do on the Mac, the minute you move away from devices specifically designed to work off the headphone/speak port (such as conventional eight ohm speakers) weird things happen. You probably saw the same thing when you pulled the audio out and directed it to an external amp, you can get some variations due to the mismatch of impedance and such things. So, I use a headphone amp because I’ve used it in a studio and I’m comfortable with it. (Joe then tries to find it) It’s got two channels in, what you would use as a headphone mixer, I’d use it quite often when I’m profiling exotic materials. I’ve got automotive headliner material that I sticky tape transducers to and then play through iTunes and it sounds phenomenal for a piece of foam backed cardboard. The design of the foam that is attached to the cardboard part of the headliner is very constant in terms of structure so it resonates low-end very consistently across the surface. I typically use a pre-amp to get enough power these digital cardboard speakers.

I don’t know if you noticed or not in the iMac, there’s a limiter built into it. When you get to a certain point in volume, there’s a hard limiter in there that starts clamping down on the audio and makes tuning a real nightmare because as you are trying to apply gain in a controlled manner it’s pushing it down in an uncontrolled manner. So I found that the most consistent thing to do with the Apple products (since they do have some sort of protection built into the circuitry anyway) is to stay in their closed loop i.e. products designed as headphones/speakers for a computer, this way you get predictable results. If you go outside the closed loop, you can lose the predictability and you have to be more sophisticated in the sense that you need to tweak it to accommodate any differences you may run into.

How long does it take to make a profile?
The algorithm is the same regardless of what device you use. Typically there are two parts to the profile: controlling the gain structure, which is determined by the amplifier side of things and the sound sculpting. We have a dynamic section that we use to breakdown the material from audio to voltages and deal with the gain issues. Then we rebuild it and so that we can accommodate the playback device. When you are in a world like the Mac, the circuitry is fairly consistent in terms of the amplifier, however the number of speakers (and placement) vary. So once we have the device, (when we are doing something in the Apple family) usually we can tune the it within an hour or less because it’s pretty much fine tuning something that we are already familiar with and adjust from there. We also always A/B (process on, process off) as a reference. If we are doing a set of cup headphones for example, if you are just tuning them straight by themselves it’s hard to know what you are shooting for – you don’t have a goal. The rest of the process is a subjective thing. We tune to a broad section of music (usually to urban or dance because it’s the most bass intensive) and that’s usually the biggest challenge. With this type of music, you have a load of frequency response to deal with and care must be taken so that we can tweak the low-end to be solid, tight punchy and not compromise anything else (mids, highs etc). Focusing on the mids and the highs is the easy part, while the low frequency, particularly in a small device like an earbud, becomes more challenging because the speaker can’t move very far and is constrained by its container. Tuning external speakers is a little different, because with some of the wireless speakers the bandwidth of the transceiver becomes a limiting factor. Rarely do we agonize about something for more than an hour and a half. Usually it’s that last two percent that you are agonizing over. If it’s a very exotic piece like a DJ rig where you have a lot more volume then you might agonize a lot more as there is more to work with relative to the speaker’s ability to perform.

How can user’s get there device added to the list of profiles?
If there is device that a user would like us to profile, just ask. We will consider tuning just about anything within reason. We have a set of SE530s on order. I’m hoping to have them on tomorrow. (Charlie then brags about the SE530, talks about the SE535s, later in the week Bongiovi uploaded the profile. Joe does refer to them as the “holy grail”) We thought about going out and buying 50 or 60 pairs of headphones. But then we thought, we could spend money until we explode until we get everyone’s wishes done. So we did a series of ‘universal profiles’ as benchmarks and then said let’s see what kind of feedback we get from our users. That’s why we love the forum we can find out what people are actually using and we get a request that makes sense we’ll happily go out and buy them and put them up the next day. Hopefully by then, we’ll be able to fill all the holes of what people are using both high-end and low-end. Obviously, the low-end is a lot easier to get, high end ones become a bit more challenging because of availability. That’s how we wound up doing the Dre Beats and the Gagas because someone in France asked if we could do them. But if someone asks we’d be happy to do what we can.

