Reviews

Review: COLOUD The Boom, The Knock and The Pop Headphones

 

The name Coloud is new to most people’s ears.  The company behind Coloud hails from Sweden and the brand is now in the Philippines with three new products in tow.  Meet Coloud’s The Boom, The Knock and The Pop headphones, members of Coloud’s new line of cheap yet durable headphones.  These new headphones represent Coloud’s no fuss approach to the concept of sound.

Common Features

Coloud’s new headphones share the same great packaging.  They are all enclosed in a triangle packaging that copy the company’s logo.  The triangular shape is not without meaning.  According to Coloud, the triangle represents the play button which denotes the brand’s mantra – “always ready to play when you are.”

Coloud’s goal is to offer robust headphones that provide no-nonsense sound. This is obvious in the design of the headphones.  Coloud’s The Boom, The Knock and The Pop share a minimalist design, with no huge logos and no unnecessary details.   From a design perspective, Coloud has successfully created straightforward products that focus on reliability and functionality, with the ultimate goal of providing a good listening experience to users.

All three headphones have solid construction.  Most of the materials used are plastic but they are the solid and highly durable kind.  There is no doubt in my mind that these headphones will withstand heavy use.  The good thing about plastic materials is they result in lightweight products.  As a result, Coloud’s The Boom, The Knock and The Pop share the characteristic of being ultra light, making them ideal travel companions.  Even The Boom, a set of cans and therefore the biggest of the three headphones, is super light.

All Coloud headphones feature flat, tangle-free cables that are becoming common these days but which I first saw in a-Jays headphones.  The difference is, Coloud appears to be more committed to the tangle-free philosophy.  All Coloud headphones feature what is called a Zound Lasso.  It is a patented design that converts the plug into a lock for the cable.  The end of the headphones has a highly flexible rubber with a hole where the plug locks into.  It’s actually a quite impressive cable management system.  So if you’re done using the headphones, you simply roll the cable and lock it using the Zound Lasso.

Coloud also realizes that most music players nowadays are smartphones so it included a microphone and remote on the flat cable.  You can therefore pick up and answer calls when you’re using the headphones.  This remote can also have playback functions.

Coloud offers a wide range of color options.  All headphones come with combinations of colors that Coloud calls “blocks” and “transitions”.  Blocks is an assortment that uses contrasting colors, highlighting all colors in the process.  Transitions, on the other hand, simply combines different shades from the same color family.  If you like colorful designs, Coloud certainly offers interesting options but there are also muted combinations available.  For this review, all headphones feature orange and yellow.

Comfort and Sound Performance

The Boom

Coloud’s The Boom offers a level of comfort that’s way better than what you expect for its P1,850 price.  The ear cups are sufficiently padded so your ears would definitely not suffer from the pressure.  However, for users with unusually big ears, the size of the cups could be a tad smaller for them.  For the average Filipino, the ear cups are sized just right.

The underside of The Boom’s band is padded and covered with leather-like material so it helps in providing comfort.  What I don’t like, however, is how the cover on top of the band meets the cover of the underside.  They create a sharp edge that’s sometimes not comfortable to hold.  The band is adjustable so they should fit different sizes of heads.

In terms of sound, The Boom offers a generally good audio performance for the price.  It’s even safe to say that it’s one of the best cans out there in this price range.  However, purists and audiophiles would be quick to point out that Coloud’s The Boom does not offer the ideal sound, and they are right.  The Boom’s sound is quite flat and muffled when compared to more expensive headphones. Again, for the price they are good but generally, the bass sounds inadequate even though it is loud enough.  The details on lows are not as expressed as in the other two models featured here.  The mids and highs are also not as detailed and on most tracks, they are unnecessarily overpowered by the bass.   Thankfully, the sound can be cured to a certain extent by adjusting equalizer levels or using the right presets.

What The Boom is certainly good at is in sound isolation.  With these cans on, external sound is effectively blocked and it’s just you and the music.

The Knock

Coloud’s The Knock is my favorite of the three featured models.  It is a lightweight on-ear headphones that truly represents Coloud’s minimalist design philosophy.  The design is quite simple, yet it is nonetheless functional and effective.  The headphones’ band is just composed of hard plastic that’s bendable enough and expands through a pull-out mechanism.  Unlike The Boom which only has a single wire, The Knock has wires on both ear pads.  The pads are thick and soft enough, hence, comfortable to use, although something tells me they may tear easily.

What makes The Knock my favorite Coloud headphones is its sound performance.  For the price of P1,450, this pair of headphones deliver sound that’s on par with expensive brands.  The details on all frequencies are just impressive.  The Knock delivers crisp, brilliant and lively sound that through my days of use has been proven to work on all genres of music.

The Knock may be smaller than The Boom but its bass is quite astounding.  Bass on The Knock is powerful yet it can be soft and warm when the track requires it.  The mids and highs are also treated well by this pair of headphones. Details on highs are exceptionally rich, making the listening experience quite a delight.  Among lightweight headphones, Coloud’s The Knock is really one of the best.  The cheap price makes this product a steal in my opinion.

The Pop

The Pop is an in-ear headphones that’s also simple in design.  Just like the two other models, Coloud used hard plastic on The Pop. The build and construction feels good so The Pop will definitely withstand the pressures of daily use.  In terms of fit and comfort, Coloud got it right with The Pop.  It comes with three different sizes of replaceable caps so the ear buds should fit all sizes of ears.  The ear buds are a bit angled, and this was done on purpose in order to give users better in-ear fit.  Using the right size of ear caps, The Pop fits snugly in the ear and does not easily fall off.

The Pop is a beast in sound performance.  I was truly amazed at what The Pop is capable of considering that it is priced at only P950.  Truth be told, the sound performance of The Pop is comparable to in-ear headphones at the P5,000 to P8,000 range.  That says a lot about this pair of headphones. The bass is booming, yet detailed at the same time.  The texture of the bass is simply pleasant to the ears, and when paired with the equally crisp and detailed mids and highs, you get a great listening experience with The Pop.  So just like The Knock, The Pop is a steal for its price.

You can get all three Coloud headphones from Astrovision, Automatic Center, Avant, Beyond The Box, Bratpack, Buzz, Digital Walker, Digital Hub, Electroworld, iCenter, iGig, iStore, iStudio, Mobile 1, Power Hub, Technoholics and Urbanathletics.

Ratings:

The Boom – 8/10

The Knock – 9.2/10

The Pop – 9/10

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22 Comments

  1. Nice review, i’m planning to buy headphones but its so hard for me to decide if this pop headphones or this Meizu HD50 Headphone https://www.goods.ph/original-meizu-hd50-headphones-adjustable-hifi-stereo-metal-headset-with-mic-aluminium-alloy-shell-for-music-25871.html what do you think guys? which one is better?

  2. Aesthetically good. But mic doesn’t function on a PC. only with cellphones. So when you try to use it in Skype, you can only hear the other line but your mic wont work.

  3. purple_haze Reply

    @Le Bob I totally agree. I don’t feel the “sparkle” of the cymbals, the guitar sounds gets drowned by the heavy bass. Soundstage and imaging is so-so. I can only use these cans for my pang-harabas days, or when I’m listening to Pop or EDM like what you mentioned.

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