Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Product Review: V-MODA Earbuds for iPod

If you own an iPod (really, any portable MP3 player) and find the stock earbuds that come packaged with it lacking, I have a great alternative.

'The V-MODA Bass Freq' earbuds. I picked up a pair of these babies for $35 from Amazon about two months ago and they're so far above the listening experience of the stock iPod earbuds it's hard to describe.

If you listen to your iPod with a pair of unpowered earbuds, you'll find these little guys to be the single best investment of $35 you can make to improve your listening experience.


(Sexy earbuds)

I listen to my iPod, through earbuds, for about 6 hours everyday at work. Anyone that has worked with me knows this isn't an exaggeration. I listen to a wide range of music, podcasts, vidcasts, and everything in between. I basically got tired of getting headaches from listening with the stock headphones, not to mention the sound is atrocious, and started doing some research into a better set. I found out about these via this review on CNet. While they may not be up there with the Sonhiser or Sharp in terms of sound clarity, they'll only set you back $35 compared to the $100 - $200 you'd have to spend to get a really good set. Again, if you listen to portable music devices often, do your ears a favor a buy a pair.

Pros:
  • Good sound insulation
  • They come with three ear canal adapters to fit various sized ears holes
  • Non-fatiguing sound: I can leave them in for hours at a time without them bothering me
  • Comfortable, ergonomic design
  • Sound quality is amazing for a set of earbuds
Cons:
  • They are biased towards being bass heavy, due to how little SPL the drivers can pump out
  • The cord is really short
  • I know it's nitpicky, but it's really hard to read the tiny 'R' and 'L' indicators on the cans

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

ya know...after you sent this post, I took a look around my house. it is truely amazing how many pairs of head phones we have. All sorts of shapes and sizes and even colors. But none are really what I would call a perfect ear match. The search goes on!

Matt said...

I'll bring this set up to GR next time we're there and have you listen. They're great/cheap. Keep up the hunt! Little in life is quite as sweet as a new pair of speakers.

Chad Kremer said...

how are they for running? secure?

Matt said...

I actually need to add an addendum to this post: After about 7 months of use (hard, 8-10 hours per day) the left bud started crackling and making static sounds. This may be because I a defective set, too much use, or a design flaw. Still, they're less than a year old and they're effectively broken.