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Razer Launches In-Ear Earphones for Gamers on the Go

Paul Lilly — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:40:37 -0500

Razer, maker of gaming peripherals, added to its audio lineup this week with a revised pair of in-ear earphones the company is again calling the Razer Moray.

"After the release of the original Razer Moray, we received feedback from gamers who needed something more," says Robert Krakoff, President of Razer. "They wanted a compact headset that provides not only great audio quality, but the ability to talk to their friends."

The noise-isolating earphones come with an inline omnidirectional microphone that Razer claims "captures sound input from any direction with exceptional voice clarity." The company also touts a "powerful" bass response.

The revised Razor Moray is available now in either black or white with an MSRP set at $60.

Image Credit: Razer

Shure SE530PTH Earphones

Michael Brown — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:02:51 -0500

With that question in mind, we couldn’t resist auditioning these pricey phones to the sound of Cake’s Fashion Nugget, ripped and FLAC-encoded, on Cowon’s D2 digital media player. We don’t know if Shure’s BOM (bill of materials) justifies a $500 price tag, but we did have awfully big smiles on our faces after using these earphones.

The SE530PTHs fit snugly in your ears and prevent outside noise from reaching your eardrums, just as Shure’s other in-ear phones do. In the past, there’s been a downside to this setup: When you need to hear outside noise—such as when your roommate is desperately trying to tell you the house is on fire—you’ve had to pull the buds out of your head. So Shure came with a brilliant solution called Push to Hear (PTH).

Push to Hear is a slightly bulky module that fits in-line between the earphones and your MP3 player. Activating PTH turns on a directional microphone and cuts the player’s volume. A green LED assures whoever is speaking that yes, you really are listening. PTH is a terrific, albeit expensive, solution to a common problem.

Every link in the audio chain is crucial to delivering a great audio experience, but we draw a (dotted) line at spending twice as much on your earphones as you do your MP3 player. So, no Kick Ass for you, Shure.

Shure SE530PTH Earphones

Michael Brown — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:10:48 -0500

For the price of one set of Shure’s SE530PTH earphones, you could buy two 30GB iPods, 17 sets of Apple earbuds, or 500 encrypted songs from iTunes. A worthy investment or Marie Antoinette–style consumption? With that question in mind, we couldn’t resist auditioning these pricey phones to the sound of Cake’s Fashion Nugget, ripped and FLAC-encoded, on Cowon’s D2 digital media player. We don’t know if Shure’s BOM (bill of materials) justifies a $500 price tag, but we did have awfully big smiles on our faces after using these earphones.

The earphones themselves feature three sets of microdrivers in each earpiece: a tweeter and two woofers. These bass twins deliver a heaping helping of low end—not as much as M-Audio’s IE-20XBs (reviewed in the March 2007 issue), but it’s much better defined in the Shures. They deliver faboo sound at the other end of the spectrum, too. The vibraslap opening on Cake’s title track sounded like it was drilling deep into the left side of our brain—and we mean that in a good way.
Every link in the audio chain is crucial to delivering a great audio experience, but we draw a (dotted) line at spending twice as much on your earphones as you do your MP3 player. So, no Kick Ass for you, Shure.

M-Audio IE-20 XB Reference Earphones

Michael Brown — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 14:33:47 -0500

One of the most commonly voiced complaints about earbuds is that they don’t deliver enough bottom end; those tiny drivers just don’t have much material to work with when it comes to producing long waves. M-Audio’s IE-20 XBs are the exception to the rule. These earphones pump more bass than many full-size headphones.

M-Audio went long by going big—the IE-20 XBs (the XB stands for extended bass) are easily the largest earbuds we’ve ever seen; they’re more than twice as large as Shure’s E4gs. Their bulky nature can be attributed to the fact that each piece houses two speakers: an armature driver for producing high and midrange frequencies and a dynamic driver to pump out the lows. A built-in crossover routes frequencies to the appropriate speaker, and a pair of acoustic canals keeps the sound waves separate until they reach your ear canal.

