Continuing our Portable Audio Showdown series, we turn our attention to the Wicked Audio Deuce ear-buds. These pint size headphones will break your eardrums before your budget. Here's our breakdown...
Look: in the ear, these headphones are nearly invisible. I was impressed at the way these disappear in
the ear. This is convenient for Northerners
(like me) who need to wear something on your head in the colder months.
Fit: the headphones come with 3 different earpiece slips to allow
the wearer to customize the right fit to their ear. I tried all three, and it is pretty easy to
determine the right one: to large and you can't get them out of your ear fast enough,
too small and they fall out. I am not
sure where I fit for ear size relative to the general population, but I found
the smaller ones to be the best fit.
Feel: the soft rubber slips make for a soft feel in the ear. They expand enough that you feel them in
place, and after a while you tend not to notice them anymore.
Sound: the range and volume on these is pretty good. Being that these insert into the ear, you get
a better delivery than a standard bud-style headphone. You aren't going to get real deep base out of
these, but then again you shouldn't expect to from a piece this small. I listened to several guitar-based songs to
get a sense of the highs, including jazz, rock and pop, and it met my
expectations. Vocals were a little
distorted compared to some of my other options, including the standard iPhone
headphones, but they were sufficient.
Voice problems persisted in
movies, as well. The voices were muted
and imbalanced against any backtracks or sound effects. You can't turn the volume up or you'll blow
your ears out if a sound effect or some music plays, but turning it down makes
it difficult to follow the conversation.
Volume-wise these were some of
the best I've tried. Again, because of
the placement in the ear, these provide much better volume than an over-the-ear
set or earbuds. I used these on a couple
of flights, and the first time I turned my music on I had to pull them out to
prevent permanent deafness! I set my
volume at just over half, which is a volume I have only ever seen with my Bose
QC15s.
Overall: a decent set of ear buds.
If your one that has trouble with earbuds, especially while active, then
you can't go wrong with these. I would
use these for working out and feel confident that they will stay where they
belong. I would not use these as an
all-around set; music is about the only thing you can use these for so if you are
a mixed-use person who intends to do music, gaming and movies there are better
options out there.
With an MSRP of about $20, and available all over the web for closer to $10, how can you go wrong?
With an MSRP of about $20, and available all over the web for closer to $10, how can you go wrong?
