Velodyne vPulse review: Velodyne vPulse

Velodyne has made subwoofers for a long time -- and very good ones at that -- but has only more recently got into the headphones game with vPulse, a stylish $99 earphone that comes in black or electric blue and is equipped with an Apple-friendly inline remote/microphone for making cell-phone calls.

7.8

Velodyne vPulse

The Good

The Velodyne <b>vPulse</b> in-ear headphones offer very good sound, highlighted by impressive bass response. They also have a distinct design and have an inline microphone/remote for Apple iOS product users.

The Bad

The earphones aren't supercomfortable and may not fit everyone equally well; the inline remote will not function with most non-Apple smartphones.

The Bottom Line

While some folks may encounter come comfort issues, the Velodyne vPulse in-ear headphones offer excellent sound for the money and will particularly appeal to bass lovers.

As you may expect from a company that makes subwoofers, Velodyne's earphone delivers impressive bass, so you're in for a treat if that's your pleasure, especially at this relatively modest price point. But before I get into their sound, let's talk design.

These are a little larger than your typical earphones and may not be a good fit for certain users. They sit pretty comfortably in your ear thanks to an angled stem (or post), and the aluminum housing doesn't pinch up against the inner ear lobe (this was a bit of a problem with the otherwise excellent Bowers & Wilkins C5s). While they fit me pretty well, I did test them with a few other folks, and the response toward them wasn't universally positive (as far as the fit goes anyway).

As with most in-ear headphones, this model comes with various sizes of single-flange silicon ear tips. But a hat tip goes to Velodyne for including four different sizes in each black and gray, along with one extra set for a total of 10 ear tips. One of the four choices should allow you to get a tight seal. You also get a simple, well-designed zippered carrying case and a clip for attaching the 43.5-inch-long headphone cord to your clothing.

Other pluses: the headphone cord has a flat, linguine-like design that really helps cut down on tangles, and the cord terminates in an L-shaped plug that should outlast a straight plug.

I only used the Velodynes vPulses for 10 days so I can't speak to their long-term durability, though they do seem well-built with a distinctively stylish look. That said, you'll definitely get more mileage out of them if you keep them tucked into that carrying case when not in use.

Made for iPhone
If you're an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch (third generation or later) user, the earphones have the aforementioned Apple-friendly integrated microphone with volume controls and a call answer/end button that also doubles as a playback control (one button push to pause, two to skip track forward, and three to skip back).

You should also know that there's a good chance the controls won't work with non-Apple smartphones. For instance, I tried the vPulse with the Samsung Galaxy S3 and had no luck. It's also worth noting that while music and movies played fine through the headphone on the Samsung phone, I could barely hear callers. On my iPhone 4S, by contrast, everything worked fine.

Performance
The sonic emphasis here is on bass, but the key is that the vPulse delivers quality in addition to quantity -- the low-end is deep, full, and tight, motivating you to seek out tracks in your library with potent bass lines that lesser headphones can't handle with as much aplomb. I meandered through a variety of music, from the Chemical Brothers to the Black Keys to Drake, Flo Rida, Eric Dolphy, and the David Byrne/Caetano Veloso Live at Carnegie Hall album. The earphones even helped to give a punchier bass response to a remix of Fun's hit pop tune "We Are Young."

I can't say it was love at first listen with the vPulse, but they definitely grew on me and the sound improved with time. CNET contributor Steve Guttenberg echoes the sentiment, and he wrote about the vPulse in his Audiophiliac column early in 2012, with a follow-up in a later column to say that they'd become a favorite for subway travel (he didn't mind the overabundance of low-frequency energy in the subway but in the quiet of his own apartment he preferred a flatter, more accurate headphone).

"Listening to a great live recording of Jeff Tweedy singing 'Jesus, Etc,' I heard the vPulse projecting a big, wide-open soundstage, bigger than most in-ear headphones," Guttenberg wrote. "The stereo imaging is closer to what I get from full-size headphones. But the bottom-heavy bass balance is impossible to ignore, so other in-ears sound puny by comparison."

The visceral "pulse" of these earphones does come at a cost to their overall clarity, which is good but not great (the Klipsch S4 or S4i remain solid choices for those looking for balanced, detailed earphones in this price range). For most people, particularly bass lovers, it will be a small cost, especially considering the fact that the vPulse sounds better than some earphones selling for twice as much.

In the final analysis, the vPulse manage to do something many headphones that accentuate bass fail to do: sound pleasing. That said, if you're a non-Apple smartphone user who's looking specifically for a set of earphones that can be used for making calls, I'd pause before buying the vPulses. But I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to users of iOS products. They fit fairly comfortably and sound excellent for the money, particularly if you're a bass lover.

Editor's note: The score on these earphones was originally 4 stars but was lowered to 3.5 stars on March 22, 2013 due to increased competition for earphones in this price range.