Those of us here with smaller ears were concerned that the Kong-like proportions of the XBs would lead to a match made on Skull Island, so imagine our surprise when we discovered how comfortable these earbuds are. The included fit-kit accommodates a wide range of ear sizes, and the cables loop over the tops of your ears, which keeps them out of the way and prevents the plugs from sliding out. The cables are removable, too, so should they ever be damaged, you can replace just the inexpensive cable instead of the entire earphone.

The IE-20 XBs aren’t just bass monsters, they’re equally adept at delivering crisp highs and well-rounded mids. While we listened to Warren Zevon’s “Please Stay,” the XBs impressed us with their ability to produce Zevon’s lead vocals, Emmylou Harris’s background vocals, and Gil Bernal’s tenor sax all on an equal footing. They’re pretty spectacular with games, too. We’d hesitate before using these earbuds as studio monitors, though, because they really do emphasize lows. Use them for mix-down work and you might end up with tracks that sound bass-shy when played back through other speakers and headphones. But if it’s bass that makes you boogie, you’ll revel in these M-Audio buds.

Etymotic Research ety8 Bluetooth Earbuds

Michael Brown — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 13:38:44 -0600

Thanks to Apple’s ubiquitous advertising, you can walk around town with wires hanging out of your ears without getting strange looks from passersby. Etymotic Research’s ety8 Bluetooth earphones shorten the wires, but these anything-but-discreet earbuds are guaranteed to draw a few sets of eyeballs your way.

If you don’t mind the attention, you’ll get to enjoy a great set of noise-isolating earphones that don’t need to be tethered to your iPod. The ety8s aren’t entirely wireless—a shoelace-like cord links the left and right modules—but they use Bluetooth technology for wireless two-way communication via a small transceiver plugged into the iPod’s docking port. The lanyard is just long enough to allow you to turn your head without tugging either module, and when you’re not listening to music, you can drape the ety8s over your neck.

Five tiny buttons on the right module control the iPod’s volume up/down, track selection, play/pause, and previous/next track functions. As small as the buttons are, it took us just moments to blindly locate them and memorize the function of each one—the all-important pause button was the easiest to master. And each button press updates the iPod’s display. The more we used the ety8s, the more we appreciated the convenience of going wireless, whether we were bundling up for a cold-weather outdoor excursion, working out indoors on an exercise bike, or just sitting at our desks.

Only one aspect of the system gave us pause: The transceiver you plug into the iPod is small (1 inch high by 1.5 inches wide) and sturdy, but friction is the only force that keeps it mated to your iPod. We’re just unsure of how well it and the iPod’s docking port will stand up to repeated jostling and knocking around inside a jacket pocket.

The ety8s come with a wide selection of ear tips and do a fabulous job of blocking out background noise; more importantly, they sounded marvelous with everything from Mozart symphonies to Paul Thorn’s wry, whiskey-soaked blues. Yeah, they’re a little geeky, but they’re definitely worth suffering a few stares for.

Month Reviewed: February 2007
Verdict: 8
URL: www.etymotic.com

ExtremeMac FS1

Michael Brown — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 14:35:29 -0500

It’s been our experience that you get what you pay for, more often than not. The ExtremeMac FS1 earbuds, however, fall into the “not” territory. The $150 for-sale sign hanging on these little buggers easily qualifies them as the most expensive earphones of the group, but they certainly didn’t sound like it.

While it’s true that bass forms the foundation of most any tune, an audio-production system shouldn’t clobber you over the head with it. Wearing the FS1 buds was like listening to a band while sitting inside the bass player’s amp. The lows in Beck’s “Nicotine & Gravy” were fuzzy, ill-defined, positively amorphous blobs that threatened to smother the song’s inherent complexity and precise timing. And that cracking snare drum attack on Steely Dan’s “Jack of Speed”? Positively neutered.

