Decent sound, poor design...

I have always been impressed with Philips/Magnavox products, so when I saw Philips headphones for under $20.00 I was sold. The packaging bragged about winning awards for sound quality. It also mentioned an innovative new ear bud design for better sound quality. I liked the fact that they were ear buds, however I wasn't sure how they'd work since they didn't look like traditional ear buds.

When I open the package I see that they ear buds are neatly coiled around a pop open carrying case. The ear buds came with two different sized silicone attachments. The ear buds really can't be used without having these on. I say, "Can’t really be used" because you CAN put them in your ear without the silicone attachment but it's not going to be comfortable or give you any kind of sound quality.

As far as the wiring goes these ear buds have a decent amount of length from the plug to the separation of the ear bud wires, 43 inches or just over 3 1/2 feet. The wires for the ear buds are set up in such a way that one wire is 5 inches and the other 20 inches. This keeps the "Y" of the wire up near one of your shoulders vs. on your chest where it can tend to get snagged and pull the buds from your ears.

As far as sound quality goes, for just under $20.00 I was impressed. I'm certainly not a sound quality aficionado, but I was wowed by the fact that I was hearing parts of songs I never knew existed. These ear buds also did a great job of canceling out noise for not being advertised as noise canceling. The quality far surpassed the standard ear buds that came with my mp3 player.

As I mentioned these ear buds have a different design than your standard ear buds. The only thing I can think of to describe the shape vaguely is an otoscope...the thing doctors use to look in your ears, eye, nose, etc. Obviously the point is not nearly as thin or long since it's not safe to put things IN your ear. The trick to wearing these ear buds is to hook the bud in your ear. If the little flap on the outer part of your ear is particularly small this could be a real challenge. Another issue ...if your ear happens to have any kind of skin oil or wax the buds will pop out in no time.

As far as wearing these buds without the silicone attachments...possible but highly unreccommended. The ear bud itself is made of hard plastic. The nature of these ear buds and how you wear them makes them extremely uncomfortable without the attachments. The attachments provide a comfort barrier to the ear, as well as a way to seal the sound into your ear.

To the best of my knowledge you can't buy replacement attachments at the store, you may be able to get them direct from Philips. This leads to a bit of a problem. The handy little carrying case I mentioned...no place to store the extra set of attachments. I had made sure to keep my extra set in a safe place but when I moved they disappeared. Which brings me to my next problem...if you don't store your ear buds in the case, like me, the attachments can pop off. I prefer not to use the carrying case since I use my mp3 daily at work and all that winding and unwinding around the case is tedious. I now somewhat regret this decision since all the rustling around and digging in my purse caused me to lose one of my attachments.

At this point I am generally listening with only one ear bud...it destroys the sound quality since certain layers of the music are played on only one side of the buds. A classic example of this for me is the song "Into the Mystic" by Van Morrison...one side of the buds plays most of the song, however I was noticing with only the one bud in that there was no saxophone in the song. I lifted up the bud without the attachment and put it to my ear and miraculously there it was in all its glory. The song sounded the way it was meant to be.

After owning these ear buds for a few months I'm really torn about them. The sound for me is great, but the design just isn't up to par. I use these the most at work and I find I spend a lot of time putting them back in my ears because they slip or pop out. If you plan to stay completely stationary and swab your ears with alcohol to remove oil before each use, to prevent the likelihood of "SPO" aka spontaneous pop out, you’ll probably LOVE these ear buds.