Subscores
By the time rapper 50 Cent's long-announced in-ear headphones came out, we had all but forgotten about them. It took several months and a return to complete self-government for SMS Audio to finally dish out the goods. From an audio standpoint, is the "By 50" series really the expertly designed signature product it claims to be? I don't think so.
Design: The Cable... It's Flat
The only thing really imaginative about these earphones is the flat, blue-on-one-side, black-or-white-on-the-other cable. It's compact and does seem resilient, with nothing to envy of the Jays' flat cable, and easily meets the quality of its Beats Audio competitors. There's no length adjuster at the Y fork, just a piece of plastic to keep the opening angle wide. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you. The connector is bent to the side, but not quite at a big enough angle to make it useful on players that have the jack entry on the side.
As accessories go, we're not quite reduced to bread and water, but just about. The Street by 50 in-ears come with three pairs of earbuds, a small semi-rigid case and an airplane adapter. So, nothing extraordinary here.
These aren't the most comfortable earphones we've tried on. In fact, they're pretty much your typical silicone buds—not amazing, not horrendous, either.
Audio: A Fog of Sound
While the Street by 50 In-Ears aren't death-by-bass the way Dr. Dre's Beats Audio are, the Street by 50 have their own bag of problems.
Frequency response: lows to the left, highs to the right
As you can see, that huge bump at the low-end isn't quite as far to the left of the spectrum as it is in Dr. Dre's in-ears. The peak hits just before 200 Hz, right at the border between the lows and low-mids. Which, of course, doesn't stop the curve from plunging 14 dB over the next 2,000 Hz. There's too great a difference between these two points to glean a sufficient amount of information from the audio signal. The result is that certain sounds necessarily drown out others.
And when put to the listening test, that's exactly what you hear. A high fidelity experience this most certainly is not. The lack of sub-bass creates a strange unbalance in the low-end, where the bass gets mashed together with a boomy rendering, all without making the slightest impact on the drum track or bass guitar.
A second unbalance comes in the upper-mids and beyond: this time, it's the voice and other instruments that get drowned out. These extreme variations tend to reinforce the lower notes played on keyboards, guitars, and so on, but not those coming from the bass and drums. This ultimately leaves the highs and upper mids, which is where you typically find the human voice, out to dry. And certainly don't expect anything bright or crisp here.
But—amazingly—there are more problems to come!
THD+N as a % Harmonic distortion in dB
These harmonic distortion curves are far from amazing, especially for an in-ear headphone: a drop from -20 to -30 dB between 20 and 200 Hz is unacceptable! In the higher frequencies, however, there are no major flaws to be seen. But you can clearly hear the resonance in the mids; it sounds like a cross between a megaphone and a parking garage. The reason for all this becomes clear when you take a look at the square waves below (see inset above).
Design: The Cable... It's Flat
The only thing really imaginative about these earphones is the flat, blue-on-one-side, black-or-white-on-the-other cable. It's compact and does seem resilient, with nothing to envy of the Jays' flat cable, and easily meets the quality of its Beats Audio competitors. There's no length adjuster at the Y fork, just a piece of plastic to keep the opening angle wide. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you. The connector is bent to the side, but not quite at a big enough angle to make it useful on players that have the jack entry on the side.
As accessories go, we're not quite reduced to bread and water, but just about. The Street by 50 in-ears come with three pairs of earbuds, a small semi-rigid case and an airplane adapter. So, nothing extraordinary here.
These aren't the most comfortable earphones we've tried on. In fact, they're pretty much your typical silicone buds—not amazing, not horrendous, either.
Audio: A Fog of Sound
While the Street by 50 In-Ears aren't death-by-bass the way Dr. Dre's Beats Audio are, the Street by 50 have their own bag of problems.
Frequency response: lows to the left, highs to the right
As you can see, that huge bump at the low-end isn't quite as far to the left of the spectrum as it is in Dr. Dre's in-ears. The peak hits just before 200 Hz, right at the border between the lows and low-mids. Which, of course, doesn't stop the curve from plunging 14 dB over the next 2,000 Hz. There's too great a difference between these two points to glean a sufficient amount of information from the audio signal. The result is that certain sounds necessarily drown out others.
And when put to the listening test, that's exactly what you hear. A high fidelity experience this most certainly is not. The lack of sub-bass creates a strange unbalance in the low-end, where the bass gets mashed together with a boomy rendering, all without making the slightest impact on the drum track or bass guitar.
A second unbalance comes in the upper-mids and beyond: this time, it's the voice and other instruments that get drowned out. These extreme variations tend to reinforce the lower notes played on keyboards, guitars, and so on, but not those coming from the bass and drums. This ultimately leaves the highs and upper mids, which is where you typically find the human voice, out to dry. And certainly don't expect anything bright or crisp here.
But—amazingly—there are more problems to come!
THD+N as a % Harmonic distortion in dB
These harmonic distortion curves are far from amazing, especially for an in-ear headphone: a drop from -20 to -30 dB between 20 and 200 Hz is unacceptable! In the higher frequencies, however, there are no major flaws to be seen. But you can clearly hear the resonance in the mids; it sounds like a cross between a megaphone and a parking garage. The reason for all this becomes clear when you take a look at the square waves below (see inset above).
Pros
- Design
- Resilient cable
Cons
- Umm, the sound
- Warped signal
- Not many accessories
Conclusion
50's in-ears may sound different from Dre's Beats, but they don't sound any better. And with minimal accessories to boot, this is not the finely hewn signature product many were expecting.
OUR SCORE
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