It’s been quite a while since we reviewed the CrossRoads MylarOne X3/XB and X3i/XBi. While they were good sounding in-ear phones in the sub-$100 price range, their build quality was more than questionable. Jaben, the company behind the CrossRoads brand, certainly considered these shortcomings in durability when they designed the new versions of their MylarOnes. We’re going to take a closer look at their Bijou 2, Bijou 3, and Quattro.

To make matters more confusing – or interesting – Jaben introduced a second brand of IEMs as well, called Hippo. While the MylarOne brand appears to be targeted more towards the “serious” listener, the Hippo brand seems to be catering more to the “fun” crowd. Well, at least that’s what the branding and naming scheme looks like to me. “Fun” might actually sound more scary than appealing in this audio context – but fear not, the Hippos are of course nothing like, say, your average Skullcandy IEMs. We’re going to analyze the Hippo VB (Variable Bass) and Hippo Boom in our super secret ABI laboratories, right after the jump.

Our only amp review so far was about the $7 FiiO E3, so it might be time to step things up a bit. Enter the Three Stones MiniBox-E+.

Peculiar brand name… After a bit of sleuthing I’m still not quite sure who is behind the brand “Three Stones”. It seems to be a Chinese one-man project that’s being distributed internationally by US-based Hi-Fi vendor Head-Direct. Three Stones have been in the business for quite some time with several portable amp models, and the MiniBox-E+ I’m writing about in this review is their current top-of-the-line model.

Read on after the jump - especially if you feel the need to drive your 300 Ohm phones properly on the go.

One of the features I use the most on my music player is the auto-pause feature that automatically pause your music when you pull the 3.5mm jack out of the device. With it being a touch screen device, it's so much faster than fishing the player up from the pocket and pausing it. Still, it could be a lot fast - Sony Ericsson MH907 shows exactly how.

The MH907 has a built in motion sensor that noticed when you take out the earbuds. To start playing music, you plug both earbuds into your ears. To pause the music, or to answer a call, you simply take one of the earbuds out. To hang up and go back to music playing you plug it back in. Sony Ericsson says it requires "body contact" to work (aka a small electrical charge, same concept as capacitive touch screens) so it won't activate randomly in your pocket. Unfortunately this will only work with Sony Ericsson phones and it probably isn't the best sounding IEMs out there, but I have to say the concept is both simple and genius. I pop out one earbud to talk to people all the time, and have it automatically pause when doing so would be simply awesome. We can only hope this will come to MP3 players as well, though it's unlikely since it's most likely a patented technology and it would require the player to support it. Maybe we'll see it in Sony WalkMan players if we're lucky.

[Press Release (PDF) | Animated promo video]

Looks like Dr Dre and Interscope Chairman Jimmy Iovine are at it again, this time they brought Lady Gaga on board.

Earlier this week at IFA 2009 in Berlin, Dr Dre, Jimmy, and Gaga along with Monster Cable announced a new pair of IEMs dubbed “Heartbeats by Lady Gaga". And let me tell you, they are gauche—a word I've never had the pleasure of using until now.

Lady Gaga had this to say about her new IEMs in the press release: "In the deepest hour of the night, I confess to myself three things; I would die if I was forbidden to write, forbidden to love, or forbidden to fashion. Heartbeats embody the trinity of my human-being, with one additional vow: that SOUND matters. Wear heartbeats, love each other, and celebrate the art and lifestyle of music."

Uh– yeah. Gaga's 'phones, which will retail for $99.95 - $149.95, include a red carrying case, an assortment of tip sizes, and will be available in several colors. No, you certainly won't be able to read her poker face, not with these stylish yield signs headphones distracting you.

Be sure to look for them on store shelves next month, or don't.

[Press Release | via Engadget]

New personal record! After many fancy and/or pricey IEMs it’s time to review the most inexpensive phones I got my hands on so far – phones that are still worth writing about, that is.

Like Nationite, Brainwavz is a brand created by MP4Nation - purveyors of what I assume to be higher class Chinese-made/designed DAPs, PMPs, and other paraphernalia.

The cheesy “Brainwavz” brand name might suggest these in-ear phones being targeted at the average teenage Skullcandy demographic: muddy, bloated midbass and no clarity or “musicality” whatsoever are some of the images that come to mind with a name like this. While this is more or less true for the cheaper and older Alpha Brainwavz (which come bundled with Nationite players and are indeed a clone of a Skullcandy IEM housing), the new Beta Brainwavz "Pro" however are in another league. They do quite a few things right. Not only in their price segment, but also in the grand scheme of IEMs.

The Beta Brainwavz Pro go for about $30 to $50 - depending on if you preordered them or if you want them bundled with a FiiO E5 amp, among other options. I don’t really dig that confusing business model, but that’s how it is. You snooze, you lose.

Read on if you’re interested in why I think these cheap IEMs are worth a review.

Bluetooth is technically a rather old technology and wireless headphones have really never taken off, yet they're becoming an increasingly popular topic on our forum. A lot of the reason for that is that it's becoming integrated into players, with the Samsung P3 and the Cowon S9 among the newest, most popular models to have this capability.

Most Bluetooth headphones are behind-the-neck style for some reason and there aren't many normal type Bluetooth headphones. The Sony DR-BT22 is an exception, with a form factor and size that really doesn't look like it's Bluetooth at first glance. The DR-BT22 are on their way out, which has dropped the price from a MSRP of $99 to a sales price of under $30 on Amazon, which means these are perfect for people who want to go wireless. But are they any good?

Many people might have heard of the unofficial kings of clip-on/ear-clip headphones. Their name is Koss KSC75, and their price is a whopping $10 (give or take a few) if you look around a bit. They don’t need to be ashamed of being compared to phones that cost a lot more.

