Probably the biggest problem you have in your modern life is finding a place to store your earbuds when you’re not using them. Unless, of course, your life isn’t a shallow, empty parody of existence used by a gadget blogger to make a lame point.
That said, tangled cables are a pain. Probably not enough of a pain for me to stick a special case to the back of my iPhone and actually use it, but I’m just plain lazy. For those of you who care, there’s the Sound Pocket, a rear shell with a small compartment on the back for your Apple EarPods.
Smarter Stand by SmarterFlo Category: Stands Works With: iPhone 5 Price: $12-ish
Don’t you hate it when your earbud cable gets tangled? I know I do (but not as much as I hate Apple’s stupid earbuds themselves). Luckily, Dotan Saguy has come up with the Smarter Stand for the iPhone, a pliable plastic widget which not only acts as a place to wrap your earbud cable, but also as a handy-dandy stand for the iPhone.
I have been using one for a little while now and it turns out to be a pretty useful little gadget.
The db on these headphones stands not for douche-bag but for Duobuds. And now you’ll have no excuse not to share your music when somebody asks — unless you’re the d-bag, that is.
Klingg! That’s the sound of a grown man still unable to sever the maternal ties forged early in his life by a smothering mother. Just kidding. It is in fact the sound of my artisanal iPhone ringtones, recorded from the prayer bells of real Tibetan monks. Kidding again! Klingg is actually an iPhone accessory designed by the fictional Star Trek race… [Enough! -Ed].
Klingg is — truly this time — an earbud holder that clamps onto your clothes using magnets.
RadBlocker might sound like some lame anti-skateboarding device from the 1980s, but it is in fact an Israeli company dedicated to keeping your brains unscrambled. And nestled amongst its RF-denying belt holsters (for Dad!) and laptop trays is this amazing pair of headphones: Echo Tubez.
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/iWORLD 2013 – I’m not exaggerating — these headphones I found exhibiting at Macworld are just about the best iPod headphones I’ve heard. Full bass, beautiful high-end, loud, little incoming leakage from the outside world, really comfy and adjustable and look great in several bright color options. They are really well made. And the price! Guess how much they are?
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Moshi’s bag is pretty simple. They aren’t the first accessory makers to enter a space, but when they do enter it, they try to do it with a certain degree of zen-like style. So we were interested in what Moshi had cooking when we stopped by their booth at Showstoppers. After an aborted attempt to try to get us to write up a really long HDMI cable, the cream bubbled up to the surface: the entry-level Mythro aluminum earbuds and the Ionbank 10K. And we were also, shallow as it is to say, pretty impressed with their aluminum Lightning cable.
Look, it’s the day before Thanksgiving, it’s a slow news day, whatever. Here’s a baby squirrel eating a pair of Apple earbuds in the cutest way possible. You’re welcome.
These clip-on headphones probably sound truly awful, but the paperclip that lets you secure them to your clothes or bag is genius, and probably worth the price-tag alone. Then again, they probably won’t be much worse than Apple’s old pre-EarPod earbuds, either, and we all got by with those for years.
Earbuds and sunglasses, two things that sit up on your head and hang from your ears. If only there was some way to combine the two…
Oakley tried it some years ago with the Thump, which resulted in one of the most hideous product designs ever conceived — if H.R Giger had re-imagined between-toe fungus as an alien growth across your eyes and temples, it would have looked like the Thump.
Luckily, Sanpei Optics has come to the rescue with this gadget, which takes a normal-looking pair of shades and a normal-looking set of earbuds and simply sticks them together.
These earbuds are supposed to be so light and comfortable that you will either a) forget you have them on (I've done that, which is why my MacBook Pro headphone jack is skewed) or b) just want to wear them all the time. Now I can believe “a”, but “b” might just look strange. Regardless…
“I’d probably like a pair of those.” That’s what my wife said when she saw this deal. My wife has taken up running and doing quite well at it. She is, however, going through ear buds on a regular basis. Other runners I know have the same problem. Earbuds that fall out, wear out, aren’t comfortable, all that.
Phiaton’s new Moderna MS 200 earphones ($149) sound good and have great sound isolation, sure, but what’s more important is how good they look plugged in to your new iPhone 5.
Oh sure now Apple decides to improve their ear buds! I haven’t tried them, but I’m not convinced. Regardless of the hype around the new Apple earbuds (I’ll have to try the new design, right now my Apple ear buds are purely “backup” when all other options aren’t available), I think it’s worth checking out earbuds from folks who just do earbuds.
We’ve had BodyGaurdz here before, but I think this is the first time we’ve had a pair with a mic—BodyGuardz Moxy Earbuds With Mic—which is a must-have for me. See I don’t want to carry a set of earbuds for music and something else for calls (or worse have to use the iPhone or iPad mic for calls when using earbuds). It’s about having a compact kit, you know?
Phiaton's PS 210: with the included lanyard, also makes a great necklace
The Phiaton PS 210 BTNC ($129) earphones—yes, they named them all that—have all the same functionality as your white Apple earbuds; you can chat with ’em, listen to tunes with ’em, even control your iPhone with ’em. But unlike your white-wired buds, they do all that wirelessly via Bluetooth, and include some sparkly noise-canceling technology that deliver audio to your ears sans a world of ambient sounds.