The rest of the interview was a discussion of the recording industry, Charlie’s love of KRK studio monitors and a lot of other audio things that you may or may not be interested in.

We thank Bongiovi Acoustics, particularly Joe for all of his time. Most of the headphones that we review in the future should have profiles for the DPS Plug-In.

Related posts:

1. Video Review: DPS Plug-In by Bongiovi Acoustics
2. Review: Bongiovi Acoutics Digital Power Station Plug-In
3. Interview with Matt Engstrom

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Giveaway ends May 3, 2010 11:59 PM EST.

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Out of the box
Yay! Unboxing video. Yay! Stickers. Inside the box Muse includes the headphones and stickers. Definitely a plus for us. As for the part you care about. The bass emerges a tad bit more after some burn-in. The mid to high transitions also benefited from just a simple ten hour burn-in. The differences seemed to stop after that, but we still gave them the normal 100 hours.

Design
Flash back to the 70s, these are about as retro as they come. Round rectangular cups house the 40mm drivers in orange plastic. Thin metal wires connect it to the leather headband. The top features the Muse logo, while the sides feature left right identifiers. An extra long heavy-duty 2.1 meter nylon cord runs to a gold tip. It appears as if the only color offered is orange, but it’s playoff basketball season and the Suns are playing. Absolutely no complaints. We aren’t fond of the cord though, it’s too long.

Comfort & Isolation
By far the most comfortable on-ear headphone we have tried in a while. The pads are soft and the curved dome the drivers rest in provide an incredibly unique finish. Wearing them at an angle proved to provide the best sound and fit for us, although staying on is a definitive issue. Isolation is not what you would get out of a more traditional headphone, but still quite impressive for an on-ear headphone. We wore them for hours without discomfort, only annoyance at the fact we had to adjust them constantly when we moved our head around in any significant manner. In terms of noise-leaks, we probably wouldn’t use them on an airplane, but they aren’t as bad as one would think.

Sound
We’ve already professed our love for on-ear headphones and in the end it’s all about sound. Sure, they tend to be uncomfortable, tend to not stay on and tend to leak sound – but the largest problem has always been the sound. Shockingly, Muse managed to dispel much of these problems. The sound is clear and mellow and definitely mid-centric; but it’s not bad. Unlike most the other on-ear headphones we’ve gotten to try the sound comes off pretty clear and the soundstage is something that doesn’t have to be a point of pain. Still… these are far from perfect.

Highs
It’s a hard call as to if this is the largest problem, but it’s definitely a large one. Pretty quickly there is a pretty noticeable decline in detail in the upper ranges. Still, Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” goes off pretty much without a problem. The headphone has some blissful moments in the lower-high range, where it finds a nice subtle sweetspot on quite a few songs. We put it through a pretty brutal test when it comes to the trying to draw out harshness in the highs and it passed admirably. Still, even pretty quickly into the middle of the upper spectrum, the detail evaporates from the sound. It’s not that the sound becomes muddled, rather a combination of an overall decrease in quality combined with the simple lack of some of the spectrum leaves us questioning the highs.

Mids
It’s mid-centric. And while we think it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the imbalance creates a headphone that is almost purely mid-range, the negative connotation ignores much of the intricacies of the sounds. The mid-range is generally incredibly detailed. Vocals and instruments are heard with amazing quality, yet it’s not utopia. There is a general lack of depth on the lower-mid side and a slight lack of richness across the entire middle. Still, clarity is pretty incredible. Unlike the highs, the mids stay fairly consistent throughout perhaps a tad bit more impressive on the upper-mid section. Fittingly, the transition between the mids and highs is incredibly smooth.

