I am not a really regular wearer of headphones when I am running. However I do like some music when I am out training on my own from time to time, usually when I am on a recovery run, which to be honest I often find a bit boring. Music can help me relax and enjoy the time that I am out, rather then running fast to get what should be a slow recovery run over and done with. I also discovered the wonder of music on a long run when I borrowed my wife’s iPod a while ago – her jazz mix was like audio-EPO! I was massively pumped up and ended up flying along faster than I know I would have run sans sounds. But I don’t reach for the MP3 player every time I go out. I quite like the sounds of the street and my breathing and listening to the internal dialogue as I plod along.
When I do run with music, though, as a music fan, I realise that more than ever, digital files and cheap players and headphones mean that audio quality can take a nose-dive. So going for a run with a digital music player can be a pretty low-fi experience. But not so much for me after I was introduced to Monster headphones…
Monster is actually a brand that started off making really high quality interconnectors or cables for audio systems. The thinking is that having a great amp and equally fantastic speakers is pretty pointless if you have cables that don’t allow the sound through well enough.
More recently Monster have started making headphones, including the Beats by Dre ones that you see adorning so many heads in London’s cooler neighbourhoods. In their own range, Monster have a huge range of headphones, including a £320 Miles Davis Tribute in-ear headphone. That must be a bloomin’ good set of headphones.
They also now have a range of sports headphones – three in-ear (Strive, Intensity and Victory) and one on-ear headphone, the Freedom which is a wireless bluetooth headphones.
Meeting the Monster
I was invited to meet the Monster team and try out the headphones this week and it was quite an astonishing experience.
When I arrived, I was fitted with a pair of the Victory – an in-ear headphone with a curl of rubber that hooks into the curves of your ear and comes with a clip and a microphone / controller on the cable. The fitting process is actually really simple and very effective – there are literally dozens of ear-buds and hooks in the box and you can even go for different sizes in different ears if you are uneven in the aural department.
The plan for the evening was that we would be going for a run led by the team from Fitness Playground – actually in the end my love of sprinting up and down hills mean that Pete from FP was saddled with me for the run back to the meeting point. I think he got the short straw: sorry Pete!
Out into the fading light of Covent Garden, we all plugged in and set off at an easy pace. We were warned that because it would be busy on the route we were taking to the Mall, we should keep the volume low and one ear-piece out and I must admit that I found trying to stay in touch with a group, keep an eye on the traffic and have music in my ears was challenging. But then I never run with music in company.
Once we passed under Admiralty Arch and on to a relatively traffic- and pedestrian-free Mall, I popped in the second earphone and upped the volume. My word! What a sound.
Big sound
Don’t get me wrong – we are still talking about low-grade audio files on a cheap iPod shuffle. But the noise that I heard was like nothing I have experienced from an in-ear set of headphones before. The sound was crystal clear and the bass almost made me jump.
As for comfort, well these bad boys really stay in your ears! I was worried that because the headphones hang on equal length cables at the front rather than asymetric length cables where one loops behind your neck, they might fall out. But despite some mid-run drills and even a series of hill sprints, they stayed put perfectly.
And what about afterwards – well unbelievably the Monster Victory headphones are washable so if you do get a bit sweaty, you can just wash them off under the tap. Nice and fresh!
As I guess you will realise by now, I like these headphones. I will say for now that I have never invested in decent headphones for running before so I don’t have much in the way of comparison. But I love music and I will now be taking much more care about what I download to my iPod shuffle because for the first time I think I’ll probably be able to hear it well. And bass… I must remember lots of bass!
