Short of custom-made earphones with inserts fitted to a mold of your very own ear canal, it's hard to imagine in-ear phones that sound or feel better than these. EARS are Future Sonics' "universal design" (read: Off the shelf) take on their pro-quality line of custom-molded monitor systems regularly used onstage and in the studio by musicians, engineers, and others whose livelihood depends on quality sound. Heck, there's even a pull quote from Phil Collins on the FS website.

I don't care what you say about his recent, shmaltzy solo stuff -- Three Sides Live-era Genesis was awesome, and Phil is one of the most underrated rock drummers ever.

But enough about british art rock ... What, exactly, makes these EARS so good?

The Long and Short of It
The coolest thing about writing columns for PowerBook Central is the email I receive from you, the readers. The coolest thing about writing product reviews for the site is the goodies I get from you, the readers who make the goodies I review. Once in awhile I'll get an email from a company I've never heard of asking if I'd like to check out their wares for the site. This is always a welcome suprise; it's my job to keep you all abreast of the best of what's out there to make your mobile mac experience all it can be, but it's a mighty fun job at that.

Every so often, however, a company will drop me a line out of the blue with an offer to review a product that turns out to be exactly what I've been hoping to find but didn't think existed. A few weeks ago I got such an email from Daniel, the Director of Marketing for Future Sonics, a Pennsylvania-based company that makes "professional personal monitoring systems" (i.e. super high-quality earphones) for the audio industry.

Daniel wrote to see if I'd be interested in taking a look at -- and listen to -- Future Sonics' "EARS" in-ear headphones. He mentioned that while they were originally designed as an off-the-shelf alternative to custom-fit monitors for the audio professional or musician, the iPod community had really been taking to them in recent months. Being that I was in the thick of my hunt for the Holy Grail of iPod headphones (cf. MacAlly Noise Reduction Headphones, Apple In-Ear Headphones, and Sony In-Ear Headphones), I was intriegued. When Daniel went on to warn me that the EARS were being well-received despite being rather ugly, I had to have a pair.

There are those who wear their white iPod earbuds with the pride of being part of the "In Crowd;" me, I'd just as soon have anyone bothering to scope out my earphones assume I'm carrying anything but the most desirable and resellable electronic gadget currently on the planet. But, hey, I think a wee bit of paranoia is a good thing when travelling the city by foot.

Future Sonics EARS come in beige to better disappear under stage lighting. That right there is a good sign -- Future Sonics is primarily in the business of making ultra- high quality monitor systems for stage and studio use. They offer a full line of custom-made systems, and you can also retrofit the EARS with sleeves made just for your ears if you're willing to spend a little extra and take a trip to see an audiologist. As is, EARS come with a 45" cable fitted to a standard 1/8" gold-plated headphone jack suitable for use with an iPod, PowerBook, CD player, or other standard audio player. They also come with a leather carrying case.

The standard model EARS work just fine as is, though. Where other in-ear earbuds come fitted with rubber sleeves designed to slip into and seal off your ear canal, EARS use a deceptively simple compressible foam cylinder that much better acheives the same effect. Squeezing and rolling the foam between your fingers compresses it down for insertion into the ear, where it molds itself to your canal upon release. Not only is the foam more comfortable than rubber sleeves, it also does a better job at both sealing out external noise and helping to reproduce desirable low-end audio frequencies (i.e. The bass in your music).

It took me three or for uses to get used to inserting the EARS and fiddling with the EQ settings on my iPod and PowerBook. I listen to a lot of different kinds of music, but gravitate towards rock, funk/groove, and electronica the most and like a fair amount of bass in the mix (though not at the expense of the middle and high-end of the spectrum). The EQ settings on my iTunes and home stereo system boost the low and high ends while cutting a bit of the mid-range, and I usually keep my iPod's EQ set to "Rock" or "R & B." So I was pretty stunned to find that I was getting too much bass using the EARS with these settings. Switching the iPod over to "Treble Booster" wound up yielding the best results: Clear mid- and high-end response with plenty of undistorted bass to keep my head noddin'. I'm a drummer, so I need the thump of the bass drum clear and strong underneath the rest of the music.

(Though I haven't yet had the chance to try them out behind the drumkit, I can only imagine how great they'd be for onstage use or practicing along to pre-recorded tracks while blocking out some of the sound of the drums themselves. As a kid I used to wear a giant pair of "cans" headphones over my walkman phones to acheive a similar effect).

What's also great about in-ear phones is that they allow you to listen to your music at lower volumes by cutting out some of the external noise around you. EARS shine in this regard. The Future Sonics website lists the effective isolation of EARS at 25db. My own unscientific tests yielded the following: Walking to the subway with my music at a comfortable listening level, I had to pay a little extra attention to traffic when crossing the street; On the subway, I could totally immerse myself in my music by closing my eyes and had to take at least one phone out in order to hear the conductor telling me we were "unavoidably delayed" in a particular station; Buying my coffee on the way to work I had to either pause the music or take one phone out to understand that the person behind the counter couldn't believe that I really wanted my coffee Black, No Sugar.

In other words, EARS work really well. They're comfortable, they isolate you from external noise, and they sound fantastic. And Daniel mentioned that while Future Sonics has and always will be about sound and performance first and foremost, consumer response to EARS has been so overwhelmingly positive that there may be some cool new consumer-line products in the works. Could it be that a white & silver iPod Special Edition is around the corner? Honestly, who cares? If you're serious about getting the most out of your iPod or other portable audio device and can afford a $150 pair of earphones, I highly recommend EARS, beige and all.