TesTed. Reviewed. veRdicTized reviews
W
e’ve tested a lot of earbuds over the past few years and invariably
find ourselves gravitating toward products at the very high end of that
market—we’re talking buds that’ll set you back more than the most expensive
iPod. At $200, Future Sonics’s Atrio m8 earbuds certainly aren’t cheap—but
they’re competitive with some products that cost twice as much.
The first thing you notice when you stick the m8s in your ears and hit
play is the bass response. We immediately pulled out these earbuds and did a
double take to see how they could pump out so much low end. Exceptional bass
is one of the attributes we’ve always dug about Shure’s $400 SE530 buds, but
they don’t deliver nearly the sonic boom that the m8s produce.
To be fair to Shure, the SE530s deliver more frequency response at the
high end of the spectrum, a fact we attribute to the three separate micro driv-
ers in those buds, versus the single driver in the m8s. The bigger the driver, the
easier it is to produce low end. A big driver also sacrifices highs, but Future
Sonics has achieved a remarkable balance in its design.
Hold the m8s next to the SE530s and you can see where Future Sonics
invested most of its manufacturing budget: the drivers. The m8s fit just as
snugly and comfortably in our ears, and they were at least as effective at block-
ing outside noise, but they just don’t look as elegant as Shure’s product.
We listened to a wide variety of tunes encoded in both WAV and FLAC onCowon’s iAudio7 digital media player (look for our review at http://www.maximumpc
.com ). We dug how the m8s were able to deliver each of the musician’s
contributions on Betty Davis’s “Git in There” (from They Say I’m Different ).
Davis’s predatorily nasty growl is the obvious focal point of this song, and it
sounded fabulously seductive on the m8s, but these buds also did full jus-
tice to the backup band’s funky drum, guitar, keyboard, and bass
work, too. These are some
sweet buds.
—Michael BrownFuture Sonics Atrio m8
Earbuds
Bass on a budget (an enthusiast’s budget, that is)
Future Sonics’s atrio m8 earbuds deliver broad frequency response
at moderate volume, which helps you resist the temptation to crank
the volume to boost the bass.future sonics atrio m8
$200, http://www.futuresonics.com9
MA XIMUMPC
KICKASS