Earbud packaging so cute, you can almost hear it
By Trent Wolbe 
posted July 30th 2010 1:02AM
posted July 30th 2010 1:02AM
In-ear headphones, like underwear, present a problem to vendors and consumers: there's no good way to try them out before you buy them, without sharing unsavory parts of your body with others by proxy. So what do packaging designers -- the only ones who can do an effective job of selling you things you can't test drive -- do? One of three things, generally: they keep it boring (Etymotic, Sennheiser, COBY), hit you over the head with xtreme street grafix (Skullcandy, WESC) or they get creative. Panasonic's RP-HJE 130 earbuds exist only in award-winning-designer-concept-land, but we can guarantee you our moms would just flip if they saw them on the shelf at Target, and they'd probably end up in our Christmas stockings no matter what they sounded like. Now can someone out there please make some disposable earbud sheaths for us, for demo's sake? Like those things the doctor sticks on the in-ear thermometer? Thanks in advance.
How much... I know they are not great but it's the novelty
@lucky1995
Perhaps a valentine's special which is rose colored in the shape of a heart
Speaking of novelty, whats up with all these hot "mormon" surfer chicks on TV all of a sudden?
@lucky1995 maybe they can make some in the shape of little iphone 4's so i can go get bumbers for those too
@smallj
It's only funny when it's clever
@smallj Oh my god... These f***in guys who won't let it down. It's nothing to do with apple. Give it a rest you stupid mother fucking piece of shit.
@legionssolution
Calm, Calm, Deep Breaths, Its nothing personal against you just a company :P
@credo I know lmao
gay
@galbingito
How's junior high workin' out for you?
@TheSpoonyBard
Somewhere, right now, Hillary Duff is scowling in anger . (Not that anyone cares...)
@TheSpoonyBard He gets wedgies and gets called gay by the people doing it to him.
@AzlanIsmail
...
@TheSpoonyBard BURN!
@TheSpoonyBard It was pretty good, although the place was a sh1thole when it came to finding girls. Don't think that'll be a problem anymore :3
It sounds magical...
That's just awesome.
ingenius
Do want!
awesome
Bravo!
earbuds suck, buy some real headphones your hearing will thank you.
Would rather listen to this than any skullcrap headphones again.
@Amusednow
IEMs are delightful. Perhaps you have never experienced anything besides the free Zune/iPod 'buds.
@Amusednow
SURE
@Amusednow
there are plenty of nice earbuds, you just have to be willing to pay up for them.
@Amusednow
Quite wrong. The problem with external headphones is that to get good bass, you need size for the lower frequency range, or shell out a lot of money. With in ears, you just need a high quality transducer that can create lower frequency sound, plus the added bonus of isolation (not noise canceling, that's just mumbo jumbo).
In my opinion, in ears are a much more sensible day to day tech that isolates me from external noise, are light weight (so I can jog with them) and provide exceptional portable audio quality. That is, of course, until I go home to sit in my chair and listen to my 7.1 B&W system.
@mboudreau
I'm extremely happy with my Ultimate Ears super.fi 5EB. Great sound quality, and lots of bass.
@Amusednow
I'm not sure how crap over-ear headphones are different from crap in-ear buds. You really do get what you pay for.
@Indefinite Implosion
I say it's mumbo jumbo mostly because good isolation can remove 35db (like etymotic's in ears) of sound which is more than most active noise canceling systems. I know it helps, but you just can't beat just not having the noise in the first place.
Clever girl.
@wunch - random Jurassic Park quote?
i like in ear headphones but i love the old style pie tin over the ears kind
Sennheiser can have all the boring packaging they want. They have legendary quality to back it up with.
Who give the F about packaging? My triple.fi came in a nice, simple black box.
Btw, why is it look so Appppple-ish?
@xix0nmn
Yeah but at least with the Triple Fis, you know you're getting good audio... so why should they care about packaging.
Even if Westone made the packaging out of recycled condoms, it'll still be good.
Panasonic? Hmmmm nah maybe not. Now if these were Senheissers, heck yeah.
It's in the shape of a NOTE wow!! What was I buying again? Ah never mind, I got me a NOTE! XD
It would be a shame to unbox it.
I'm amazed nobody thought of this sooner. It's just so obvious. I mean, the packaging of a product is really not an accurate indication of the quality of the product within(you can't judge a book by its cover), but this is marketing genius. It's so simple.
@CapnShiner I was going to say the same thing. Most in ear phones are shaped in a way that this would work. Many good designs are hitting on something that seems obvious snd "right" to the observer Kudos to whatever designer finally thought this up.
Clever packaging design. Love it.
The Apple Aesthetic is everywhere now. Good job Panasonic. In this case, they out Appled Apple.
To sample IEMs and earbuds, the retailer only has to keep some clean, new replaceable tips nearby. Obviously, you wouldn't want to let people sample $30 earbuds, the tips would eat too much into the margin, but for $100+ earbuds specialist retailers would do well to provide free tips for testing.