Up on the review block today I’ve got another pair of V-Moda headphones that are called the Vibrato Remote. The Vibrato feature an inline remote which has controls for answering calls and controlling music along with a microphone that’s built-in. The build quality of these things is amazing, a lot is made of metal making them durable but a bit on the heavy side. Anyway, read on to learn more…
The box is very cool looking, I must say.
inside the box you’ll find user manual, carrying case and the headphones themselves.
The carrying case is leather and inside you’ll find a net style separator. The case has snap latch on it, and it seems like it will do a decent job of protecting the earphones. I much would have rather liked a hard case, but oh well.
When you open the carrying case you’ll find some more accessories, ear hooks and more earbuds.
The earbuds are several sizes so you’ll find one to fit you. They’re certainly interesting as they’re colorful.
The headphones are very nice looking. Inline you’ll find a little clip so you can hold them in place right on your shirt or coat. The cables are fabric coated and they’re thick really and rather stiff.
There is a metal separator inline as well, it’s just decorative though.
On the right side you’ll find an inline remote with three buttons. The buttons you see are play/pause, and volume up and down but that’s not all they do. The center button is actually a multifunction one. You press it twice quickly and it forwards to the next track, press quickly three times and it goes backwards. On the bottom of the remote you’ll find the microphone hole.
The connector is gold plated, not much else to say really.
The earphones themselves are very nice looking, they’re metal in fact. They’re silver or chrome and black.
Removing the little earbud you’ll see the actual speaker.
Specifications:
Well, once I put the headphones in the first thing I noticed is the weight. The headphones and the separator piece are metal which of course adds weight and you can really feel it when they’re in your ears. They’re probably the heaviest set of earphones I’ve ever owned honestly and they took a while to get accustomed to.
Using the earphones I got to sit back, relax and listen to music to test them out, that was fun as you might expect.
The sound is very full and clear, but I noticed they’re a bit heavy on the low end or a bit bass heavy. Personally I don’t like a lot of bass and these are just borderline for me, I can stand it as they are so the bass isn’t that overpowering. They are though very light on the high end and that is something I’m not exactly happy about. I like a more balanced sound to my music, maybe even with a little emphasis on the high end. The V-Moda Vibrato are a little off balance for my taste, but they’re not bad. In fact they do sound very good, it’s just my personal tastes here that I mentioning.
One other small issue is the cables, there is quite a bit of cable noise with these and it can be annoying.
As far as the usability of the remote, I’ll be honest here it’s hard to use. The remote was almost touching my face with the earphones in making it impossible to see to use the controls. You’d need to memorize the controls before you actually use them. It would be very nice if you could actually see the remote while they’re in your ears.
The remote though does work, in fact it works as advertised with the iPod Touch 4th gen, everything does as it’s supposed to.
On the ZuneHD, nothing worked, but that was kind of expected.
On the Samsung Captivate some of the controls worked. I could answer the phone, play and pause music and I could also forward songs but no reverse.
The ear hooks do a few things for you. They help alleviate any cable noise, they also hold them in place if you’re doing vigorous exercise and they also will help hold them in place because of the weight. They are useful and they really do work. They’re comfortable as well, they’re made of soft silicone material so they’re comfortable a long periods of time.
Conclusion:
The V-Moda Vibrato Remote earphones are excellent is both the build and sound quality. The remote works very well with Apple products and it does offer some functionality with Android ones as well.
The headphones are slightly off balanced in that there seems to be a bit more bass than I would prefer. The going price is $129 for these and some might think they’re expensive, but the build quality totally warrants the price for sure. These things are built tough and should be able to withstand quite a bit of abuse I’m sure. The quality build though is also a small problem as they’re made of metal and that makes them heavy so they might be uncomfortable for some. V-Moda did include ear hooks which work very well to alleviate the weight issue and they help to hold the earphones in place while exercising or doing any type of vigorous activity.
Pros:
+Plenty of bass
+Durable
+Stylish
+Case included
+Works with iPhone and Android for calling
+Full sound
+Includes ear hooks
Cons:
-A bit bass heavy
-Rather Heavy
-A bit pricey
-Remote is very close to face when in
-Lots of cable noise when moving a lot without ear hooks
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