Macenstein

We’ve all been there – up on a roof top, spinning on your head trying to impress the ladies with your mad hip-hop freestyle dance moves, when – BAM! Out pop your iPhone’s earbuds, seriously cramping your dancing abilities not to mention totally decreasing your coolness factor. As the ladies attempt to escape off the roof while wearing 6-inch heels, you shout to the heavens “Why can’t someone make ear buds that stay in while I bust my mad moves?!?”

Well, Coosh has come up with a set of earbuds for the iPod and iPhone that they think just might be a gift from the Electric Boogaloo gods themselves.

The Coosh iPhone earbuds are fairly similar in styling and shape to the stock ear buds Apple ships, and share Apple’s white with gray accent color scheme as well as an inline microphone/remote located on the cord (Coosh does offer a black model as well). The main differences between the Coosh and the Apple buds are the jack at the end end of the Coosh is of the 90Ëš variety as opposed to Apple’s straight up vertical design, and the Coosh’s come with a very soft, removable silicon “earring” which is designed to keep the earbuds in place no matter how often or aggressively you invert yourself throughout your day.

Above: The Coosh’s earring is removable if you want to use them like standard ear buds.

Despite my earlier claims, I am not exactly what you would call a dancer (Frankenstein has more rhythm than I do). However, what I AM is a runner (coincidentally from angry villagers, much like Frankenstein), and on more than one occasion I have experienced “premature ejection” of my buds while running. So I was eager to test out the staying power of Coosh’s loop earring design.

The biggest difference between Coosh’s earring holder and other’s I’ve tested is the comfort. Coosh fashioned their loop from a very soft, light-weight silicone material that I found to be surprisingly comfortable, even after extended periods of listening. In addition to having Frankenstein’s dance moves, I wear glasses (sorry ladies, I’m taken) and yet even with the added strain of the glasses sitting on top of my ears, I found Coosh’s ear loops to still be comfortable. I have one of those rare jobs where I am able to listen to my iPhone for about 10 hours a day, and I have had the Coosh’s in for probably 30 hours now with very little discomfort (but then, perhaps my ears have developed calluses over the years from constantly having something in them).

Above: The Cooshes have an inline microphone/remote that provides all the functionality on Apple’s standard buds.

Sound

At $24.95, the Coosh buds are $5 less than Apple’s stock headset (which wasn’t going to win any awards for amazing sound themselves) so you may be expecting some pretty lame sound. I found the Coosh’s provided decent sound, but will not make you throw away any pairs of in-the-ear buds or full size headphones you might own. If we were to rate the stock Apple ear buds as a 6.5 for audio quality, the Coosh buds might be a 7 or 7.1 (yes, my ears are THAT sensitive).

Issues

In general I found using the Coosh earbuds to be an overall enjoyable experience, however, I did have one issue with the build quality. After about 3 weeks of use, one of the rubber padding rings on the ear bud came off in my pocket. It was easy enough to put back on, but a week later BOTH came off, and I lost one of them, more or less making the buds useless, as without that padding the buds are extremely uncomfortable in the ear.. I have had 6 pairs of iPod and iPhone earbus over the years, and 2 have survived being through the washer and dryer , so I would rate the build quality of the Coosh’s to be a bt below that of Apple’s set.
Conclusion

Coosh’s earbuds for iPhone may not provide a giant leap up in audio quality from the stock set of buds Apple ships, but they provide all the Apple functionality and then some for less money. I like the Coosh’s 90Ëš headphone jack, and the very comfortable (and removable) ear loops are a great bonus for those of us active iPhone users, whether we’re walking, running, or break dancing and badly acting, as in the above promotional video Coosh made. If you are looking for a decent sounding pair of earbuds to serve as a replacement set or merely as a pair to use while exercising (I’ve shorted out two sets of Apple ear buds’ remotes with sweat) the Coosh buds deliver a good listening experience that won’t fall out when the going gets rough.

Price: $24.99 (black and white available)
Pros: comfortable, removable earring loop keeps buds in place, decent sound, inline remote just like Apple’s buds
Cons: Sound could be better, but for $24,99 is above what you normally hear, rubber padding ring not as secure as Apple’s