Well look what just arrived! I’m calling the bassbuds Earphones rather than Headphones, a) because they go in your ears, rather than round your head and b) because, quite frankly, I’m very confused about what we call these gadgets these days, as you’ll see there’s a lot more to them than tiny speakers and wire.

The first thing I noticed – appart from the name, which is obviosuly a heart warmer for any bass player – was the very attractive packaging. The really nice presentation box makes them a great as a gift, which is handy for this time of year. Opening the box up revealed a generous range of buds to go with these in-ear phones. There are multiple  silicone and memory foam ear buds, with three sizes of each – so you should be able to get a good fit, whatever size your ears are, which is key to getting a good sound. I found the memory foam inserts particularly good.

The connector doesn’t look like a normal headphone connector. That’s because it isn’t! Don’t worry, it’ll work fine in a normal headphone socket on any of your audio gear, but it is also a mic built in. If you have a smartphone (iPhone, Nokia, etc..) or even a mac, then you can do hand’s free calls as well as listening to rehersal material, or even recording. There is also a control button built in where the cables meet, so you can click to answer a call, or pause, or whatever your device does!

Being able to plug the bassbuds in to the Mac and use them as a Skype headset was a very nice bonus – I seem to use Skype more than the phone for talking to other musicians these days. Also, having hands free on the phone for calls, when not listening to music, is quite liberating. Speaking of listening… The bassbuds have a pretty solid and warm low end response, clear midrange, and a top end that isn’t too sharp. An annoyance with a number of other earphones I’ve tried recently is that they were overly bright. The bassbuds don’t fall into that trap. Another nice touch is the gold-plated metal jack plug

There’s a HUGE range of colours available. The ones in my hands are are ‘platinum‘ and the ones above are (quite clearly!) red – I’m pretty sure you can find a set that match your outfit or your bass! There’s also a hand carry pouch. Yes, it says “bass bag” on it, but it’s for the ear-phones, you’re not going to fit your actual bass guitar in there, ok? 🙂

Anyway, thanks to the folks at bassbuds, here’s an offer for readers of  The Bass Guitar Blog, get five pounds off. Just use this code when you check out: BB38463 – enjoy: http://www.bassbuds.co.uk/