ThinkSound TS02 8mm Passive Noise Isolating Wooden Headphone

I emailed Thinksound to ask which pair of headphones would fit my needs and they pointed me to the ts02, saying the ms01 were really more for home use than mine. They replied in just a few hours! I'm a commuting student and I spend a lot of time in a very noisy library where people gather for lunch to chat or play on their laptops (wear headphones, would ya!). I was considering some other brands, specifically the similarly priced Shure's, but I had been gazing longingly at Thinksound since I read a Stereophile article on the ts01 a few months ago. Between the environmentally friendly ethos, rave reviews and repeated celebration of their customer service, it was a pretty easy choice. WOW! Honestly, I am not an expert on music or headphones. I have a $60 pair of Shure over-the-ear headphones and that's pretty much all I've ever used besides a plethora of cheap earbuds that enjoy self destructing. I enjoy listening to music but I'm not a musician or a producer or anything. I'm not even an amateur reviewer! But I can tell you that I was getting slightly bored of traveling with my music. NPR in the car replaced my iPod dock and Pimsleur: Mandarin replaced much of my mp3 listening. These ear buds completely changed that. --The packaging is great. All cardboard and easy to work with. I hate the infuriating plastic packages that you need to play with for 10 minutes to get undone, then feel bad about buying the product because that 10 minutes and the paper cut just weren't worth it. Not here. Slide it out, slide the buds on. All that's needed! It comes with the little bag but I'm not sure if there's much of a point in that. I bought a case (the Cosmos Hard EVA http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Black-bluetooth-handsfree-headset/dp/B0057MLBLS/ref=pd_sim_cps_3 ) right away to keep them safe while traveling. --The noise canceling is SUPERB. The number one reason I bought this is that I spend anywhere between 2 and 6 hours a day in a school library that is ridiculously noisy. I didn't want an actual pair of noise canceling head phones as I had heard they made odd sounds so I thought I'd give these in-ear buds a try. I admit that they irritated my ears like crazy for the first few days and I still sometimes have a hard time getting a seal but wow, once you get them on just right, you can sit for 6 hours between classes with a table of fifteen people next to you and never even notice them. Will this work if you're on a loud subway? I'm not sure if they'd be perfect but they would be a great improvement over the typical pair of head phones. I will edit once I wear them while moving - I'm still a little nervous about taking these guys out unless I'm stationary (hey, $80 is a lot of money!). --The sound is unbelievable... Sometimes! I have a pretty odd selection of music on my iPod and these are absolutely perfect for me. Nina Simone? Sounds amazing. Mongolian throat singers? Perfect. Jason Mraz? Hell yeah. Ayaka(JPop)? Pretty good. Yo Yo Ma? Magical(even my mother, who is quite close to being fearful of in-ear buds, was blown away by a violin sonata on these buds). Tokio Hotel(pop) or some hip hop? Bit empty. I'd love to tell you why, like it's the lows or the highs or whatnot, but I'm not really sure. I find that almost anything made prior to the 90s sounds brilliant and modern acoustic-heavy sounds great(such as Mraz) and I have found no issue with bass versus soprano but some music just sounds a little bland on these. I am adding a MAJOR caveat on that. I don't know if the music sounds bland compared to other headphones or if after listening to Vivaldi on these earbuds, modern pop/hip-hop just doesn't compare. Oh well, well worth the price paid I think. One more small thing. My music is about 50/50 uncompressed/mp3 and I never really cared before(I download or rip FLAC off CDs then convert it to Apple Lossless). I downloaded FLAC for when I had a nice pair of headphones, something I had been intending to buy for the past 2-3 years, but I never heard much of a difference. Well, I'm glad I downloaded those. Uncompressed music sounds insanely better on these than their mp3 counterparts. I thought maybe I was just imagining it, hoping that the large file sizes weren't just a waste of space, but put to a blind listen of songs (800-1000 versus 128-320 kbps) two of my friends instantly picked out the uncompressed. MP3s don't sound BAD on these, they just sound worse than their higher bit rate alternatives. (Just to note: I know virtually nothing about the technical aspects or what not of this kind of thing - I just use my amateur ear to try and hear the difference!) --These also look quite snazzy, I think. I didn't want bullets coming out of my ears or anything and these blend in well with my hair so I can wear them and nobody says anything. If you want to use these as an accessory to your studded leather outfit or hip hop gear, these probably aren't for you. Overall, a great pair of buds. I will update with durability as time goes on but for now, I am ecstatic with the purchase. I was firmly scolded by my mother(yeah, I still get scolded despite being in university...) for buying a pair of earbuds that cost more than $20 but even she forgave me once giving them a listen and considered buying a pair for a second. If you are just a regular music listener, I can't imagine much better than this.

