Earpods

Earpods are the best value in headphones.



While I'll be the first to acknowledge that I am certainly not an audiophile, I do love my music.  My car rocks upgraded BMW Harman Kardon sound.  At home the Used screams from a B&O Play.  The cheapest component of my listening experience has long been my headphones.  For a couple years I've mostly used a pair of Klipsch s4i's - cheapish headphones that Cnet says are on par with Bose and other 'premium' models.

While my Klipsch were a decent pair, one area they really failed was at the gym.  The s4i design cannot seem to stay put when you're killing 100 burpees at the end of Glen.  This lead me to buy some mid range (150.00) active headphones - the Monster iSport.  These headphones weren't particularly comfortable, but did sport a design that kept them in place through anything.  It's not a stretch to say that catching the cord on a quickly moving kettle-bell might cause you to have permanent ear trauma.

Suffice it to say, with the two pairs of earbuds I more or less thought we had this headphone thing figured out.  None of the Apple earbuds had ever been worth a damn, so of all the iPhone5 bits and pieces, it was this that I was least excited for.  Honestly if it weren't for reading all the initial reviews, I might not have taken them out of their cute little biodegradable packaging.

Luckily for me, I did decide to heed the brilliant advice of Gruber and other's and give these things a try.  Earpods are great in a few different ways.  First, the sound is right up there with those mid range (100-200 dollar) headphones.  That's right, 30 bucks gets you a set of headphones that sound as good as something for six or seven times as much money.

However, the area where earpods really shine is in their comfort. Below is Apple's add explaining how earpods have been designed to best fit virtually any ear... they're "ear shaped".  In my experience this fits every ear design isn't hyperbole.  I've worn earpods for virtually any type of exercise you can imagine - they always stay in place, they remain comfortable after hours of use.

Another great design aspect of the earpods is that they can be very quickly taken in or out of the ears.  This is especially an issue with most sport specific earbuds.  Typically to keep an earbud from moving has meant the designer used some contraption that jams the headphone in to place.  With the iSports, Nike or Adidas phones, and others this means an arduous process of simply putting on, or taking off the headphones.  If you're wearing sweet Infidel gear, and Inov-8 Bare XFs around the gym, you better bet people are going to come start a conversation with you about your schwag.  With the earpods you can quickly and comfortably pull out (a good life skill), make your small talk, and get back to your workout.

In conclusion:  Earpods - kick ass sound and fit for 30 dollars.