With clip-on phones being quite the niche product there aren’t many fancy, higher priced – or even good sounding ones – available. Until recently only some Audio Technica products like the ATH-EM7 or EW9 fell into that category (to the best of my knowledge).

Then Yuin – a company already famed for other niche products, such as high quality ear buds – came along and introduced their G1 and G2 clip-on phones. Both of these currently got upgraded to the G1A and G2A versions, which obviously have improved bass and treble response over the former iterations.

The G1A are the “high end” variant, with a higher price and higher impedance, the G2A are the more affordable variant that are easier to drive with portable players.

Let’s take a look/listen at how they perform – not only in the sparsely populated field of quality clip-on phones, but also in the grand scheme of headphones in general.

Head-Direct, commonly known to the western world – especially the USA – as an importer of quality Chinese audio gear (Yuin, Darkvoice, HE Audio, etc), recently released a range of in-ear phones under their own brand name.

Ranging from the inexpensive RE2 ($39) to the RE1 ($139) and the flagship RE0 ($169) model, we’ll take a closer look at the latter one. Let’s see if the sound quality justifies the rather high price for a dynamic driver IEM.

Our Swedish friends who already brought us the q-JAYS (among other things) are at it again with their newly introduced s-JAYS in-ear phones. Some people found the q-JAYS to have too little bass quantity and too much treble, so JAYS did a 180° turn and engineered the new s-JAYS with a quite bass heavy response.

Their price is half of the q-JAYS and the same as the d-JAYS, so they are certainly in an affordable price range.

We did review quite a few precise, analytic phones recently (like our Editor’s Choice, the Phonak Audéo PFE, or JAYS’ own q-JAYS), so let’s see how this new offering for the basshead crowd fares…

As a huge podcast fan I find Revision 3 to be God's gift to podcast users. For those that don't know, Revision 3 is basically a TV channel based on podcasts, with weekly high quality video podcasts covering a lot of things. Tekzilla is the most known one for tech users such as ourselves, but they also have several other shows - including Systm.

Systm is a show that covers DIY. They've had episodes on everything from waterproofing thumbdrives with epoxy to scanning objects in 3D with a laser pointer. The newest episode however features something much closer to home for us on ABi - how to build a CMOY amp. CMOYs are basically the cheapest, easiest DIY headphone amps you can make and for those of you in a country with radio shack stores it should be a very nice first project for anyone that wants to go into DIY. Hit the link below to watch it being done on Systm.

[Systm Episode 81 - Soldering Your Own Headphone Amp]

Since the reader comments on my Ultimate Ears UE 11 Pro review were quite polarizing (“best thing ever” vs. “who is insane enough to buy such an overpriced thing”) I thought it would be a good idea to give one of the less expensive Ultimate Ears universal fit earphones a closer look. We at abi aren’t entirely made of money – and neither are many of our esteemed readers, so it’s probably good to keep the reviews in balance, financially speaking.

Enter the Super.Fi 5, the newest (and cheapest) member in Ultimate Ear’s series of medium-priced earphones. The name couldn’t be any more confusing, considering there are two other phones from the same range available, the Super.Fi 5 Pro and Super.Fi 5 EB. It’s no surprise these new Super.Fi 5 “Without A Suffix” are often called “SF5 v2”, “2.0”, or “The New One” in blogs and internet forums to avoid confusion.

Read on for the in-depth review.

Phonak, a market leading Swiss hearing aid company that has been around for over 50 years, recently joined the competitive in-ear monitor game with the release of their single armature based Audéo PFE (“Perfect Fit Earphones”).

While Phonak’s high-end hearing aids go for several thousands of dollars, their earphones are quite reasonably priced at $139 for the regular phone version and $159 for the headset version with microphone.

Read on for the full lowdown, but hold on to your wallet if you’re easily excited about earphones with near-perfect clarity and resolution – for a lower price than most of the competition offers…

Most Bluetooth headphones have a neckband style design and there are few over the head style Bluetooth headphones out there. Even more rare are Bluetooth earbuds, as the technology simply won't fit inside such cramped space. JayBird have found a way to circumvent this problem with their JB-200 earbud hybrid.

The JB-200 is a combination of earclip style headphone and earbud with IEM style tips on them. It's extremely small for a Bluetooth headphone and is barely visible if you have any hair at all. How do these headphones hold up to the big clunky headphones with plenty of room for the tech needed? Read on to find out.

Here they are, the Ultimate Ears UE 11 Pro: reference ear monitors worshipped by recording artists, sound engineers, and audio nuts alike.

Besides the EarSonics EM3 and ACS T1 they're the most expensive in-ear phones available at the moment. Ahead of all others in the ear monitor race however, the UE 11 raises the ratio of drivers per earpiece to a whopping four armatures. That’s more drivers than many full-sized floor standing speakers have.

Do I notice similarities to the marketing stunts of certain shaving utensil manufacturers, adding one more blade to every new razor model? While these delusions of grandeur appear a bit nonsensical for something you waggle around your face to get rid of stubbles, let’s see how the old “more is better” applies when it comes to professional ear monitors.

Bluetooth used to be a thing that only cellphones had and stereo Bluetooth was even more exclusive. Now you get this on basically any phone out there and the technology has begun to be more present in MP3 players as well. Samsung can be said to be the pioneer in this area with by far the most Bluetooth equipped players, but other brands like Insignia, Sony, Cowon and others have started to incorporate this as well.

With my recent work related fallout with wired headphones (don't ask) and the purchase of a Sony A828 for it's Bluetooth capabilities, I needed a pair of Bluetooth headphones to go with it. After some research I ended up with the Jabra BT620s. The big question on my mind was how this would hold up to wired headphones both in stability and sound quality. Read on for the full review.