Portable Gaming Revolution

Logitech Playgear Stealth In-ear headphones.

Us portable device users are always on the constant search for the perfect set of earphones. We have to balance the price paid with the features offered; the most important being sound quality, noise canceling and the biggest damn frequency range as possible.

I’ve written and talked about my dislike of the earphones that shipped with my PSP, the audio quality just wasn’t there while playing games and listening to music at a higher volumes. While I was happy with the Intec headphones that shipped with my starter kit, apparently others weren’t so much – I guess I got the only decent pair! Either way, the Intec pair I used to use are destined for my storage drawer, they’ve been replaced!

When Logitech announced the release of their Playgear Stealth in-ear headphones I knew that I had to take a better look at them. The images I saw showed a thin rubber reverse suction cup on each ear bud, apparently to help keep the good sound in and the bad sound out; I knew I had to have them. Well I finally got my hands on a pair of these earphones and I can say that I am very impressed by their quality – the audio range is fairly good as far as earbuds go. These are light years ahead of the stock Sony phones and even sound a bit richer then my iPod earbuds. The low ranges are a little weak, but truthfully this is probably something that will have me thanking Logitech in 20 years – I like my sound loud.

I’m actually enroute to Denver as I type this, I’m sitting in a plane at about 30,000 feet right now jamming to some Jet – Be My Girl, that is blaring out of my iPod shuffle and the quality is phenomenal. I mean, these aren’t expensive noise cancelling earphones and nearly all the ambient plane engine noise is being blocked out. The guy in the seat next to me hasn’t asked me to turn it down either.. showing me that my “maybe a bit too loud” music isn’t making it out of my ears. I can already hear you saying “but I don’t come to this website to hear about listening to MP3s on a iPod, these are a Logitech Playgear product meant for the PSP” Ok I hear yah.. enough chatting about music.. the Jet song is over now anyways.

Last night before heading out on my trip I played a marathon session of Coded Arms using only the earbuds. Turning up the sound to 11, I proceeded to make my way through most of the second sector levels and had a blast. It’s amazing what a good pair of headphones can do for a game. The little ambient sounds that would normally be filtered out by the built-in speakers, or those that just aren’t loud enough to make it to your ears are audible. I’ve heard some reviewers bashing the audio quality of Coded Arms, they should try playing it again using these earphones, it’s a whole different game. Not wanting to limit my test to just 1 game, I fired up Wipeout pure and Midnight Club 3 to jam to their awesome soundtracks. Pumping up the sound, I settled in for a great night of gaming.

Anyways.. back to the earbuds. Logitech was nice enough to ship 3 sets of rubber cups with these earbuds. They range in size from incredibly small to fairly large, so anyone should be able to find the proper size to help these earbuds fit properly in their ear canals. I seemed to have the best success with the medium sized ones, so stuck to those. One thing that if included would of been nice, and also what may be my only issue with these earphones, is that Logitech neglected to include a carrying pouch or case for your spare set of rubber cups. While most people will just slap on the ones most comfortable for them and keep those on all the time, I share these with Cara who prefers the small size. A case would of been nice for longer term storage as well. However, this is a small issue and not one that effects my impression of these earbuds.

If you are in the market for some new earbuds, I highly recommend giving the Logitech Playgear Stealth earbuds a try. They sell for a reasonable $19.95 US or $29.95 canadian and are worth every penny. Now if you’ll excuse me, Feel Good Inc by the Gorillaz just came on… time to sit back and groove to the music.

Visit Logitech’s site for more info on the Playgear Stealth.