I've already lost 2 of the ear fittings off the right headphone. They've fallen off the right headphone even more than that, but I was able to find them most times. I imagine it's a defect since I don't have the same problem on the other side. These do produce great sound though and they look beautiful. Edit: The housing on the left headphone separated. This led to no sound in the left headphone. I contacted the company, which sent me the paperwork to replace the headphones. Apparently the shipping was at my own cost, which, eh, ok. Thing is, they never sent me my replacements! I contacted Amazon and they're sending me a new pair. Amazon is great. Thinksound, in my experience, horrible. Edit 2: My new pair, again, sounded great. Except now I've lost all sound on the left side. Stay away from these. Poor quality all around.

(This is simply unacceptable. I have owned these headphones since mid February and they already broke by the end of march. The left speaker doesn't work anymore. I guess this is the classical problem with every in hear Head phone with this type of cables, but for $90+ headphones this is simply unacceptable. This is especially bad because even though I used the headphones rather intensively, they never went through any kind of abuse. It's a shame for a product that is supposedly realtively high end. By comparison my in Hear senheiser lasted a year and a half before having the same problem, and only costed me half the price. Funniest part being that these are supposedly eco friendly headphones... I'm not sure that having to go through a pair every two months is actually very eco friendly !) EDIT AFTER CUSTOMER CARE: I just received my headphones back, I must say that the customer care was specially fast and friendly. Since I have a new functionning pair, I will also write a short review on the product itself: The note definition on these headphones is really good, the noise isolation is one of the best I've experienced for in-hear headphones (actually if you listen to your music even at reasonable volume, you won't hear somebody calling your name on the street). The only thing I don't like as far as far as the sound goes is that the bass are a little too predominant for my taste. Depending on what musical sound you're into, that might be good, but for me I would have rather had a little more balanced sound... no big deal though, the sound is still pretty good. Another thing that is a little bit of a pain is that the cable seem pretty prone to tangle itself. Again, no big deal, but that can be annoying sometimes. Overall I would have given that product 4 stars, but since my first pair was defective, I deducted a star for reliability.

In Ear Monitors (IEMs), like many items, seems to give diminishing returns as the cost goes up. Are they better than the IEMs I have in the $25 - $50 range? Yes. Are they 2-3 times as good? Probably not. But they are a clear step up. I am comparing these to two other Amazon purchased products (below) and after a couple weeks of allowing for break in. I used some FLAC files as well as music streamed on Amazon Prime and Google Music service. Symphonized GLXY Premium Genuine Wood In-ear Noise-isolating Headphones with Mic and Nylon Cable (Blue) thinksound ts01 10mm In-Ear Headphone with Enhanced Bass and Passive Noise Isolation (Black/Chocolate) Compared to the other IEMs, these ts02's have less bass than the ts01 but better clarity and resolution. The ts02's also are warmer than the GLXY while maintaining a lot of the clarity and timbre qualities that the GLXY reproduces quite well. I rated these 5-stars after listening to a range of music including orchestral tracks, pop, rock, and country. In almost every case I liked the ts02 better than the other IEMs. The only exception was with some of the rock/pop tracks (like One Direction "Love Runs Out") where I would have liked a little more bass and the 10mm bass focused ts01 was a bit better. At a loud, but safe volume, these sounded great. Minimal distortion and good balance. Bass seemed more prevalent at the higher volume as well. The best "feature" is that throughout all the tracks I tested these with and regardless of the volume, the clarity was excellent while still being balanced and easy to listen to. The GLXY IEMs are super clear and have a lot of separation between instruments, but I get "sound fatigued" listening to them. These ts02 were comfortable to listen to for an extended period of time without sounding too cold and technical. I like the smaller 8mm size compared to the 10mm size of the ts01. The fit in my ear is great and I was able to find ear pieces that blocked out the ambient noise very well. Overall the sound quality is great and I am happy with the purchase.

First, I want to say that I really like this product but I have had a few issues with them that I'd like to lay out. Pros: -I like that the headphones are designed with sustainable materials in mind. I'm not a super green person by any means, but it makes me feel good to do my part. Everything from the product to the packaging is made with this in mind and the ear buds come in a cool little canvas drawstring bag. -They come with a variety of earbud sizes (4 different sizes). Unfortunately, I'm kind of in between sizes where the smallest one is too small and the next biggest one kind of slips out when any tug is applied to the cable, but they can be switched on and off for different size ears. In the cold weather, the rubber kind of contracts and comes off easily. -The sound is great. It is very difficult to hear anything around you when the ear buds are in and the sound is off even though they are not considered noise cancelling. -The cord is a bit long for me, specifically between the ear bud and where the two cords come together as 1. I often have to tuck them through my shirt to avoid them getting caught when exercising. -These are really my first pair of quality ear buds, and I was impressed and took very good care of them by placing them back into the canvas drawstring when I wasn't using them, making sure not to tug on the cord, etc. However, recently I was walking through the subway in NYC and the cord got caught on a woman's purse, yanking the buds out of my ears. To my shock, not only did I lose the replaceable rubber ear piece on the left ear, but the ENTIRE LEFT SPEAKER had been ripped out of the ear bud! While this may have been a complete fluke, I am now left with only one working speaker. Totally bummed.