Can we just face facts folks, the ear buds that Apple includes with our iPhones and iPods (funnily enough not with the iPad—you don’t get ear buds at all) are okay as back up ear buds, but if you really want to enjoy your music you need to step up your game.
Today we have BodyGuardz Tonic Earbuds for a steal at $20. Great looking ear buds that should make any audiophile happy. Yes, you can check out Beats headphones. Oh yes, they are amazing. I’ve used them and was blown away. They also cost a fortune. Let’s not break the bank just to have music that sounds good shall we?
No doubt some of you will spring for these simply after hearing the name; but Fanny Wang is hoping their new bud-style Wang Buds earphones will conquer a territory they feel noone really owns yet: The earphone middle ground between the comfort, safety and simplicity of the iconic Apple buds, and the sound reproduction generally achieved by in-ear monitors — think really, really good Apple buds.
Let me count the ways that I have killed so many successive sets of earbuds, whether from Apple or otherwise. Rain, sweat (ears), sweat (general, dripping), wet ear canals from insufficient after-shower toweling. More rain.
You get the idea.
If only I’d had a pair of Klipsch’s new rugged S4i earbuds, which are rubberized against both the elements and also my deadly perspiration.
The earbuds are also fully iReady, with a mic for calls and a three button remote for play/pause/answer and volume control. The specs say that the sensitivity (a good measure of how loud they are) is 110dB and the frequency response goes from 10Hz to 19kHz – a respectable range for a ‘bud.
But the toughness is the thing, and these multicolored cans can put up with most exercise and outdoor activity.
I doubt they can resist my single most common way to break a pair of headphones though – the Tug. The Tug can be achieved in many ways, but has one common element: you forget about a dangling cord and catch it fatally on an immovable object, or your own body. I have ended the life of a pair of Porta Pros by standing from a crouch and catching the cable on a knee. And I butchered a pair of retro Panasonic over-the-ear headphones when the cable snagged on a post in the street.
Honestly, it's embarrassing that Apple's earbuds need so much help to work properly.
Would you pay $20 to keep your Apple earbuds in your ears where they belong? Me too. Especially if the solution was as tiny, neat and portable as the earbuds themselves. So keep your fingers crossed (or better, stump up some cash) and hope that Zach Herbert and Adam Orshan’s Kickstarter project gets funded.
Your music is important to you, so why use the crappy earbuds that came with your device? Oh sure, they are great as a backup pair to have in a drawer or your gear bag (in case you forget your good ones), but let’s face it, basic earbuds don’t do anyone’s music justice.
Yes, that's my earwax on there. Sorry, but that's life with custom-fitted earbuds. Photos Charlie Sorrel (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
Custom molded headphones are — it turns out — pretty great. But what a pain to visit an audiologist and get silicone injected into your ear-holes. What if there was a fun, geeky way to do it yourself, in the comfort of your own home?
Thanks to SonoFit Eers, there is. I tested out the $300 PC250 headphones and found the fitting process to be kind of freaky and fun, and the results to be quite excellent. Read on to see just how they work, and how good they sound.
There appear to be a few ways to stop your earbuds from dropping to the floor when you unplug them from your waxy canals. One is to just run the cable from the iPhone/iPod in your front pants pocket up through your shirt/t-shirt/muscle-vest and out through the neck hole. Pop out the earbuds and there they dangle. This is so easy and well-known that even clueless teenagers can manage it.
The second method, I have just discovered, is to use the Props from Quirky.
Sony's XBA-1iP and XBA-3iP earbuds are stylish and sound great.
Earbuds are a compromise. Bang for the buck, you’ll always get better sound and bass from over-the-ear headphones, and probably better comfort as well. Notoriously fragile, you’ll likely get more longevity with headphones than earbuds, too. But these are all the sorts of drawback you live with if you want to listen to your music on the go without carrying around a big pair of cans with you, and all of the technology of earbuds are largely extended towards minimizing their deficits when compared to their bigger, richer brothers.
Enter Sony’s XBA range of earbuds. Spanning four models, each defined by its number of drivers — the Sony XBA-1iP, the Sont XBA-2iP, the Sony XBA-3iP and the Sony XBA-4iP — Sony’s making a concerted effort to deliver high-end over-the-ear sound in a slim, light and portable package. But how well did they do?
It’s a first-world problem to be sure, but that doesn’t make tangled headphone cords any less annoying. Wrapping them around your iDevice helps, but you’ll probably do it too tight and end up breaking the cables. And those reel-em-in hand-cranked spindles so beloved of Sony in the 1990s have disappeared, probably because they’re too much hassle, or just kept getting lost.
Bluetooth promised to be the answer, but still sounds awful and requires recharging one more gadget. So Quirky’s new Wired tangle-free earbuds have got a lot to prove. Can they do it?
I love Apple’s Smart Cover for the iPad 2, and I’ve had one stuck to my device since the day I bought it. It looks good, it protects my display, and it’s useful. I often wonder whether the same kind of concept could work for the iPhone, and it seems TidyTilt has an answer.
TidyTilt is like a Smart Cover for your iPhone 4 or 4S, only much smarter. Not only does it act as a kickstand for your device when you want to type, watch movies, or play games; it provides tidy storage for your earbuds, and a whole lot more.
