Conceptual question mark earbuds: can you say "production?"
By Darren Murph 
posted Aug 22nd 2008 5:45PM
posted Aug 22nd 2008 5:45PM
posted Aug 22nd 2008 5:45PM
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These would be nice. I'm tired of scraping earwax off foam earbuds.
You must have pretty disgusting ears, I rarely have to clean my earphones, especially not needing to be 'tired' of doing it
Also, the embarrassing part of having ear wax on foam ear phones is when people see them, imagine your earwax for all to see even when your listening to music?
I rarely need to clean them, but it's such a pain when I have to.
They wouldn't gather earwax, because they sit in the part of your ear where there isn't any usually.
My earbud stinks haha...
I'm just glad they don't go so far in. I HATE earbud-rape.
I got a pair of in-ear Sony that manage to get earwax on them even though I clean my ears everyday.
sbmail: Hmm..that's pretty cool. Thanks for sharing, OWstin RuhRange.
ok ive never had "ear wax" on my ear buds
Sick.
Yuck - they might have picked an ear-model without three ugly puncture marks in her lug...
They ate her earrings!
Or they could have used photoshop to clean the ear ring holes...
Healing brush...
M
Her ears look like they're going to "OM NOM NOM" the earbuds...
Honestly, at least people wearing these will look as clueless as the question marks imply they are.
seriously, i mean that's why the healing brush exists in photoshop.
Why is this even a big deal?
I figure they took her studs out so they wouldn't distract from the earbuds. Personal opinion: the puncture holes are far more distracting then nice little diamond, but that's just me...
@ Abuzar
Because they've done such a poor job.
What I meant was that it wasn't distracting at all. I didn't even notice it till I saw that comment.
You guys are making a big deal out of nothing. Most everyday women DO have ear piercings.
I like it. I want a mini umbrella now also...
Yeah. That wouldn't hurt your ear at all...
My ears are (soon going to be) bleeding.
It looks more comfortable than anything I've ever seen.
No. It looks like the first generation iPod headphones with the middle cut out. Those things hurt!
They'll have issues with sound leakage (disturbing people around you and also allowing outside noise in). This may be desirable in certain situations, like for runners who have to remain aware of their surroundings and who probably won't have people complaining about the noise coming from their earphones, but this wouldn't work so well on planes, in offices, on buses, etc.
sir i believe that would be called the frequency force field. all audible frequencies extending beyond the surrounding, "earcophony", are dissolved. Oh that's you God.
Earbuds usually don't have all that strong of output, thanks to the proximity of the driver to the eardrum. So I'm not sure bothering your neighbors/coworkers will be as problematic with these as, say, a pair of Sennheiser HD580/600/650's.
What will bother you is ambient noise. I saw these and thought 'huh, zero isolation.' The normal IEM/earbud market is used to isolation, so to them it could be a tough sell. I'm also not convinced about the driver somehow magically wrapped up in the "?" tube. Probably a concept that will never see the light of day.
they don't show you the required over the ear muffs that you wear over this unit in order to be able to hear.
panasonic already solved that "stick together" earphone.
http://www.audiooutfitter.com/images/items/050/32050-rp-hje70s.jpg
and the driver, would be too small that the sound would hear like a tiny can, bass? no bass at all.
Actually, I think these would be great - I wear a headset all bloody day at work, but these would save me from having to constantly taking my headset off to have a conversation as people tend to shout at me even though only one ear is covered.
Okay, so when you photoshop this design it fits perfectly, what about a prototype? And, say, a few differently shaped ears? It strikes me as a rather rigid looking design and I got this funny feeling the human ear isn't nearly so standardized. Nice concept though.
I wouldn't want to buy these for one reason and one reason only. No in ear!
also, surely with the earphone not covering the ear you'd get loads of outside sound interrupting your listening?
Has somebody invented in invisible driver unit - like, to um, make the sound for these things?
Only a total f*ckwitt would forget the drivers in an earphone design!
RTFA
just putting a magical little grill on it won't actually solve the whole "there's no driver" issue...
Concepts are fun and all, but i'm not interested in the least until i see an ENGINEER say "yeah, we can do that" and put it in production.
These things would sound like shit with today's technology, if you could even get them to sound like anything.
If you think you get bad bass off your iPod earphones, just wait until you try something with oblong drivers a few millimetres across... ;)
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If I'm honest, they look more like 9s.
yeah or p's or loopy j's but a ?, I mean there's no "." anywhere
The design is interesting, and may have possible applications, such as the above poster pointed out, when the wearer needs to hear outside noise well when using them.
But the design could be much refined. This design leaves the center completely open, which forces the driver into a semicircular shape on the side. That produces horrible sound, both because of the irregularly shaped driver and because of the placement of the driver does not direct sound directly into the ear canals.
Instead, the driver should be placed in the center of the loop, perhaps connected to the loop by thin columns of plastic. Or if you want to be really innovative, the entire center can be the driver, suspended by flexible wires and the entire loop can be the magnet field moving the driver. This way the phones produce the result it desires - by having the outside loop holding the phones in place, and by allowing open air to pass through, without sacrificing the necessary centrally-placed driver. The ability to lock the two loops together behind the neck is an unnecessary gimmick.
How on earth do these work? bud speakers are small enough... the speaker in these would be tiny... unless I don't understand how they make sound...
If they were a little springy and flexible they would fit really well...
I'm not sure how they would sound though... You do need to have some kind of driver and one that small would probably sound quite... What is the word? Tin-Canny?
Gah, sometimes Engadget thinks the stupidest things are cool. I really doubt these many any sound worth listening to... earbuds are already bad enough.
While these look nice, they would quite obviously produce absolutely horrible sound. Think, Engadget, think.
Couldn't they have photoshop'd out the distracting piercing holes? Geez.
I dunno...they do look beautiful, but they would not isolate sound at all, and unless the outer edges of the question mark are soft, they are going to HUUUUUURRRT your ears if you wear them for more than a couple mins. Would def be interesting to try, but they don't seem very functional.
OMG NICE
my earbuds...which I got with my iphone sucks ...big time.
Need a new one.
It all comes down to sound quality. They look good, but if they don't sound good there's really no point IMO.