Did we really need something that turns headphones to "11"?
The sale of close to eighty million iPods gave the headphone
industry a nuclear jolt where it needed it most, and created a billion-dollar
accessories market that only continues to grow at an exponential rate. Some accessories
compliment the platform and make it an extremely capable media device.
Companies such as Red Wine Audio had the cajones to take the iPod back to the
drawing board, and come up with the superb sounding iMod. Since the very beginning,
Griffin Technology has stayed ahead of the curve with FM transmitters, chargers
for the car, protective cases, remotes, and battery backups. First generation
iPod devotees are covered, as are 2nd generation Shuffle users.
Before taking delivery of the EarJams, I had never really
considered using the stock iPod Earbuds as anything but a pair of emergency
headphones, should some evil person walk off with my Ultimate Ear super-fi
5Pros. The sound quality of the Earbuds has improved since they were originally
introduced, but they lack refinement, meat in the midrange, and are hard to
listen to for more than thirty minutes without feeling very fatigued.
The premise behind the EarJams is that the Earbuds have a
lot more to offer, but certainly require some help in the bass department, not
to mention their level of comfort. The EarJams snap without difficulty onto
your earbuds. Griffin
provides two sets of EarJams – one for each of Apple’s earbud models, and each
set of EarJams comes with three sizes of earpads for the best possible level of
comfort and fit.
The EarJams succeed at making the earbuds more comfortable
to wear, but the increase in bass response began to take its toll after about
ten minutes of music at above-average listening levels. The EarJams turned the
relatively thin sounding earbuds into bass-crunching monsters and it simply
became overwhelming with hip-hop and bass-heavy pop. Bass should be tight,
taut, and defined – not muddy, boomy, and loose.
Another issue that reared its ugly head was the increase in
volume level. Quality sound reproduction trumps excessive volume every single
time, and it was quite alarming to hear just how loud potential purchasers
might end up listening to their music to with the EarJams installed.
Nice idea in theory. Poorly executed and surprising from a
company that has so many outstanding portable media player accessories
available. We’ll pass on this one.