Lows
Unexciting is one way to put it. The largest problem is bass has little presence. Few songs had bass at normal levels and really only Kanye West’s “Heartless” brought out any of the low-end easily. The bass never made itself into a force that made its presence known. The low-end can be heard okayish, but the feeling is completely missing. There is no doubt that bass leak is a problem, but it doesn’t solve the problems outlined. Detail in the low-end is okay, but the lack of bass presence leads us to call this in need of richness.

In the End
It’s unclear what we want to say. The clarity is a breath of fresh air, all we had to do was put on another pair of on-ear headphones to find that out. However, the sound isn’t our favorite. There is little dynamics to the low-end and it’s problematic. Still, Muse managed to create an on-ear headphone that provided decent isolation and comfort and had a good start on the sound. Yet, we still want the spectrum to expand on the upper end, but particularly on the low-end. The Disc Jockey can be had directly from Muse for around $45.

32Reviews32Days (31/32)

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Out of the Box
In case you didn’t get to see the first review in the couple hours it was up: the IESW100Bs are wooden IEMs with a microphone that features the ability to play/pause and change songs. Our recollection of the packaging seems to point to no changes. Since you don’t know what was in the first review, we’ll tell you we got the earphones, four different size tips and a carrying case. You can watch us unbox the other generation, it’s really the same idea.

Design
Much of this is a lot different the second time around, but the earphones didn’t get any smaller. The most noticeable feature is still the wood, followed closely by the size. Inside is the same 10mm driver found on the Gen 1, but the casing is completely different. First, the second generation is much more natural looking and feeling. Unlike the prior generation, the logos didn’t fade at all and the silver plastic was replaced by metal. In addition to a stronger cable, the tip receives metal housing and gold plating, as opposed to the silver on the first generation. The back still features a left/right identifier and the right side still features a microphone the same mic about three inches down.

Second Impressions?
It’s not really a first impression this time around. Given the general confusion our first review left, we decided to spend twice the amount of time with the new earphones and attempt to give a more conclusive review. While the externals changed, the story on the internals is that they are the same and therefore the sound should be the same. Rather then attempting to amend what was written before, we started with a clean slate and we think we have our thoughts a little bit better this time around.

Comfort & Isolation
iConnects includes four tips, which means comfort shouldn’t be a struggle. In terms of isolation we’d say they do a good job. It’s definitely not the best seal we have gotten, but it does block out most outside noise. These earphones are a featherweight as far as we are concerned and that means a couple of times we forgot we were wearing them. However, the overall size means most the time we were pretty aware that they were in our ears. After long use, they became uncomfortable, but that’s not to be unexpected. Even using tips that we would find a tad bit larger then normal for our ears, we noticed that they slide around quite a bit. This means that there were numerous times in which they ended up resting at some fairly interesting angles, but isolation remained pretty consistent.

Mic
The microphone sits about three inches off the right ear. It’s small and rectangular, similar to Apple’s. We haven’t used a whole lot, but the call quality is as good as we can tell. The isolation from the earphones creates an odd experience at first, but after a while you get used to it. The mic allows for play/pause, skipping as well as answer/hang-up. It doesn’t have the volume controls that some models do, but it does allow for play/pause and skipping on current Macs.

Sound
Before you read the next three paragraphs, remember three simple facts. First, these are incredibly accurate at the price range and perhaps the most accurate with a mic. Second, the detail isn’t something to complain about either, rather a feature to embrace, particularly in the mids. Finally, these are a different animal for the price range. As opposed to being bass-heavy, these are about as balanced as you are going to find at this price. Put all that together? You get the idea. Now for the not so fluffy stuff…

Highs
After using these for thirteen straight days, taking a one day break and then using them again for another day while writing this review we think we have a fairly good grasp on these earphones – they are harsh. We understand this is a complete contradiction to the prior review, but that’s the truth. It took us a bit of time, but reality became clear. When vocals began to move higher and higher are face began to cringe more and more. The detail in the vocals is definitely there, just with a side of over-extension. It’s unfortunate because in the extremes of trebles, it’s oddly not as harsh as some of the lower highs, but unfortunately quite a few songs fell victim at points to the highs.

