A Closer Look
Hearing all of the info that Arctic Cooling provides is cool and all, but lets get down to the nitty gritty user experience.
My first impressions are that the box is very small. I like when companies make small packages for small items. I can’t count the amount of times I have purchased something small and it comes in a box large enough for a video card. On the package you get a water ripple along with a see-through plastic piece which allows you to see the actual headphones. On one side you get to see everything that is included in the package, while the other shows the actual product. The rear has a few tidbits of information about the product, nothing to write home about. While the slide-open front panel on the box shows what the inside of the earbuds look like. Pretty cool to say the least.
The actual headphones themselves don’t look like anything special from my first glance.You do however get a nice built-in microphone on the cable which is a big plus if you like to use your headphones on your cell phone.
If you have ever torn the cable on your headphones due to the cable being thin and bending improperly you might have issues with the E461-BM. The cable feels decent, but with time and use they are doomed to fail like most other earbuds. It would have been nice if the cable was braided like many other headphone makers are doing these days.
When it comes to comfort you need to pick the pair of ear pads that works for you. The medium worked best for me, but that was after trying all of the different sizes. After wearing them for a couple of hours they break in a bit and become more comfortable so be aware of that when you first try them on. Through testing I even forgot they were on at times which is a great testiment to the comfort of the ear pads.
The microphone works fine through testing. Skype,mumble, teamspeak and phone calls worked without any issues at all. The fact that the splitter to use the microphone on a laptop or desktop is a nice touch and very much appreciated.
For those who want to use these headphones on their phone, tablet, laptop,etc. the cable length is perfect. If you are looking to use them on your desktop computer I would highly suggest getting an adapter to make them longer.
