Phiaton dubbed the PS 210 headphones a "half in-ear" design, which is a catchy way of saying they don't reach as far into your ear canals as Monster, Etymotic, or Shure's in-ear models do, but they protrude a little more into the ear than earbuds do.
Before we go any further I'd like to tell you a little bit about Phiaton, which may be new to the U.S. headphone market, but looks like it's set to become a major player here. Phiaton is a division of Cresyn, a large South Korean electronics company founded in 1959. It started manufacturing OEM headphones in the 1980s for other companies, and now produces 15 million headphones a month! Phiaton is better-known in Asia and Europe than in the U.S.
Cresyn also manufacturers camera modules for cell phones and has factories in Indonesia and China; Phiaton's U.S. headquarters are based in Irvine, Calif.
The look of PS 210's lightweight aluminum earpieces is distinctive. The headphones come with four sizes of soft black silicon tips to help ensure a comfortable fit.
They're definitely more comfortable and less intrusive than in-ear designs. The PS 210's ear tips rest gently in your outer ear, but that also means the fit is less secure, and the earpieces can fall out, though I'm getting better at keeping them in. The real upside to the half in-ear design approach is that they don't block external sound, so you can still hear the world around you; the downside is you still hear the world around you. … Read more