RockBuds From chicBuds

Bruce Von Stiers

There is this outfit called chicBuds. They have a lot of audio accessories, mainly targeted towards women. Hence the name. One of the products lines they have is earbuds.

The product line for the earbuds includes an ipod inspired designer series. But the set I recently checked out is in their RockBuds product line.

The RockBuds earbud set I got was very interesting. It has a cord with a plug at the end to fit into the port of a listening device such as an ipod. There are two different plug setups. One is L-shaped and the other is a straight feed plug. The one I got had the straight feed.

On the other end of the earbud set are left and right ear earphones. They fit into your ear canal.

Between the plug and the earphones is something called a Retractor. This is a spring driven spool that retracts both sides of the earbud set into it. The spool is encased in a hard plastic flat cylinder. On the side of the Retractor is a mini-clip. This is for attaching the Rockbud to a piece of your clothing to keep it in place.

On the back of the Retractor there is a black disc with the RockBuds logo on it. On the front there is also a disc. Depending on the specific model you get is what is on the disc. You can have a graphic with a guitar player, one with an angel or even one with a star on, representing a rock star. Mine came with the Wings Like Eagles graphic.

The Rockbuds come in a metal tin with a clear window in front. Not only is this a good way to ship a product, it keeps the earbud set from getting trashed when you are done using them.

The folks at ChicBuds are very specific about using the Retractor. They tell you to pull each side out evenly and retract them the same way. That is because you supposedly can get the two sides tangled up in the spool. So I decided to test that out. They were right. I pulled out both sides and then retracted each separately. I ended up with a tangled mess it took a while to fix. So if you get a set of these, make sure and pull out and retract both sides very slowly and evenly.

I never got into the whole ipod thing, but I do have a SanDisk Sansa Clip MP3 player. I used it to test out the RockBuds earbuds.

I tested the RockBuds out in four different, albeit similar arenas. That is, while walking, running, on the treadmill and mowing the yard.

Sometimes I go walking at a lake a couple of miles from my house. Usually, I use my Sansa Clip. So, I took it and my RockBuds along on a lake walk. Once I adjusted both sides of the cord and attached the Rockbuds clip to a belt loop, I was ready to walk. I found that I could hear the music of the player very well through the earbuds. There wasn’t a problem with the clip coming loose, so that was a plus.

The next two tests were a little more tedious. I used the Rockbuds while going on a run and in the treadmill portion of my daily workout. When starting out on the run, I thought I had the length adjusted right on the cords. But when I started running I found that I had to loosen them up more. And the clip came off from where I had it clipped a couple of times.

The test with the treadmill didn’t fare much better. At first. For some reason, the RockBuds wouldn’t stay in my ear canal very well. I don’t know if the canal was too small or what. I have kinda big ears so that shouldn’t have factored in. I did an adjustment on the cord length and then screwed the Rockbuds tighter into my ear canal. It worked better then.

My final test was while mowing the grass. By this time I knew I had to watch how I adjusted the cord length and set the earbuds really tight into the ear. The earbuds worked just fine. The only trouble I had was that the mower is so loud that I had to turn the volume of the Sansa Clip all the way up.

Speaking of volume. The speakers in the RockBuds provide clear and crisp sound. There is very good separation of the left and right channels, so you get a tight stereo sound.

I liked the RockBuds with a couple of exceptions. The buds need to be a bit smaller. (I have read that they are coming out with a kid’s version, so maybe the adult version could be redesigned for smaller buds). And the clip could be just a tiny bit larger so that it will stay attached better.

The normal retail for RockBuds is $ 39 US. But you can buy them right now through the ChicBuds web site for $ 19.99 US. You can also get them online from venues like amazon.com. RockBuds are being sold through traditional retailers as well. Dillards and Fred Myers are but a few of the retail outlets that are selling RockBuds and other chicBuds products.

To learn more about RockBuds, or the chicBuds company, visit www.chicbuds.com.

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