BostonPocketPC

Stylish,functional and great sound, those are words which don't go together especially when  describing stereo headsets. Most cellphone headsets are included as an afterthought and many are cheap sounding pieces of plastic that are not even suited for listening to phone conversation let alone music. Add to that their usually bulky, cheap construction and poor sound and it's no wonder they only make their appearance when you really need them (like in your car).

Vmoda wishes to change this. They have created a line of "designer" headsets that appeal to your fashion and sound senses. Just a look at the packaging suggests that this headset was made for you to wear and enjoy everywhere.  Plus the array of available colors makes color coordination with you outfit a breeze.

Inside the box you will find the headset and leather carrying pouch. Inside the pouch you'll find different size earmolds for the earbuds in both clear and black rubber. For me the pre-installed black molds were a perfect fit. The earbuds are light weight and feature some pseudo "Bling"  to draw attention to you're new found status of sound and fashion. The headset buds are made to snuggly fit inside the outer ear canal giving you a nice sound space and reducing background noise.

 Along the wire for the left earbud you'll find a sleek microphone with a button. This button allows you to answer calls without touching the phone. Something that's definitely needed as your phone will likely be in your pocket. There's also a shirt clip and a nice Vmoda branded metal cylinder which is used to split the left  and right wires for each earbud.

So with all that out of the way the big question is how do they sound? Well I hooked the Vmoda's up to my Toshiba Gigabeat and pulled up a playlist that I use to evaluate and set sound systems. My first impression was WOW, is this a headset or a nice pair of headphones. The sound was very full, rich and also had one thing that many headsets (and headphones for that matter) lacked and that was low end response. The specified frequency response is 12 Hz to 22 kHz and while I don't really think they are capable of reaching 12 Hz,the bass was full, deep and uncluttered.  You won't need to crank the volume of your MP3 player to max just to have good volume. When paired with the Gigabeat I was able to keep the volume at a reasonably low level while maintaining a good listening level even on a busy subway. Part of this I attributed to the earbuds sensitivity and the other is the earmolds. External noise is kept to a very minimum level even while riding an underground subway during rush hour.

The Vmoda package says it's designed for iPhones and MP3 players but be aware that not all MP3 players are made the same. The Vmoda headset has a four conductor connector and depending on you MP3 player you may need to insert the plus only partially into the headphone  jack. My Gigabeat utilizes a four conductor headphone jack for the output of both audio and video, when I plugged the Vmoda's all the way into the headphone jack I got sound that was indicative of surround sound but not much else. This was due to the missing ground connection from the  MP3 player to the headset. It may be a good idea for Vmoda to include a four conductor to three conductor adapter with these headsets so the user doesn't need to pull the headset jack partially out of the device.

Vmoda has what I feel is a good product but I don't know if many people are ready to shell out $101 for a stereo headset.  Then again there are those who these will definately appeal to and because this headset looks good and sounds good it will have no problems bringing hours of listening pleasure, comfort and style to the end user.  You can purchase the VibeDuo right from  Vmoda's website.