I don’t know what the rest of you iPhone users think, but the headphones that came with my iPhone 3G were pretty dire and have developed the widely experienced fault of going completely dead on the right side. My lovely work colleagues from my last team at the Department of Health got me a voucher to put towards whatever I needed at HMV, so I decided to cash my chips last week and got a pair of Radiopaq ‘Pop’ iPhone headphones (with built-in mic). I’m not a big fan of in-ear headphones, but I needed something not too expensive that would work with the background noise of public transport in London (considerable) and also be pretty compact a light too. That ruled out noise canceling headphones as a) I already have a pair, b) they tend to be pretty big and c) they tend to be quite expensive too. So, the Radiopaq headphones were reduced from £60 to £35, were small and compact, but were in-ear plug in types that claimed to be pretty noise isolating. A few reviews on the net confirmed they weren’t bad as fit goes. Interestingly though, they come in different designs that a purported to emphasise certain frequencies and thus suited to different broad genres of music – Rock, Pop and Classical. I bought the Pop version because it was either that or Classical, and they appeared to be best for the broad range of music and voice-based podcasts I tend to listen to.
Verdict – not bad at all. The range of sound takes some getting used to. The vocals weren’t quite as clear and crisp as I was expecting, but a massive improvement on what I was using. I something think I might have picked up the ‘Rock’ version of the headphones instead, but the colour decal of the headphone cord matches what it should be. The details of the musical arrangements are outstanding and the bass is punchy and tight. They do isolate sound pretty well when they are nestled in my ear canal though they work themselves loose from the depths of my skull a little too easily for my liking. Not too annoying though and I still need to fiddle around with the extra small and large earbud attachments that were supplied to find the best fit. Overall – a good set of compact headphones, excellent sound quality, though a bit out of the ordinary, and great price. Snap them up while you can – especially if you take calls while plugged in or record podcasts on audioboo.com – the mic is pretty good too.
Posted via email from sarb’s posterous
Run on Sun, Jul 25
22.34 km (05:58 min/km)
HR 138 bpm - Burned 1,830 C
Cadence 85 spm
