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Review of in-ear headphones V-Moda Vibe

Sales package:

Earphones
Five silicone ear-plugs
ModaWrap cable manager
Leather pouch
VIP card access to modcasts

The Hollywood earphones manufacturer V-Moda has finally released into the wild its long-announced and anxiously anticipated by aficionados all-metal in-ear headphones V-Moda Vibe. Here we should hold our horses a bit and remind you of the right way of thinking of V-Moda’s marketologists, who push their headphones as an ultrafashionable accessory – that’s why all this fuss is around, actually.

The company’s line is scanty and delivers only three models (including the Vibe) to the market, however one shouldn’t refer to that as a downside – on the contrary, when the models are few in numbers, you can get deeper into marketing, which is in fact the only way to survive for a recently created company entering the market with old-established hierarchical structure. The show here is run by “branded” offerings – luckily, such word as “shortage” of honorable labels with reputation is not used over here: Sony, Sharp, Sennheiser, AKG – this is only the list’s top. In the sense of “brand weight” V-Moda’s solutions are no match for any of those, regardless of how much the company’s bosses throw into advertisement and promotion. Hence, it is a quite logical way-out in a situation like this to come up with a quality niche product backed up with aggressive marketing, pay attention, not “narrow-minded” but “ideological” – that is why V-Mode specifically emphasizes the fact of having the headquarters in the Hollywood, which veils up all its solutions with somewhat cinematic aura. On top of that, the maker does whatever it takes to build up a strong association for its headphones with club culture, dance music and other constitutions of trendy and fashionable lifestyle.

Naturally, being the range’s best offering, V-Moda Vibe, by the makers’ intentions, should personify all developments they have on hands and break the ground with its image of an ultrafashionable accessory. Generally, the headphones get this job done – keep reading for more details.

Casing and design

Like the Remix, the Vibe employs an all-metal casing. From the position of sonic benefits, metal is no better or worse than standard plastic – it may be that the speakers in the headphones have been designed with the casing’s material in mind, however it is not for certain and we can give no guarantee here.

Thanks to the casing of each ear-bud being a single whole, build quality is not worth mentioning. Speaking of the headphones’ shell itself, it is well crafted with no defects or splits on it, which is what we have come to expect from such tiny gadgets as earphones.

The casing is noticeably stretched length-wise and seems to be a Shure E6-esque to some extent. The membrane is covered by a fine-meshed metal grill, but with the silicone fitting put on it doesn’t get into sight. As for the fittings we have just mentioned, the Vibe ships with, there are five ear-plugs included into the box – two white, three black, graded size-wise (medium and large for white, small, medium and large for black).

Roughly in the middle of each ear-bud is an ornamental textured band, which comes in either black or red (if you have a gold-coated variant), it’s also possible that in future we will see more of them coming. One of the ends also houses a round-shaped dent matching the textured band in color, though it is there just for the appearance’s sake.

Regrettably in pursue of the one-piece top-notch design, they couldn’t find a proper place to etch L/R letters on – to me they should have mounted labels on the point where you expect to see it, I mean on the end, but in the case with the Vibe don’t waste your time looking for it anywhere but in a quite hard-to-reach location, specifically on the side. On top of that the designations are marked in silver, so that every time you will have to stare at it to find out which earphone goes into which ear.

The only non-metal part in the earphones’ design is a tiny plastic holder mounted in the place where the cord gets into the ear-bud.

As for the cable it measures 115 cm long and boasts a transparent external insulation finish, covering up the internal layer, whose color varies along with the trim of the headphones. The cord delivers a tad stiffer feeling than we usually get – if it is so due to the external finish, I wouldn’t be greatly surprised. The cord’s length is just enough to meet the needs of the most demanding user, no matter how or where he wears the headphones. It is remarkable that the protective plate positioned on the splitter is made of metal with V-Moda’s logo etched. Finally, the end-jack is metal as well, while the plug itself is coated in special “gold” alloy.

The headphones’ looks leaves us no other option but think that the designers’ expectations have come to life – the Vibe seems flamboyant and striking, with its shapes appearing to be the guests from the future in many respects. They should appeal to hi-tech addicts, clubbers and aficionados of well-crafted standouts. On the other hand, if they featured totally bald metal surface without textured band, this model would look much less luxurious. And the wide selection color schemes amplifies the overall impression – consumers get free to pick from more variants than usual.

Ease of use, sound quality

Having once glanced at the headphones on a photo, one could cast a doubt on how convenient they will feel plugged in his/her ear – prolonged shape and metal casing, which is surely ends up being heavier than plastic, are against above-average experience. But in practice you won’t get feelings completely different from smaller-sized earphones - V-Moda Vibe stick out of ear a little bit more and thus are more prominent at a side-view, but that’s about it. I guess it is so much more of a positive thing for the company – really, do you know even a single shiny things addict that would try to avoid others staring at his latest and greatest gadget? On top of that, you can seamlessly make the Vibe sit in your ear even better by swapping the ear-plugs (which are many). But in all fairness the author of this article found the silicone fittings a tad “dryish”, compared to those of, say, Creative EP-630, to put it simply, the friction between the ear-plugs the Vibe comes bundled with and ear channel is a bit higher for the Vibe. But do take account of the fact that I have nothing against the feeling delivered by the Vibe – it is not a discomfort even, it is just different, that’s it.

