No… I did not misspell the maker of these damn fine headphones, the missing “i” is on purpose…  and for good reason!  Here’s their story:

What is Frends

Frends is a brand platform that follows the theory that “there is no I in Frends”. We believe that frends are the family we choose. We are a collective family who celebrates life though sport, art, music and fashion. Frends provides a platform to share our passion for life and we creatively weave this inspiration through our products. We believe that innovation consists of seeing what everybody has seen and doing what nobody has thought. Welcome to Frends.

Cool right?  Eh, what do I know about “cool”… I’m just some badass self-proclaimed expert of all things techy and gadgety with his own website spreading good cheer and happiness to all.  Yes, that was sarcasm… and yes… I know what the hell I’m talking about when I say it’s supertyduper cool.

While the selection of audio badassery is plentiful at Frends.com… today I’m talking about just one product:

The Clip ($40).

So… instead of my typical review of “Sounds great, looks snazzy, smells like roses, testes great… less filling” I’ve taken a different approach.  Let’s call it the White Glossy blind sound test.

I took the wickedly stylish Frend The Clip… the Klipsch X10i… and the Altec Lansing BackBeat plus.  I then chose a person with whom I’ve had a great deal of experience seeing in action with new albums being released, testing audio docks and hi-end headphones.  A person with impeccable taste in both style and quality… and an ear so sensitive to the most minute differences that it still blows me away.  Anyway… I took all three headphones, and without giving even the slightest indication as to which was supposed to be the best or most expensive… I asked them to listen to the same song, and give me their opinion.

I have to say… I was surprised!  The hands-down clear winner was… not surprising considering this is a post for it… The Clip.  To quote the tester regarding the high “Clip” praise:

It had a fantastic balance of bass and treble throughout both ears that were poorly represented in the other two.

The sounds quality was great… incredibly clear and superbly crisp, there were little things like the movement on the guitar strings and breaths between words that were sub-par or unnoticeable on the other sets.

They held in my ear just perfectly, without slippage or being too tight, and didn’t tangle or get in the way as I moved around.

After talking with my resident audiophile I was excited to jam back to club WhiteGlossy and try these out for myself.  but… there-in lies the one flaw of these siiick earphones.  I couldn’t… because I have freakishly small ear-holes.  No seriously…. they’re tiny.  I’ve always had issues with bluetooth headsets and in-ear headphones because of my freakish abnormality.  But hey… when life gives you lemons, right?

All the important “quality” crap aside… the cats at Frends take something as simple as headphones and put their awesome all over it.  Yeah… we thought we’d seen it all before too.  Think of these little bastards as your own portable billboards to the soul.

So… bottom line, if you have normal ears and love great sound quality… jump on board the Frend train and get you some.  If their over-ear cans are anything like the quality of The Clip then I’m super anxious to snag up a pair and try them out!!!  I’ll be sure to drop a few nuggets of wisdom on the site once I try them.

One last thing… here’s a cool little video Frend put together to give you a taste of their vibe and all-around style.  Enjoy:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpzgvSdl1TM&hd=1]