But there’s one lesson Etymotic could learn from ExtremeMac: There are more than two sizes of ears in the human race, and ExtremeMac provides no fewer than six different earplugs: two foam sets and four silicone. We found a foam set that rendered the FS1 buds very comfortable and blocked nearly all the environmental noise (aside from our fingers tapping on the keyboard), but they sure didn’t help these bass monsters sound any better.

Month Reviewed: October 2006

+ EAR CANAL: Diverse collection of plugs; cool carrying case.

- LOVE CANAL: Passive-aggressive bass response.

VERDICT: 6

URL: www.extrememac.com

Creative Zen Aurvana

Michael Brown — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 14:12:58 -0500

Creative has pulled together a very nice audio package here. The Aurvana’s are a terrific-sounding set of headphones that deliver crisp, well-defined audio across the sonic spectrum.

They deliver very good balance—no instrument is emphasized at the expense of another. We dug how Walter Becker’s intricate guitar work sounded on Steely Dan’s “Jack of Speed” as it floated over that studio band’s incredible rhythm section.

And we heard many acoustic elements that we’d previously missed in Beck’s “Nicotine & Gravy;” but when that song’s bass becomes one of its defining elements, it reveals one of the Aurvana’s few weaknesses: The bass tends toward muddiness when it gets hot and heavy.

Creative provides six pairs of silicon plugs for the Aurvana, but only three sizes. Do they think buyers will share the earphones, swapping out plugs? Eew! Whatever the case may be, we had no trouble finding a pair that was comfortable for our smallish ear canals—and they did a very good job of blocking ambient noise.

Creative was the only company thoughtful enough to provide an adapter for plugging into airline sound systems, and they earn kudos for their hard-shell carrying case—the best-designed of the bunch.

Month Reviewed: October 2006

+ EARRINGS: Great sound; nice extras; comfortable.

- EARWIGS: Tendency to be overwhelmed by heavy bass.

VERDICT: 9

URL: www.creative.com

Alienware Ozma 7 Headphones

Michael Brown — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 12:23:49 -0600

If you know your Wizard of Oz lore, you’ll recall that Ozma was the young princess and rightful heir to the throne of Oz. Exactly what this has to do with audio and aliens is anyone’s guess, but these headphones did take us over the rainbow.

Miami-based Alienware has developed a strong reputation for building balls-out PCs, and now the company has expanded into co-branded accessories. Partnering with Ultrasone for these headphones was smart: Ultrasone’s $400 Proline 750 headphones impressed the heck out of us in our May 2005 issue, but we couldn’t give them a Kick Ass award because the reference model isn’t great for gaming. We have no such reservations about the $200 Ozma 7.

The Ozma 7 isn’t quite as luxurious as the Proline 750: Its earcups and headband are well-padded, but the cups are covered in non-breathing pleather; the higher-end phones are outfitted with much larger earcups upholstered in ultra-soft velour. But where those reference-quality headphones delivered absolutely flat frequency response, the Ozma 7 headphones feature pleasantly boosted bass that’s terrific for playing games, watching movies, and listening to music.

The Ozma 7 features Ultrasone’s S-Logic technology, which delivers pseudo surround sound without electronically manipulating the audio. It’s accomplished by offsetting the transducers inside the earcups, so the sound waves bounce and reflect off the folds in your outer ear. This, in turn, delays some frequencies from reaching your eardrums, which fools your brain into perceiving the sound as originating all around your head, instead of on polar-opposite sides.

S-Logic did amazing things for Eddie Kramer’s brilliant engineering work on Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold as Love. With conventional headphones, stereo pans seem to go through your head; with the Ozma 7 phones, Jimi’s guitar sounds like its orbiting the interior of your skull.

Equally as important as their sound, these well-constructed phones remained comfortable during long gaming sessions. And they come with an extraordinarily long cable—nearly 10 feet—so you don’t need an extension cable to reach from your hi-fi to your Barcalounger.

Month Reviewed: March 2006

Verdict: 9
kickass=yes

URL: www.alienware.com