The Comfortable Way To Aural Bliss!

In-ear headphones have always been the choice for those on the move. Two reasons—they’re small, and they’re small! Where they lose out is comfort. It’s just not comfortable to have something stuck in your ear canal, no matter how soft they are… here’s where Bose’s Intra-Ear Headphones score. They’ve designed these earphones to mimic the contours of the ear canal.

The plugs consist of the actual sound unit, to which silicone is attached. This silicone tapers to a thin, twisted, tube-like structure that exactly fits your ear canal, and delivers sound as close to your eardrum as possible. The plugs block out external sound rather effectively—good passive noise cancellation.

While the build quality is exemplary Bose, we’d have liked a black cable—the white/black audio cable just doesn’t feel right.

A few minutes of Bose’s test tracks saw them ditched in favour of some our favourite tunes. In a word, these earphones rock! There’s good tone isolation, and the vocals are spot on. A few sessions of Whitney Houston and Sade among others convinced us that these were not only producing the highs and mids (including vocals) well, but they were pretty good with low frequencies too.

There’s a very clear edge to the sound—no muting of frequencies whatsoever. Audiophiles will be satisfied with both fidelity and frequency reproduction. U2’s With or Without You sounded great, good clean bass… however, if big, booming bass is what you want, these aren’t for you. We suggest Creative’s EP630, which has bone-crunching bass but whose high-range frequencies are somewhat muddy.

RATINGS
Performance : 4
Build Quality : 4
Comfort : 4.5
Value for Money : 3
Overall : 3

At Rs 5,000, the Bose Intra-Ear Headphones aren’t for everybody. It’s for those who want a really good sound experience sans disturbance, while sacrificing zero on the comfort front.

Contact : Bose Corporation India P Ltd
Phone : 011-23073825
E-mail : nandita_sood@boseindia.com
Web site : www.boseindia.com
Price : Rs 5,000