Incase Capsule Headphones First Impressions Review
Note: this is written as someone who has never found a pair of in-ear headphones that have felt good to use for an extended period of time, i.e., more than two minutes. So keep that in mind while you read this.
Finally, after having the package being stuck in customs, and getting to the uncooperative post office, I got my Incase Capsule in-ear headphones today. I open the box, and find a nice little pouch. The pouch contains the headphones,and two sets of replacement eartips, as Incase calls them. The included instruction manual told me to try every set of eartips, so instead of just immediately going for the smallest ones as I usually do, I tried the normal ones. I had to ram the damn things in my ear pretty hard so that they’d even fit. Now that I’ve fulfilled the wishes of Incase, I try the smallest eartips. Again, trouble shoving them in my ears, but at least they fit somewhat.
The first song I try is “Gate 2” by Emptyset, a very bass-heavy track from a very bass-heavy album. After having listened to and enjoyed the album earlier today with my AIAIAI Tracks on-ear headphones, I was pretty disappointed to find that the bass is pretty lacking. The headphones feel like a pretty minor upgrade from the regular iPod headphones that I usually use.
Undeterred, I start listening to the latest episode of the excellent Beats In Space podcast/radio show. Still doesn’t sound too great, but at least part of the blame falls on BiS itself as the audio quality of the podcast has never been great. After wearing the headphones for 10-15 minutes, my ears start to hurt. Definitely not a great start.
I own two other pairs of in-ear headphones too: the ones that came with my cheap LG Windows Phone 7, uh, phone, and the admittedly cheap Tweaked Audio headphones. To my surprise, the LG headphones sounded the best, with deep bass and so on, but weren’t particularly comfortable. The Tweaked Audio sound about the same as the Incase Capsules (i.e., not very good), but are way more uncomfortable.
The volume buttons feel good, and unlike the ones on my AIAIAI headphones, they also work. I haven’t tried the mic yet.
I’ll give the headphones a few more days, but if they don’t start feeling a bit more comfortable—and I doubt they will—I’ll start looking for other headphones. I was also considering getting the $200 Incase Sonics, but considering the lukewarm reviews it has gotten and the audio quality of the Capsules, I think I’ll just get some Sennheisers or whatever.
Update, 11th November 2011:
I retract the comments about audio quality. It’s actually pretty good after a while. Still uncomfortable as hell, though.
