The Puro Sound Labs’ IEM 500 is a “Sexy” Earbud
By Anthony Sabatini
The Puro IEM 500 are the most attractive earbuds we have ever seen. In fact, we could go out on a limb and call them “sexy.”
Technically called”in-ear monitors,” they are a combination of machined aluminum and flawless design, which produces an eye-catching, high-tech look and a very light and comfortable in ear experience. They are angled to fit comfortably in the ear canal and there is no need to wonder which is the left and right since they will only fit into the proper ear. Puro Sound Labs touts its products as “a whole new way of looking at headphones.” These in-ear monitors certainly do have some unique qualities.
The combination of inline microphone and one button control and a TPE cable to reduce noise, is one of the most stylish and easy to use we have ever seen. On Android, the button allows you to start or stop your music, or answer the phone. On Apple, it does these functions plus. If you are playing music and push the button twice quickly, it skips to the next song. Push three time and you can go back to the beginning of the previous song. The in-ear monitors come with two nice accessories: 4 additional sized sets of earbud tips and a soft fabric carrying pouch. The proper earbud tip helps make a proper seal on your ear and adds to the quality of the sound. The IEM 5oos are designed to keep you from cranking up the volume and still getting a high quality listening experience.
But the IEM 500 earbuds are more than just attractive. These are studio-quality in-ear monitors, and the mid range reproduction had excellent clarity and fidelity. The IEM 500 in ear monitors have a Dual Dynamic Driver Phase-Optimized System with two dynamic, custom drivers, a woofer and a tweeter, in each channel. It’s a patent-pending technology that the company says eliminates muddy base inherent in such products, and it’s this muddy bass the overrides the vocals and forces listeners to crank up the volume on other earbuds. However, in my test, due the small size of the driver, in order to stop resonance and vibration the low end falls off very rapidly, so are missing deep resonant base. Likewise, again due to the small size of the sound of the reproduction element, these have rolled off the high end — but cleanly, so that although you are missing the highest harmonics of a cymbal, the sound is still very good. Distortion only crept in when driven to fairly high volume levels, but up to that point, it exactly tracks the source material and has no distortion until it is overdriven.