Mids
We previously proclaimed U2’s “40″ to begin absolutely beautifully via the Woodees and they do, until the harsh vocals emerge. It’s not to say that the harshness isn’t absent in the mid-range, because there is some, but it’s more contained. We feel the mids could use a greater presence, but overall this is fairly good. Our favorite part of the mid-range is the immense detail that blows away competitors at the price range. We wouldn’t call the harshness subtle, but it’s not even close to the effect on the highs. The dead center of the mid range is about as perfect as it gets, so props iConnects.

Lows
The mids and the lows are about as perfect in tandem as you are going to find. While we enjoy a tad bit warmer bass, purists will rejoice at the concept of balance. As the bass pumped out at the beginning of “Empire State of Mind”, the real reason why we had to take the earphones out was the highs. The detail isn’t as good as the mids, but it’s still quite amazing. For anyone looking to give up Skull Candy’s, but fearing the lack of low-end; fear not my friends. There is definitely a difference between the performance of the punchy bass versus and the humming lows. The latter definitely struggle more. There is a tad bit of a lag through much of the humming-style bass, where as the punchy bass is incredibly accurate in terms of response with distortion only coming at the heaviest of songs.

So In Review
The culprit is the highs. After spending a lot of time figuring out the soundstage, we came to the conclusion that we were under the influence when we wrote the first review. The soundstage is fine: not spectacular, but not in disarray as we had once proclaimed. As for the richness, purists might moan, but it would make these a who lot better to enjoy. Still, after all our moaning, these are good. We can deal with some harsh highs in exchange for accuracy and quality; and we’ll take that trade any day of the week. As for burn-in, it’s definitely worth it. After 100 hours, the sound is significantly smoother, although much of the flaws cannot be overcome. In addition, the low-end warmed a tad bit and the mids seems to settle down.

And In Conclusion
We’ll quote ourselves from earlier:

The reality is: as sound quality increases, unless you make a brilliant headphone, we are going to nitpick at problems. If you make a bad headphone, we are going to try to justify the sound.

When you look back on it: isolation, wood, mic and sound quality – you’d be crazy to not drop $50 on a pair of Woodees earphones. Sure, we’d do some tuning to make them a tad bit more enjoyable, but accuracy wise – there’s nothing. There are a lot of things you can waste money on and $49.99 on a pair of Woodees from Amazon is not one of them.

32Reviews32Days (12/32)

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Out of the Box
Hey look, it’s stop motion. Hey look, it’s that awful music Daniel picks out. Anyways, like normal – what’s in our box is a tad bit different then what you will get, but Muse puts in a host of goodies in the box of The Athlete. Inside you’ll find the earphones, the assorted tips, a soft leather pouch and a Muse sticker.

Design
It’s a tad bit unorthodox, but it’s still an earphone. The clear silicone tips are fitted onto hard white plastic with hints of metal accents. The outside features a tiny Muse logo, while the inside has he left/right identifiers. The most notable feature is the 1.2m nylon cord that ends with a nickel tip. Pictures don’t really capture the unique housing the 10mm drivers rest in, but we tried our best.

Comfort & Isolation
Call us crazy, but we would think that an earphone marketed for exercise would excel in comfort (isolation seems debatable.) Most the time when we get to this part of our review we say that it’s good, but what you get on most. This is not one of those cases. Both are quite bad. We tried as many angles as we could, but for whatever reason we were not blessed with a good fit and therefore the seal wasn’t something to rave about either. We put the blame on the unique design. We imagine the aforementioned had an effect on this as well, but we couldn’t get the headphones to stay in to save our lives, but perhaps you’ll have better luck.

