I came across this product in a pretty odd way. I just got back from a trip through Asia (my excuse for no blogging lately!), and my last stop was Seoul, Korea. While out for drinks and dinner there one night with a co-worker, I got into a conversation with a Mr. Alex SM Han, CEO of iFeelU, a Korean consumer electronics company. He had me try out a pair of these headphones, and after listening for a couple minutes through my BlackBerry's media player, I was sold.
What makes these different from other conventional in-the-ear headphones is the way they deliver bass effects -- they literally rattle the little bones in your ears. What's even weirder about them is that there's no battery or other external power source. The, um, vibrators are powered by the sound source. Holding them in your hand, you can actually feel them vibrating, which feels kind of strange at first in your ears.
This Gizmodo article inexplicably claims that for music, these headphones "suck balls". I beg to differ. I found the sound quality -- particularly the bass -- to be fantastic. The date of the article corresponds to right around the date of the product launch (May 2008), so who knows...maybe improvements were made since then. I also used them for the in-flight movies on the 13-hour flight back from Seoul, and was very satisfied with the sound quality. Oh, did I mention Mr. Han gave me a set? He did. Very nice man, that Mr. Han.
The phones fit comfortably in the ears, and there are two simple dials on the in-line control labeled SPK and VIB. SPK controls the basic volume, while VIB controls the bass (amount of vibration).
The Gizmodo article says the product is expected to launch in the US "soonish" and retail for around $40, but I haven't seen them yet. But if I understood Mr. Han correctly, start looking for them at CostCo in the coming months.