While in ears, the headphones do really well – they feel secure and safe, don’t dislodge at flicks and will fit even for sports, but all you will have to care of in this case is the cable, just don’t hook it accidentally and it is OK.

Unfortunately all three V-Moda’s offerings employ even-length earphone cables coming out of splitter, meaning that there is no way from them to hang around your neck. But otherwise these are pretty much comfortable headphones to use, except for such minor letdowns as slick metal end-jack, which might be occasionally hard to take out of the socket

We were putting V-Moda Vibe through its paces with iPod Video and Samsung YP-K3 using different styles, including hip-hop, rock-n-roll, techno and alternative rock. To present you with more reliable results we got two other independent and relatively non-music-conscious men involved as well as the entire Mobile-Review team, whose members got a chance to evaluate the sound quality during brief listening sessions.

Frankly speaking, when I first stumbled upon coming-soon status of V-Moda Vibe and very first sketches of it, not even photos, I got to think of it as an ultimate-gadget that would trump everything in its price bracket and offers best value for your money. Their cool looks could be checked out on pictures, while the expectations for the sound quality were built up by the Bass Freq and the Remix. It seemed that the Vibe would absorb what these two models had to offer and so it does, but there are some tricky points we have to shed some light on.

The sound quality delivered by V-moda Vibe is really something to shout about and in many respects outweighs its relatively high price (bear in mind the design-related aspects as well). But the way the headphones sounded came as a big surprise for a moment. The fact of the matter is that “Bass” word in the Bass Freq’s name, the Vibe’s vis-a-vis in this test – is there not for the sake of it, these headphones were really bass-heavy. That is why we expected the Vibe to put up similar performance in the first place, but we didn’t have any kind of terrific bass experience with them. So if you would like your earphones to deliver solid bass – you better look elsewhere and pass over the Vibe’ stunning design. When we got down to listening to music in V-Moda Vibe with serious intentions, we caught that unique feeling the headphones’ sound had. They do really well at reproducing mid and high frequencies – here they are way superior to many other earphones (yet less expensive ones – segmentation and price policy for headphones is an altogether different story). In this regard the Vibe is somewhat comparable with the Remix made by V-Moda. Lower frequencies didn’t fade out throughout all tracks we threw at it – even the deepest tones were there. But the earphones proved to be quite delicate with them – the lows sounded softly, and didn’t beat our ears. In a nutshell, the bass was a part of the sonic palette, but they didn’t take over. It seemed that the headphones would do for listening to guitar-heavy music, various rock styles, classical music, vocal-filled songs and a bit of the modern r&b, which didn’t go very well with the image of a “clubber’s gadget”. In other words, these headphones do equally well at almost all genres – don’t expect them to deliver especially solid bass, but if you are that kind of person, then the Bass Freq or the ЕР630, the MDR-E71 or even the Spark Plug might be the smarter choice for you.

As regards sound isolation, the headphones put up moderate performance here for models armed with silicone fittings, nonetheless those who have never given such earphones a try are more likely to catch only a marginal difference.

The earphones come equipped with 9 mm speakers showing off pretty low impedance (16 ohms), making the process of “boosting up” a breeze for just about any player. Moreover, the top volume level achieved with the Vibe is very high, even though it falls short on what we experienced with V-Moda Bass Freq. Distortions or foreign noises at full-blast were not spotted in course of our tests. The speakers enjoy the exclusive V-MASQUE technology, but why the company actually lets us know about – no specific details on it are available, which is a pity.

Impressions and conclusion

V-Moda Vibe is a piece of headphones art, stylish accessory doubling as a great tool for listening to tunes at the same time – basically it is what you will hear from the maker himself, but probably with slightly different accents. The Vibe is worth its relatively hefty price tag of 100 USD only when the owner realizes what both the tail and head are and how they can be effectively used. Briefly, the Vibe should be picked by creative guys, clubbers, fashion conscious people and particularly everyone who pays enough attention to visual signs of his/her own individuality and tries to get gadgets matching his/her unique image. As for those who value sound quality or strong basses above everything else, they should turn their sight to the Bass Freq by V-Moda or other manufacturers’ proposals.

Specifications:

Frequency Response: 12 Hz – 22 kHz
Speaker Driver: V-MASQUE dynamic technology, 9mm neodymium rare-earth magnet
Cable length: about 115 cm, 35 cm even-length earphone cables (from an earphone to the splitter), cable diameter 2.2mm
Impedance: 16 ohms
Sensitivity: 93 dB (at 1kHz 1mW)
Weight: 12 grams

Alexander Dembovsky ([email protected])
Translated by Oleg Kononosov ([email protected])

Published - 01 February 2007

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