Review: Phiaton PS 200 for iPod

Two hundred and fifty dollars for earbuds for your iPod is quite a sum of money, particularly considering that you probably didn’t spend that much to buy the iPod itself. But for those discerning users who can’t stand the audio quality of the iPod’s included earbuds, and who aren’t even satisfied with any of the several excellent third party options in the $100 range, Phiaton’s PS 200 earbuds fall into an exquisite category of earbuds whose audio quality is so expansive, so three-dimensional sounding, that you almost start to believe you’re wearing full cup-style headphones instead of tiny earbuds.



The first thing I noticed with the PS 200, beore I even turned on the music, is that they made probably the tightest seal with my ear canals that I’ve encountered with any rubber earbuds. I never have a problem with earbuds falling out of my ears, but these in particular stood out as being so secure I thoought maybe I could go on a roller coaster while wearing them (not that I tried that particular stunt, nor should you).



Generally speaking, the sound quality is everything you’d want in super high-priced earbuds: while listening to your favorite music with the PS 200, you start to notice new details in that music that you couldn’t even hear with measly $100 earbuds.



The trouble comes, however, with the bass-to-treble ratio. Usually it’s a matter of the earbuds having more bass than treble, and it becomes a matter of whether the bass is too amped up to be considered a mainstream product. But this is converse, where the bass on the PS 200 is the feintest I’ve ever heard on high-end earbuds. Not to be mistaken with cheap, crappy $10 earbuds where there’s literally no bass; in this case the bass is there, and it sounds great too, but there’s just not enough of it in comparison to the upper ranges. I honestly don’t know how many people are going to pay $249 for earbuds whose bass is this feint in comparison to nearly every other option on the market – but I’ll leave that up to each of you. That leaves the PS 200’s quality very high overall, but its market appeal questionable, hence the four star rating out of five. You’ll each have to make your own call on this one.

Learn more at Phiaton.com or buy now.

review by Bill Palmer