Scosche Increased Dynamic Range Earphones review: Scosche Increased Dynamic Range Earphones

7.0

Scosche Increased Dynamic Range Earphones

The Good

The IDR655m in-ear headphones from Scosche offer ear-whopping fistfuls of bass, along with an inline remote and mic, a shirt clip, a generous selection of ear tips, and a classy leather carrying case.

The Bad

The unapologetically bass-heavy sound isn't flattering for some types of music, and unlike an EQ preset, there's no switching it off.

The Bottom Line

If you own an iPod or iPhone and tend to listen to music with the bass EQ cranked all the way up, the IDR655m headphones are easy to recommend. For sonic versatility, look elsewhere.

Photo gallery:
Scosche IDR655m

The Scosche IDR655m headphones are the company's best effort to date. With a list price of $99, they deliver a big sound, stylish design, and plenty of extras. Toe-to-toe with Apple's own $79 In-Ear headphones, the IDR655m can't match the crisp sonic detail, but they deliver considerably beefier low-end, additional ear tips, a sturdier cable, and a more convenient carrying case.

Design
The IDR655m are a good-looking, great-fitting pair of headphones, with plenty of small design details to appreciate. The headphones start with a metal-reinforced 3.5mm plug, and 4.5 feet of black braided-cloth cable run from the plug to the headphones, providing a high-end texture that minimizes tangles and won't show age and wear as easily as Apple's all-white designs.

Along the way, you'll find an in-line three-button remote located 14 inches from the earpieces, dangling right at chest level. The remote offers control over volume and a single multipurpose button for play, pause, skip, call answer/end/hold, and Voice Control. All three buttons are made from a soft rubber, and are each given a unique embossment to help distinguish them by feel alone. Around 9 inches up, you'll also find a Tic-Tac-size microphone on the cable leading to the right earpiece.

Finally, you have the earpieces themselves, which are encased in a combination matte black and chrome-finished plastic. There's a rubber sheath that directs the cord into the earpiece, acting as both reinforcement and a dampener for cable vibrations. There are two pinhole acoustic ports on the back of each earpiece, giving the 11mm single-driver design a little more air to push around and allowing some outside noise to slip through.

The IDR655m come with a whopping total of six pairs of interchangeable silicone ear tips, with three pairs that use a single-piece design, and three that use a dual-flanged design. Each set of three are offered with small, medium, and large fittings. The aperture of the chamber going into your ear is about 0.2 inch in diameter, giving it less leeway for small ears than in-ear headphones based around balanced-armature drivers, such as the Etymotic HF2, or Klipsch Image X5, but still a fairly typical fit for this price. A perforated mesh filter is housed inside the aperture to prevent ear wax from entering the chamber. Unlike the Apple In-Ear headphones, the filters are not removable or replaceable, so keep your ears clean, folks.

Despite the cloth cable, inline remote, and separate inline microphone, the IDR655m are surprisingly light and comfortable. With the correct fit, fatigue on your ear is minimal.

Extras
Beyond the generous selection of ear tips, the IDR655m also include a shirt clip and a self-closing pouch made of brown sheepskin leather. The pouch is a really nice and useful accessory, which we found much easier to use on a daily basis than the triangular pillbox container included with Apple's In-Ear headphones.

Performance
Sonically, the IDR655m are a bass addict's dream come true. The ported 11mm dynamic drivers are so beefy on the low-end, Senior Associate Editor Jasmine France claimed they made her ears vibrate.

If you're looking for a balanced, versatile sound, you'd be better off with a pair of Klipsch S4i ($99) or Apple In-Ear headphones. But if bass is what you're after, the IDR655m do not disappoint.

Listening to electronica, hip-hop, and dance pop, the IDR655m deliver the kind of subwoofer-like thump and rumble we don't typically hear from a single-driver design. Podcasts, audio books, jazz, classical, and some rock recordings suffered for the bass-skewed sound of the IDR655m--which is not to say that mids and treble lack clarity, but the low-end bias of the sound tends to overwhelm other elements.

The remote and microphone work as advertised, though, like many comparable headphones (including the aforementioned Apple and Klipsch offerings) the volume control and microphone are not advertised as compatible with the third-generation iPod Touch (although the multifunction button cooperates). We tested compatibility with the iPad, iPhone 4, and second-generation iPod Touch, and all worked perfectly.

For more information on comparable headphones, check out our favorite headphones under $100, and top headphones with iPod controls.