Sound
We generally believe that when it comes to headphones there is a relationship between price, design and sound. When other factors like this headphone is designed for x get mixed into the equation – something suffers. When we were at CES we got to briefly sample a pair of Sennheiser’s newest addition, their athletic headphones. What we got was a fairly decent sound in addition to everything one would seemingly want in a headphone designed to be used during exercise. What we experienced with Muse’s Athlete was not the case. Perhaps we could blame it on the lack of seal, but we’d imagine the problem is deeper.

Highs
To be honest, the problems with the mids and lows make the highs unnoticeable. Sure, they had their harsh moments. At times we wondered where the highs went, but this really was the least of the problems. Still, the lack of richness was embarrassing. Instead of symbols crashing and the beautiful sounds from the strings of violins, we got music that seemed like it wanted to be elsewhere.

Mids
While we would classify them as mainly overly bland, there were times in which we were greeted by an overly artificial sound. The only saving grace for the mids is that they were relatively contained, meaning that acoustic songs didn’t sound as bad as everything else – but then again Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” isn’t exactly our top pick at the pull-up bar. As much as we would like to talk about the lack of soundstage, that’s really beyond the problem.

Lows
Purists would say that we prefer a little bit extra bass and that’s true. What we got with these was quite the opposite. Instead of the muddled sound achieved by obsessive bass at high volumes, we got zero clarity at low volumes. First and foremost we enjoy a clear bass that accurately responds – this was the exact opposite. Kanye West’s “Heartless” was a good way to describe the overall presence of bass. A rundown the list of the hip-hop charts just disgusted us more. Even now the lack of quality and depth in the bass still leaves a bad taste in our mouth.

Parting Thoughts
These were bad. There is no way around it, but just about everything that could go wrong went wrong. The one saving grace might be the soft leather pouch, but we are still attempting to judge headphones based on sound… at least for the time being. The sound was not only unexciting, but lacking richness or detail – somewhat like “super mono mode.” And just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, The Athlete will cost you about $45 directly from Muse.

32Reviews32Days (24/32)

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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.

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Out of the Box
Hate them or love them (because there are plenty that take part in both), Monster knows how to put headphones in boxes. From the Turbines to the Beats by Dre – the packaging is some of the most interesting in the business and its always interesting to see what their experts have created this time. This might sound odd, but the boxes have this unique smell. We aren’t kidding, out of the plastic you are greeted by what our nose tells us is somewhat ocean-breezy? Enough on the smells. Again the words “life is too short to listen to bad headphones!” greet us – yay someone agrees with us. Enough with the victory dances and smell tests. Inside you get the earphones, three different size tips, a clip and a carrying case. You can watch what was one of our worst unboxings below.

Design
These are heavy. And it’s not just these are a tad bit heavier, these are noticeably heavier then nearly any other earphone we have used. The all metal housing features the word “Jamz” across the headphone with a left/identifier on the back and a Monster logo on the front. While neither one of the latter two are noticeable, the blue (left) and red (right) circles that run around the earphones and the (larger) Monster logos on the outside are both easily recognizable. Just like every other cable that claims to have defeated the ills of tangling, the tangle-free rubber cord was no match for our pockets. It’s a traditional y-style cord, that merges into an untraditional cylinder. One note, we got a second pair (and a third pair, more on that next week) from Monster because of a short. We believe that the short was caused because a piece that goes around the base of the tip was not glued on properly and therefore the short developed. While this was not the case with our second pair and we aren’t really sure what happened to the first, we do feel it’s necessary to tell you that. However, we don’t believe this to be a concern and Monster gladly sent us another pair.