I've owned these headphones for 6 months. As others have mentioned, they have a very full, lively sound and are manufactured and nicely packaged in a very nature friendly way. I also find them quite comfortable and the only ear bud that actually stays in my ear. Prior to ordering these, I read many past complaints about the glue coming undone between the metal and wood on the earpiece. The Customer Service responses seemed to indicate this glue makeup had been changed, and the product was now no longer showing this defect. Unfortunately, mine has done the same on the right ear. If I were to pull exclusively on the metal the housing would come right out. I only use these at my desk at work, so they have never been subject to travel, sweat, pulling, or any type of abuse. Very disappointing as this is a product and company I'd like to support and see successful. ***Edited 6/12/2013 - I was able to re-attach the metal chamber to the wood housing with some off center pressure and so far it is staying put. As I mentioned above, the sound from this particular pair was quite excellent and I don't need much mobility at my desk, so I should be all set. I revised my rating to four stars as the gentlemen from Thinksound had already prepared an RA to give me a replacement, and are still willing to stand behind their product if I have any additional problems. They still lose one star for some bad glue, but more than made up for it with their tenacious support of their product. ***Edited 4/21/2014 - So....got several more months of listening enjoyment out of gluing the right ear piece. Sound stayed great and left ear piece was starting to separate from the housing. Was getting set to take the set home to glue the left, and the sound started cutting out of the right ear. Placed the set in the bag, and am now using a different set to listen to at work. Considering, these rarely left my desk and were never abused, they seemed to be quite shoddy in their construction. Despite the aggressive customer support (which unfortunately seems to be needed by every customer), I will not be replacing them with another Thinksound product.

UPDATE: Please read through to the end for what happened after I wrote this review. *** First the good points. These are very good sounding earbuds for the price - solid bass without being overwhelming, and clear highs. I listen to a wide range of music and they handle most everything well. They are also quite comfortable for long periods and seal out ambient noise adequately. The cable is sort of stiff and unruly, but not unmanageably so. But they fell apart. And not under harsh use, either. I do use them almost daily, but not all day long, and I take good care of them. I am careful when I insert and remove them. When not in use, they are always wrapped up neatly and stored in their little canvas bag. But even with this careful handling, the glue holding them together failed, and both wood housings separated completely from the plastic barrels, leaving just a goopy mess where the glue was. I contacted Thinksound for advice and was told to glue them back together myself. We'll see how that works out over time. I suppose some readers will think I am unreasonable to complain that the product came apart after the warranty period was up. But I don't think I am, for three reasons. First, when you drop $70 on a pair of earbuds, you expect them to last longer than a $9 set from Target; second, if you read the other reviews, I'm not the only one with this problem; and finally, Thinksound told me in email that they are changing to a better glue, which is pretty much admitting the glue they used on these is deficient. I think they should have volunteered to replace them out of warranty, but they did not; my choices were either to glop epoxy onto them or buy a new pair for $60 with trade-in, which is the same trade-in deal offered to anyone. If the glue repair holds up, great; if not, I don't think I will buy another pair. I'll probably give Woodees a try instead. *** After I wrote this review, the honcho at Thinksound left a comment on it indicating I should contact him. I did, and he explained some things they've discovered about their epoxy reacting to people's body chemistry, and offered to send me a new pair made with special epoxy for this situation. Those arrived yesterday, and they're just fine. They sound the same as the older ones did. The cord's a little stiffer, which may be because the old one got broken in over time, and the earpieces are slightly stiffer too, but I'm very glad to have the familiar good sound without having to switch brands. It was totally on Thinksound whether to go outside their warranty and replace these for this failure, and in the end that's what they decided to do, so I'm bumping up the rating to 5 stars. Thanks Aaron.

First, the sound quality is good but no better than other $20 earbuds I've used. Second, I bought these on May 12th and already the left one is cutting out on me and it's only July 7th. I understand that I can send them back but that is a huge inconvenience to me. I expect things to last when I pay a premium price for them. You are supposed to get what you pay for.