The Richter Scale^®

Back in April, I reviewed the Otterbox iPod Video here as a nice way to protect one’s iPod from the elements and even take it swimming. But my biggest issue with it was that I was unable to find waterproof headphones that would allow me to use the Otterbox properly while in the water.

The folks at Otterbox heard my complaint and a short while later announced that they had come up with a solution - they would offer waterproof headphones from a company called H2O Audio (MSRP $39.95). H2O Audio is a company I first encountered at a diving trade show several years back in Las Vegas, and they have since expanded into more consumer electronics, these headphones among them.

Otterbox sent me a set to review some weeks ago, and I finally got to put them to the test.

The new waterproof headphones are a little unusual, as they use a conical ear piece to create a seal with one’s ear canal - sound travels well through air, but not water, so in order to listen to music underwater, you need to ensure that air remains in the ear canals between the ear drums and the miniature speakers in the head phones. The headphones come with instructions on trimming the cones to ensure the best possible seal (which I followed). They also include a spare set of cones (probably in case you mess up the trimming the first time).

The headphones also attach to your head from behind (see photo). That’s actually a good thing for swimmers, because it means the cord does not get in your way at all.

So how do they actually sound? Well - both bad and good, depending on the environment. Out of the water the sound quality is poor - the cheap plane earbud headphones that I get on my American Airlines flights sound better, and that’s not a compliment. But as soon as you get your head underwater (even just at the surface), the headphones are a delight. The sound is clear and crisp and full bodied. I suspect the difference is that as soon as you submerge, water pressure (and the general sound damping of water itself) makes the seal of the ear plugs complete, shutting out any outside noises. The result is wonderful.

However, as soon as you get your head out of water and the water seal dribbles away, or if you dive down more than a couple of feet and the seal breaks letting water into the ear, the sound quality diminishes or just goes away. For this latter problem, it is possible that I did not do a good enough job with trimming the ear plugs, or that my head is a bit larger than average, but either way, I needed to keep my head within a foot or so of the surface of the water to get the full benefit of the headphones.

That makes these new headphones ideal for snorkeling (when your ears are submerged but near the surface where there’s not too much pressure) or when swimming for sport with one of those cool front-of-the-face snorkels.

But for regular swimming, where your head goes in and out of the water, the benefit is questionable.

In order to make sure that my testing was not just the result of a single-person’s use of the new headphones, I rounded up two other volunteers (my wife and my daughter), and both, independently gave me the same feedback after using the new headphones.

What this appears to mean is that you really need two types of headphones to use the Otterbox iPod Video (and other submersible MP3 player systems) - a weatherproof set for the occasional splash of water when your head is mostly above water, and these new H2O Audio headphones for snorkeling and submerged activity. That’s not an ideal solution, but certainly better than what was available before.

I had originally given the Otterbox iPod Video an 8.0 out of 10.0 on my Richter Scale, and promised that if Otterbox themselves offered waterproof headphones, I would consider raising that score. As I have indicated, the headphones are great for a particular aquatic use - snorkeling - but still fall short of being a decent universally usable waterproof headset. But I’m not sure it’s possible to have a universal headphone for such drastic changes in environment either. If it were, someone would probably already have come up with it.

That said, I’m bumping up my previous rating for the Otterbox iPod Video to 8.5 out of 10.0.

As for the headphones - they get a dual rating on the Richter Scale - a 2.5 for above water use, and a 9.0 out of 10.0 for snorkeling.