Accessorize Me: V-Moda Vibe Duo Headphone Review

For those who have an iPhone (read review) you know that your selection of compatible headphones is pitifully weak. I'm not talking about using any pair of 3.5mm headphones here, I mean if you want headphones that provide high quality audio for music, a working microphone for calls and a button for both call and music playback functionality you don't have a lot to choose from. If you walk into an Apple store your choices, aside from Apple's own headphones, will be between ungainly and messy extensions that allow you to use any headphone and the V-Moda Vibe Duo. The latter will certainly appeal to many, but you might want to think twice about it.

When the V-Moda Vibe Duo headphones became available a few months ago I ran out and purchased a pair almost immediately. I had done some research on their Vibe headphones for the iPod and they seemed to get good reviews. So despite the somewhat steep $99.95 price I went with it, and at first I was quite pleased. As you would expect sound quality is significantly better than the headphones that ship with Apple's iPhone, although I should mention I am not an audiophile by any means. There are three different sized ear-pieces included in both clear and black so you should be able to find a size to suit you. I did find that they did have a little bit of trouble staying in the ear, though. They won't fall out on their own, but it doesn't take a lot of pull to yank them out so if the cord gets caught on something they're going to go flying.

The biggest issue that I was trying to address, in addition to better audio quality, was that Apple's headphones had broken on me twice already. Specifically the squeeze button stopped working. I was hoping that because the Vibe Duo headphones had a real button they might hold up better, and in this, at least, they did not disappoint.

What was disappointing was what happened about two weeks later. One of the ear buds stopped producing sound. I found that if I fiddled with the wire down near where it connects to the iPhone I could get stereo sound back. I tried stabilizing it with some tape, but this didn't work very well. Since I was just under the two-week return period at the Apple store I went in and exchanged them, in the hopes that I might have gotten a bad pair. To try and keep the problem from recurring I put electrical tape around the wire near the base of the headphones, theorizing that perhaps if I stabilized them a little better I could insulate them from being bent too much, which may have caused the problem.

Unfortunately, this just delayed the inevitable as about a month later I got the exact same problem again. Even though I was outside of the return period I returned to the Apple store in the hopes that I might be able to talk myself into some store credit, at least. It turned out that I didn't have to do much fast talking as the sales person was willing to let me return the headphones without a problem. During the exchange they indicated that they had gotten a lot of returns due to this problem, and in fact the sales person themself was returning a pair as well. Some online research indicated that this is indeed a wide-spread problem. So, in your quest to find a replacement headset for the iPhone you probably want to steer clear of the V-Mode Vibe Duos.

If you have found a satisfactory headphones solution for the iPhone, let us know in the comments.