Isolation & Comfort
So the latter was are (largest) issue with the Turbines. We could not wear the Turbines for longer then an hour before mass pain ensued, oddly that is not the case with the Jamz. It’s odd because the tips really haven’t changed to our knowledge. There is no noticeable difference in terms of angles or style of wear and because the Jamz are significantly heavier this came to a complete shock. We found them to be pretty comfortable. Because of their weight they do fall out of our ears easier then other headphones, but the included clip solved that problem. We didn’t have a problem with the weight, although prior to testing we thought it was a concern that was valid. In terms of isolation, they are just as good as most universal IEMs. We can’t hear the keyboard that we are typing on right now, but they can’t get rid of all noise. Obviously the thoughts above are completely subjective, but getting a good seal was not that difficult.

Sound
It’s not that we expect every earphone we test to be bass heavy, but given what we knew about Monster’s Turbines – we were a tad bit shocked with what we got in the Jamz. It’s not dead-on accurate or balanced, it’s not contained, nor is it really too much of anything. It was a subtle breath of fresh air given its pricing and position within the crowded Monster line-up and a shattering of our expectations. Burn-in was a bit of an odd phenomenon with the Jamz. We feel the bass mellowed from what originally was an excessively punchy bass, but also increased in volume. The brief burn-in resulted in a slightly more accurate and far more enjoyable sound.

Highs
Definitely the weakest link when it came to the sound, but almost exclusively due to the contrast with the rest of what this earphone gave us. On the most demanding of songs the upper-ranges lacked some of the detail that the mids consistently gave us. Fortunately, the majority of time we were given clear and fitting highs. On Wyclef’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” the vocal highs and abstract instruments placed themselves nearly perfectly within the sound spectrum to create a sound that was memorable.

Mids
The clarity of the mids was something we definitely didn’t expect. What we expected was not accurate, clear or balanced. That’s what we got. While the folks at Monster Cable might not like the following: but we thought the mids were more pleasurable then their Turbines. Vibrant vocals filled our ears and provided us with a listening experience that we didn’t expect. The various guitars and synthesizers of Michael Penn’s “Out of My Hands” complimented the vocals about as well as any earphone in it’s price range.

Bass
Perfect response. Okay, closed to perfect. And not response in terms of frequency, rather: the earphone responded to the way the music was supposed to sound. Kanye West’s “Stronger” gave us a soft, yet punchy bass; Groove Armada’s “Hands of Time” presented us with a subtle bass guitar and constant drums and Lil Wayne’s “A Milli” it was about as contained as a correct representation of the lower end can get with that song. Sure, it’s a tad bit unbalanced, but it’s right in our sweetspot and no song was ever ruined because of the tad bit extra bass, at least not on the Monster Jamz. The detail that we got in the bass was simply one of the best we have ever gotten. Few headphones, let alone earphones give users the ability to really dissect all the intricacies that make up the low-end and these have definitely earned their membership in that exclusive club.

Against the Turbines
There are a lot of reasons why we will tell you to take these headphones over what we presume is there more mature brother, the Turbines. Besides the Turbines being the most uncomfortable thing we ever stuck in our ears, we just like the sound we get from the Jamz better. The Turbines pushed themselves and perhaps too much. With the Jamz, we feel a sort of confidence in what is being presented. Each to their own we suppose, but our advice is to ignore the marketing campaigns and test them side-by-side, especially given they are now in the same price range.

In the End
There are some downsides: the detail in the sound is not as great as it could be and a richness in the mids is missing given what the bass provides; but – the end result is something we enjoyed. Despite our problems, these are made to withstand quite a bit and when you pick these up – you get that. (Monster showed a video of a forklift running over the earphones at CES and they survived, although we aren’t sure if that’s covered under the three-year warranty) However, this is the $100 price range and recommending these at that price is somewhat difficult. It’s not there is a go-to earphone at $100, rather the difference in sound quality between the $60 price range and $100 is not as big as the price. If you are in need of some well-built earphones that have good bass that isn’t too unbalanced – these are probably the frontrunner. You can purchase the Monster Cable Jamz earphones for $99.99 from Amazon.

(32Reviews32Days 15/32)

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