Review: iFrogz Timbre Earphones

iFrogz Timbre Earphones with Mic

Website: http://ifrogz.com/proddetail.php?prod=EP-WB-MIC
Price: $49.99
[rating: 6.5]
Review: The Timbre earphones claim to give a new spin to a dying breed–wired earbuds–by using wooden chambers to channel the audio in an effort to provide better sound quality.

• Fit: The Timbre are made to be pushed deep into your ear canal. For me, this was something I had to get used to. At first I didn’t push it that far in and they kept falling out. In addition, the sound quality suffered because I wasn’t using them properly. The Timbre come with three different sizes of ear condoms (the rubber part that goes over the actual earphone). I had to switch to the smallest ones to actually fit it in my ear. Once I got more comfortable and pushed them deep into my ear, the earphones felt more secure and stayed in place despite some usual walking and moving around the room. With some time, the Timbre fit quite well.
• Noise Blackout: Once pushed deep into the ear the sound quality bumps up significantly. For someone who is worried about the health of their eardrums like me, this is a huge feature. With regular earphones you might find yourself blasting the music to get a decent playback and drown out the background–harming your ears for nothing. But because the earphones are so deep in your ear and the rubber condom takes up the entire ear canal, you can have your music at a lower volume and block out the entire world without much effort–saving your ears from some un-needed abuse.
• Sound Quality: the sound quality is good–the highs and lows sound quite nice. But the promise of “superb sound quality” just isn’t there. There is no enhancement of the sound. The high’s are not especially clear and the lows don’t especially resonate with any bass. They just sound like normal earbuds.
• Other Features: There is a microphone so that you can use the Timbre as a wired headset as well.
• Overall: For wired earbuds, the Timbre are a good choice for noise cancellation. Other than that though, the wood exterior is a nice gimmick to talk to your friends about but at the end of the day the audio quality is average making the Timbre probably not worth $49.99.