RAmos RX100 Earphone Review
The RAmos RX100 earphones hit my desk looking like a USD$5 pair of earphones you’d pick up on the go, after you’ve busted up your proper ones (Brainwavz’s of course) and need a pair to listen to until you buy your next proper pair of Brainwavz’s (of course!). After trying them however, I was slightly surprised. Here’s why.
First of all, the packaging the RX100′s came in wasn’t the nicest, sleekest, or fanciest of packaging. It would be unfair to say that all packaging needs to be in matte black and look like it came from northern Europe, however, packaging that looks rather cheap will indeed give off that impression. The image behind the thick plastic was somewhat of a replica of Apple’s coloured silhouette iPod ad, and the plastic casing itself was made out of one of those thick plastics that require industrial strength scissors in order to cut pass the angles of which the case is shaped in. However, with packaging like this, it’s not as if you stop to study what’s on it, or written on the back, which is just as well because there wasn’t much other than driver type, impedance, frequency, input power and wire length (even though some can argue that you don’t actually need to know much more when it comes to simple earphones). As for those specs for the RX100:
- Driver Type – Dynamic
- Impendence – 32?
- Frequency – 18Hz – 22KHz
- Input Power – 8mW
- Wire Length – 1.1m
Once I plugged the RX100 into my iPod Nano (2nd generation), I sat back expecting to hear sound quality on par with your standard iPod earphones or other cheap Phillips, Pioneer, JVC, Sony etc earphones like mentioned above – however, having not known (and still don’t know) the actual price of the RX100′s, I assumed wrong. The sound wasn’t anywhere near as clear, defined or have as much bass power as the Brainwavz’s (you can tell by now that I own a pair and I’m clearly comparing the two – specifically the M2′s (and I love them)), however, the sound quality and even the bass was much better than I had expected. I often find that with cheap earphones, there seems to be a total lack of bass, even if they say they do. The RX100 however, does have good bass. The overall sound did have it’s fair share of distortion, which naturally grew as I increased the volume, however the acoustics and higher frequency sounds weren’t too bad for an cheap looking pair of earphones.
Sounds wise, if indeed these earphones are sold for a low price, actually perform better than they look. Comfort wise, I’m afraid they do look as uncomfortable as they look. coupled with the impossibly hard to put on foam cover, the large and thick earpiece seems to clog up your whole entire ear, and not in a good, sound-isolation way, but in a scared-that-the-earpieces-seem-to-be-growing-and-will-eventually-rupture-your-ear way. To put it plainly, the earphones were not comfortable and were too big for my ears – or anyone who doesn’t have BFF sized ears for that matter.
In conclusion – like mentioned, if a pair of RAmos RX100 earphones do sell for cheap, then it’s a pair worth choosing over other cheap earphones, as the sound quality and bass is pretty decent, and better than standard iPod earphones and most other cheap earphones. They are uncomfortable but then again you can’t expect the best on a budget. If the packaging was better and less tacky, then I could see these being used a bit more than just a pair of back-up or in-between good earphone, earphones.
Categories: Earphones IEM, Ramos
