Monster® iSport™ In-Ear Speakers with ControlTalk™, Blue

Built for athletes with incredible sound

Overview:
Strong recommendation for a product that is built specifically to handle the needs of athletes without compromising sound quality.

Rating - My Rating Scale 1-5 (1 is poor,...Read complete review

Overview:
Strong recommendation for a product that is built specifically to handle the needs of athletes without compromising sound quality.

Rating - My Rating Scale 1-5 (1 is poor, 5 is excellent)
Setup and configuration: 1
Sound Quality: 4.5
Comfort: 3
Durability: 4.5
Fit/Stay in Ear: 4
Sweat/Water Resistance: 4.5
Player Controls: 4
Sound isolation: 4.5

Anecdotal:
Upon opening the box, you are a bit overwhelmed by all the pieces it contains...it reminded me of setting up a board game like Life or Mouse Trap. The ear pieces where labeled by size, the inner ear pieces were not labeled and were a bit difficult to tell what size they where. All in all it took about an hour to setup the headphones and get the fit perfected.

Once setup, I found it took a little practice to get them in my ear quickly, but after a week or so it takes no time at all and they are locked in and ready to go.

The sounds quality is a huge upgrade from any other "sport" type headphone I have used, and even non-sport, fully over the ear headphones. It has crisp mids and highs, with a great low end. Compared to my other favorite sport headphones, its is a serious upgrade.

The Comfort is improving, and I did end up changing out the ear pieces a couple times, but early on if I had them in for about 2 hours my ears would start hurting a bit. After a week, I can have them in for about 4 hours before I run into some minor discomfort.

These headphones are tough. I could see potential problems with losing some of the pieces, but they are all well made and have handled my tugging on them and even accidentally stepping on them. They also can be washed and overall just feel rugged.

They fit in my ears pretty well and takes a good pull to get them out of the ears. It does take some practice to get them into your ears (can be challenging during a run), but they didn't ever fall out during a run or workout, which has been a problem for me with other headphones I have used.

I have gotten these headphones seriously wet with no change in sound quality or fit. I haven't tried to listen to them underwater, as I am not sure based on the description that they can perform underwater, but they can be washed.

The player controls did work on my iPad 2, but did not work on my iPod 4, and caused problems with my Droid X while listening to Pandora. It was causing the play/pause button to continually be pressed which made for an interesting experience. In all fairness to iSport, it only says its supports, iPod, iPhone and iPad, so it should probably list which version of the iPod it supports.

These headphones provide some serious sound isolation. Say goodbye to the screaming kid behind you on the plane or loud distractions during a workout. The iSport blocks out almost all sound (including wind while on a bike) improving the already good listening experience. The downside of this, is that it makes it impossible to hear much of anything, especially while working out with other people or in the midst of traffic. I find myself pulling out one ear in order to be more aware of what's going on around me.

* I received the iSport headphones at no cost in return for giving a fair, honest and unbiased review of the headphones, with no expectation of a favorable review.