Lift Audio Groove Series Noise-Isolating In-Ear Headphones (Black)
by Lift Audio
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List Price: Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Lift Audio Groove Series Noise-Isolating In-Ear Headphones (Black)
Customer Review: Cheap, broken in 3 weeks!
Summary: 1 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
These headphones may look stylish on the page, but the construction is shoddy and they survived only 3 weeks of light use before the casing cracked open and fell apart. For the current price of $25 (as of this writing) you can find much better options for your aural needs. Then again, even at $1 these aren't worth your time.
While I believe the poor craftsmanship should be reason enough to avoid these phones at all costs, I will say a few more words...
Overall the fit is decent for a pair of cheap ear plugs. The rubber piece fits snugly, yet comfortably in the ear canal and allows for extended listening without soreness or discomfort. The cord is long enough so that I could put my iPod in my back pocket and still have enough slack to move freely. The phones do a fairly decent job of keeping outside noise at bay by sealing your ears shut. Bear in mind, these are by no means noise-cancelling, but they kept my chatty co-workers from being a distraction.
As for the sound I would give this product middling marks at best. The highs and mids were adequate but were drowned out by overdriven, muddy bass. You'll need to tweak your EQ if you want the mids and highs to come through. For most rock n roll they performed well enough, but these cans lacked any real definition or crispness necessary to fully appreciate anything classical.
One minor gripe is that the plugs lack any markers to indicate left from right. This is a mild annoyance, but it should be a no-brainer for a pair of headphones. Also, the advertised "key ring pouch" would seem handy, but in reality it's a pain to get the phones in and out constantly.
Any redeeming qualities this headset may have are made completely null and void by the poor construction and lack of durability. In the end, even in spite of mediocre sound quality and comfort, these phones aren't worth your money.
Customer Review: Great earphones for cheap!
Summary: 4 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Sound Quality:
I'm an audio engineer by trade, calibrating high-end home theater speakers for a living, so I definitely know good sound quality when I hear it. While these earphones can certainly be surpassed by many expensive ones out there, I don't think they can be beat for the price. Frequency response is wide and flat, with good volume and no noticeable distortion.
Sound Isolation:
These earphones do a great job of passively blocking out ambient noise. As soon as you put them in your ears, they block outside noise by almost as much as typical earplugs (the kind you get for shooting guns, loud concerts, etc). They do not have any active noise-cancellation, but they still do a great job.
Comfort:
They come with three sizes of ear pieces. I found the ones that were already installed were perfect for my ears. I have found the comfort to be superior to many earphones I've used, and especially better than the popular iPod/iPhone earplugs. The earplugs stay in place quite well, even during exercise.
Construction Quality:
They look quite nice for a set of earplugs in this price range. The cable is a bit cumbersome and tangly, though. The carrying case is nice to have, but does not utilize any sort of cable management, so you have to wad up the earphones and stuff them inside. The plug is gold plated, which is not particularly valuable, but it's nice to know they didn't just use the cheapest one available. The earphones are NOT labeled right/left, so you have no idea which one goes in which ear without listening to them and using trial-and-error.
Overall:
These earphones can't be beat in their price range, but lack three important features which most earphones should include: Cable management, light-weight cables, and left/right labels. If those aren't important to you, then these earphones are a great choice.
Customer Review: Completely Average, although the case is nice
Summary: 4 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
When you pay this little for headphones your not expecting audio greatness, and you won't be disappointed, the audio isn't great. That said it's solidly average as compared to other headphones in this price range (skullcandy on sale etc). Moreover since these headphones are in-ear they have provide better sonic isolation then many other headphones that are the same price.
The main pro and main con of the headphones provide yet another sign of how solidly average these are:
The biggest positive of these headphones (aside from the price) is the small bag that the headphones come with. Many headphones in this range come with no bag, or come with a small plastic container meant to keep the ear-buds clear of dirt. These come with a faux leather case that not only fits the whole headphones (string and all) but has space to store spare ear-buds, or a some change. Moreover, the case has a key ring attached which should help reduce loss (one of the main reasons many of us buy such cheap headphones to begin with).
Meanwhile the biggest negative is that their is no little toggle that allows for adjustment of the height at which the headphones separate. This little piece costs next to nothing and makes a huge difference in reducing tangles and achieving optimal comfort level.
One other con is that there is nothing to warp the headphones around for storage so they tend to get tangled, but thats nitpicking.
In my opinion when the best and worse attributes of a piece of audio equipment has nothing at all to do with audio quality, noise isolation, or even build quality, you must be dealing with a singularly unspectacular device.
That said, as compared to other headphones in this range, the inclusion of the bag bumps the phones from a 3 star product, to a 4 star product.
RECOMMENDED
Customer Review: Decent audio for the price
Summary: 3 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
The Lift Audio Groove headphones are midrange quality headphones that won't break the bank while delivering decent sound.
I tried the phones with a variety of music and they delivered good quality sound, but lacked a lot of bass response. That's a pretty typical problem with most in-ear phones unless you're willing to spend a lot more money for them.
They look much more expensive than they actually are and come with three different sized in-ear cushions. It was pretty simple to install new cushions and they stayed in the ear pretty well once I selected the proper size. I wasn't especially impressed with their sound isolating quality. I tried them without music playing and was still able to hear a fan in the room without a great deal of difficulty. My seat-of-the-pants guess on noise isolation is perhaps 3 db of attenuation at best. NB: Noise isolation is not the same as noise canceling. Noise isolation just refers to blocking noise using passive meant. Your fingers when properly deployed are also noise-isolating.
The case is a nice convenience, but not of very good quality. If used often, it will probably rip. The cables as some have noted in other reviews aren't split far enough in their original state. It's not hard to split them further, just be careful not to tear the wires inside with too much force. I'm also a little unhappy with the tendency of the wires to tangle and keep their shape from when they were rolled up.
One other nit is that the phone I received had no R or L markings. For music that shouldn't matter too much, but if you're watching a movie, it may be disconcerting to have the sound shift left while the thing that's creating it moves to the right.
Bottom line: These headphones should do the trick if you're in the market for low cost headphones that look decent.
Customer Review: Terrible: Muddled Sound, Poor Vocals, but Comfortable
Summary: 1 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
They look nice, nice heavy construction of ear pieces, silicon fittings work well. However, the sound quality was absolutely terrible. The sound was muddled with poor vocals. It sounded nothing like my desktop speakers, stereo, headphones, or any ear buds I own. They aren't labeled for right or left, but it didn't seem to matter on top of the sound quality issue I had. The cord was too short. It would be fine for an iPod or a device carried in your pocket, but to connect to my desktop computer, I had to dig up a mini-jack extension cord (tested with & without, so not the problem). Like most ear buds, there is no volume control in the cord, but would be nicer to protect against variable sound levels from my computer. The bag they come with is a little too small too.
These sound absolutely terrible. I will not use these to listen to music. They sound far worse than my normal computer speakers, worse than a cheap pair of marshmallow ear buds, and far worse than a nice pair of ear buds I own. I might consider using them as a backup pair for hand held video game on an airplane if sound clarity isn't important. But it really was unacceptable to my ears to try to listen to music with these. These are so bad that I wonder if something is broken with mine. But both ear pieces are equally bad. If anyone else has a positive review, it really makes me think mine are broken or they must have something different than my pair.
I had no trouble swapping the small fittings for medium fittings and back again, but the cloth cover on the speaker seemed to come up a bit when I pulled one fitting. The medium fittings fit very well and comfortably in my ear, blocked out sound, and didn't feel at all like they would fall out. The sound quality was sounded better to me with the small fittings when they didn't completely seal.