Celebrity headphones are big business with every footballer you can imagine sporting a pair of ‘Beats By Dre’ over ear headphones on their way to a game.
With the market there, rapper 50 Cent founded SMS audio and launched his own line of audio accessories to compete with one time mentor Dr. Dre’s line, and to be honest they are pretty good!
Phones 4 U provided me with a pair of ‘Street By 50’ in-ear headphones and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the product.
Coming in an impressive package displaying the rapper’s image, inside the box was a pamphlet detailing the range of headphones as well as the user manual, an aeroplane adapter, a carry case as well as 2 other sizes of silicone tips for varying sizes of earholes.
The headphones themselves have a flat wire, blue on one side black on the other, rather than the usual tubular shape and the cable is Y split. They also have a Apple remote control and microphone witj volume control allowing for use with iPhones as well as other models.
The headphone have a gold plated jack for superior sound quality and I agree that you can tell the difference in comparison to ‘ordinary’ headphones as the Street By 50’s definitely allow you to appreciate your music more.
Being that the headphones were made by a rap artist I first tried them with a rap album, Kanye West’s Yeezus and found the vocals clear and the headphones allowed for instrument seperation. On the track ‘Blood On The Leaves’ the soft piano tones were in perfect contrast to the dominating horns that followed, a contrast I enjoyed a lot more via the headphones.
I then listened to Dexys Midnight Runners ‘Come On Eileen’ the fiddle in the intro and thus forth in the background perfectly accompanies the bass and piano and perhaps overwhelm the vocals a little.
The audio whilst an improvement on the standard offering from Apple’s headphones, do lag behind the likes of the Beats as well as rapper/actor Ludacris’ ‘Soul’ offering.
One major gripe I did have was that I found neither of the 3 sizes of silicone tips provided fit quite right so i found myself using the smallest size and having to put them back in quite frequently.
Beyond that I found the Street by 50 in-ear headphones great so if you are looking for an upmarket headphone and are willing to spend a little money, these could be the headphones for you.
