Three wolves™

So i’ve been using these babies for a while now and while my initial impression of them was pretty good, there are a number of things I’ve noticed that are kinda annoying now. They are still good earphones, but for $180… I don’t know if they are great earphones.

When you’re listening to classical music, as one is want to do when using these babies, in the quiet parts you can hear the anti-noise thing doing its, er… thing. This is kinda off-putting. The best way I can describe how it sounds is the sound of your feet walking through snow - a kind of squashy sound, or maybe it’s similar to that old-skool “Dolby Noise reduction” effect that tapes used to put out? Whatever it is, it’s a bit annoying.

The build quality is pretty good–in places. In others, it’s terrible. Some of the materials used could have been better chosen. The wires seem a bit cheap and don’t bend and flex nicely like iPod ones. It would have been more comfy to have the earbud covers made from the same comfy stuff as Apple make the iPod ones with. The silicon stuff Phitek have used is really tacky/sticky, and while they do stay in your ears really well, pulling the buds out of your ears really hurts sometimes!

Then there’s the box that does all the filtering work (from what i can tell). This box has to be the most frustrating part of the whole setup, and is the reason why I’ll be sending these ones back. For a small box, it’s really cumbersome – you just can’t do anything with it to get it out of the way. I have the earphones plugged into my mac, which is a tower case that sits near the floor. By the time I’ve plugged in the earphones, placed the ‘black box’ on my desk, and then stuck the buds in my ears, i’m left with little room to move - literally. One false move and the black box falls off the desk. But I can’t clip it onto me because the first part of the cord isn’t long enough. Gutted.

The black box has a clip at the back of it so you can attach it to your jacket or whatever. This is good, if you’re walking around with it but not good if you want to use it at work and plug into your computer with them. The wire from the black box to the jack is too short. This clip has also broken on me when trying to detach it from my pocket. After that happened, I resolved to send them back.

Now all this said, they do sound great. Brilliant even. The bass is lovely and crisp: Jeff Buckley’s Everybody Here Wants You intro with the kick drum and simple bass line sounds fantastic. High’s are clear too. You get a lot of detail from these little things. I’m picking up subtleties not heard even on my Naim at home – Nice. Even listening to Hallelujah by Buckley you can hear the hum of his amp in glorious detail at the start - BUT - all the while you hear this squish squish squish from the noise canceling. Once the track gets going, sure, the noise is gone - but to me that’s not good enough. Music should be enjoyed throughout the whole piece, not just the loud bits!

But where Phitek fall down is in the details. The earbud soreness, the build quality, and cord not long enough, the volume control on the black box is stiff and you need to use your fingernail to control it. Not much to worry about if it was just one of those things, but because it’s ALL of those things, that adds up to far too much annoyance for my money.

So, unfortunately I’ll be sending these back - which I should get onto quickly before my 30 days runs out! In the end it came down to build quality. So if you’re after a great set of noise canceling earphones, these are not the ones you’re looking for. I can’t really even say “If you’re looking for a cheap set of noise canceling earphones, these are the ones” cause these certainly aren’t cheap! $180 is a lot to pay for these. Sure they’re pretty good sound wise, but if you’re using them at workstation like me then they might not be for you either.

While they have this 30 day money back return thing, I’d at least give them a shot - you might not worry about the stuff I’ve writen here. In the meantime, my search foir some good noise canceling ear/headphones continues…

Listening to: So Real: Songs from Jeff Buckley & Ryan Adams latest effort: Easy Tiger