blakdogg's Full Review: Channel Sources IM-290 Headphones
Design and construction
The i290's are striking for their silver colour and ball-pein hammer design. They are a basic earbud design, but the bud is enclosed within a plastic housing, that stretches about one inch along the lead forming a hard sheath. The housing also sticks out from head, giving the ball-pein like look. The shiny surface and unique appearance, gives the wearer a look similar to a frankenstein monster - nodes sticking out from the head ?? If we ignore the look of the buds, we can focus on the positives; they are comfortable, and easy fit for my ears. And it would appear the hard shell should prevent the lead breaking where it meets the buds. This brings us to another shortcoming, the headphone jack. They are two ways to make headphone jack, the elbow or the straight jack. Using a straight jack with a portable player leads to a pont of stress where the lead meets the jack. With an elbow jack, there is still some stress but since the angle is not as sharp it will be considerably less. In my experience earphones with straight jacks do not last very long. The i290 also has a slightly odd lead, it seems a bit shinier than normal cables ... normal cables appear to be more rubbery compared with the i290's. The i290 also ships with a neat carry case and a full set of adapters, it doesn't include the large adapter for high end stereos but it does include the airplane jack. A nice touch is that it ships in a bubble package, less waste than many other packages, like the JBL's box.
Broken wires
Here is the problem. I purchased two pairs of i290's in April to replace a crap pair of el cheapo JBLs. The first i290 broke after about a month of usage, I lost sound in one of the ears. The second pair failed in a similar manner, but the sound in one ear was diminished within two weeks with total failure within the month. I contacted Maximo, since the i290 comes with a lifetime warranty, to get the broken buds replaced. I mailed the broken pairs back to Maximo, and within two weeks I got one pair back and an email saying a mistake was made and the second one is coming. It is also worth nothing that the shinier cables also appear to be a bit stiffer than normal, they seem more liable to hold a fold.
Sound quality
The sound of the i290 is unimpressive, the bass is weak and the general sound quality is at best fair. Interestingly, the i290 does not have label the ear buds as left or right, but this is rarely a problem. The sound is serviceable for spoken word, poor for music on mp3 players and awful for high quality equipment.
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