A little known fact about me is I love to review products. Of course if you know me well, you know I just don’t have the time to test every product I learn about. Moreover many of the items I discover take up space and my wife has been complaining about the pile of softswitches and session border controllers I lug home to review in my home office.

So when I got an e-mail asking me to review a pair of Flamingo Music headphones from CellPoint, I figured… A headset? How much space could it take up?

When I received the box, I was pleasantly surprised as the package was very professional and was the size of a small diary.

The headphones look unusual as they have something called EarClick technology which means there is a rubber attachment at the top which actually goes over the cartilage in your ear. This little piece of rubber hugs the little piece of cartilage and moreover presses against the top of the ear for a snug fit.

I have always had a problem getting small round headphones to fit in my ear and they often fall when I am active or even when I am just sitting. This EarClick technology is great because I could shake my head violently and the earphones just wouldn’t come loose. Of course this test caused me to faint but these are the lengths I go to in order to have happy readers.

The flipside to the secure fit of course is that the headphones could pinch your cartilage after time. It is for this reason there is a plastic bag in the box which includes rubber attachments of various sizes.

I had better success with the smallest size of rubber adapter and I learned it takes a bit of effort to remove attachments once they are secure.

The headphones have a frequency response of 16Hz-21kHz but at 16Hz you should be able to feel the music and the drivers of in-the-ear headphones generally lack the punch you get with over-the-ear models. The Flamingo was unfortunately no exception to this rule.

But what they lack in bass they make up for in depth and clarity. I tested the headphones with the following music:

• Beethoven
• Bach
• Mozart
• Def Leppard
• Webster Hall (dance)
• Eart Wind And Fire
• Rihanna
• Abba
• State of Shock
• Paul Oakenfold
• D.H.T.

In all cases the music sounded well above average for in-the-ear headphones. I also noticed that this unit isolates your ears more than typical in-the-hear headphones which can be good or bad depending on whether you are sitting at your desk or jogging across an intersection.

One other differentiator is the headphone cord which is made of a shoelace type material which is good from the standpoint of ensuring you reduce tangles. Otherwise the fit and finish of the unit was great and my area of improvement would be a longer cord and better low-end response.

I do think the headphones are a good buy and would recommend them. The one point of caution is that it is difficult to know in advance if you will find a comfortable fit. There is no guarantee you will, but then again there are rubber attachments of at least six different sizes. In addition, if you are very active while listening to music these headphones will likely be worth your while.