Apple iPhone 3G S Headphones

	Sound Quality
• Even frequency response. • Terrible issues low-end distortion. • Good tracking.
	Tour & Design	Page 3 of 12	Isolation

About our testing:
For more information on our tests, read this article.


Frequency Response     (6.69)

What we found:
The iPhone 3G S headphones have a really decent frequency response. They aren't perfect, but they did a good job of falling within our limits. The bass trails off towards the low end, which might not be desireable. There's also a bit of a fall off after the 7kHz line, followed by a bit of a spike at 10kHz.

In general, the response was even. We had no real complaints here.








How the Apple iPhone 3G S Headphones compares:

Apple In-ear Headphones with Remote and Mic

Sennheiser MM 50 iP

Denon AH-C351

Shure SE115

What is frequency response?
Frequency response refers to the way the headphones emphasize any given grouping of frequencies. Sometimes it'll give them a boost, sometimes it'll mute them a bit, and sometimes it won't alter anything. The ones that change emphasis around are dynamic headphones; the ones that try to keep playback as faithful as possible to the source are called reference headphones. Dynamic headphones try to call out desireable frequency bands, such as playing up bass, or giving a boost around 7kHz to call out drums. 

How the test works:
For this test we play back a frequency sweep through the headphones. The headphones output the sound into HATS's ears, which records the exact volume of the playback. We then take the recorded output and compare it back to the original sound file. Using this, we can find out exactly how the headphones ended up emphasizing each frequency band. For more info, you can read our 'How we test' page, here.



Distortion     (0.93)

What we found:
As you may or may not have guessed by the score or the graph to the right, the iPhone 3G S' headphones aren't the best in terms of distortion. In fact, they're pretty bad.

The reason for this low-end distortion is likely due to the headphones' design. Since they sit outside the ear canal, there's no seal between the headphones and your ear. Therefore, instead of pumping bass directly into your ear, it shotguns it in the right direction. Bassy sounds are hard for in-ears create, since they involve moving a lot of air and in-ears don't have a lot of room for large, fancy drivers.

We also noticed there was a lot of noise when we hooked it up to an amp.

How the Apple iPhone 3G S Headphones compares:

Apple In-ear Headphones with Remote and Mic

Sennheiser MM 50 iP

Denon AH-C351

Shure SE115

What is distortion?
Distortion refers to the differences between your the original sound file and what the headphones end up outputting. Distortion refer to a lot of things, including noise. High distortion is definitely not a feature a set of headphones want to excel in, but the degree to which you'll notice distortion can change based on the type of playback you listen to. High distortion will irk fans of acoustic or classical music, but probably won't bug metal fans too much. The number we score based on is 3%, which is the level at which distortion is annoyingly apparent.


How the test works:
Like most of our tests, we play a frequency sweep through the headphones, then record the headphones' output with HATS. We then measure the headphones' output against the original file and look for deviations. We measure distortion as a percentage. To find out more, click here.


Tracking     (9.52)

What we found:
Once we finally got the ear buds to stay in place, we found the headphones' tracking was actually really good.

You may notice that the headphones seem to be heavy in the right channel. This is true, but it's by a barely audible amount. The things people tend to notice are sudden shifts in volume from one channel to another.








How the Apple iPhone 3G S Headphones compares:

Apple In-ear Headphones with Remote and Mic

Sennheiser MM 50 iP

Denon AH-C351

Shure SE115

What is tracking?
Tracking refers to the relative volume level of the left and right channel. When they don't match up, playback will sound like it shifts to your left or right. This is bad.


How the test works:
For our tracking test, we again trust in HATS to let us know what the headphones are doing to our playback. Here, however, it's recording the relative volume levels between the left and right channels. We have stored more info on this test at the following link.