LIVIN' LOUD! The Kicker EB91 In-Ear Monitors Review

Ear plugs.. ear plugs... during the early inception of this type of earphones I was not a fan. I never took interest, nor was I intrigued since I have my own concerns about sticking something too far up your ears. I thought it was un-heiginic and a little bit selfish, how can you share something that could possibly have someone else's ear wax and stick it up your own ears?

Ever since I had my first sony walkman back in 1995, i sticked to the traditional earphones, the ones that you just put or hang in your ears and not sticking inside your ear lobe. When I was in high school, me and my friends share a lot of music together, sharing the same earphones and swapping walkmans just to share the music that we were listening to. Yes, the basic earphones was perfect for that scenario. But nowadays I think earphones became more personal and "selfish" upon the introduction of ear plugs.

Anyways, enough of my personal issues about plugs, to cut the story short, I recently gave in to this ear plugs "phenomena" and bought my own set just to get my feet wet.

As I was searching around in Courts Clementi, I was confused with the number of options that I have in front of me. A lot of good brands like Audio Technica, my personal favorite Philips, Sony, etc. Also there were a lot of newer brands like the iLuv and all those other stupidly named products who were just riding on the "i" naming convention trend.

As I was looking around, one brand caught my attention, from the bottom part of the store display, I saw a very familiar brand which i believe is a household name for car audio but I never knew that they made ear phones, so I took it and to my surprise, the brand is really KICKER.

 I have a long history from way back with the Kicker brand. When I got my first car for my college graduation, I hooked my whip up with a single Kicker Solo Baric sub woofer and custom box. Man I loved those woofers! the bass was clean and deep.. really deep. So once I saw these ear plugs, the Kicker EB91 Microfit ear plugs, I instantly had a certain affinity for it, but what made the deal much more sweeter was when I looked at the price, it was just 16 SGD! that is just 536 pesos!

Being the cheapskate that i am, I took it immediately and went straight to the cashier and I was very eager to take these babies out for a spin.


But honestly, what convinced me in getting these ear plugs was the small caption on the bottom of the box:

"Impedance-Aligned Micro Driver delivers Lengendary Kicker Bass!". Now that's a very tough claim to live up to! Since I know how good the Legendary Kicker Bass was, no questions asked, I have to test it out!

Let me cut everything short, as I've talked too much already for this review, these ear plugs are AWESOME!! for the price at least. Now let me get into the details:

I won't go into the technical specs since you guys can just use google and search for it right?

Anyways, one thing I like about these ear plugs is that they're quite small. According to the box, it's 33% smaller than the average ear plugs. This makes it lighter and quite comfortable when your wearing them.

The box includes 3 additional sets of plug adaptors to fit different ear sizes for a much more comfy fit for different people. The ear piece itself is made of metal, which I think is sturdy enough to withstand everyday use.

The wire is another thing that I like because it's covered with something like a woven thread that entirely covers the wire for added strength if you accidentally pull it.

Yup, the jack is not gold-plated, for 16 SGD? fuck gold-plating!

Now for the juice! The sound quality of these little bad boys is amazing! I was surprised when I first used it since I am not expecting anything great because of its size and the price.

The first thing I did was to play something bass heavy, so I took my Iphone and played Xzibit's "Get your Walk on". I was blown away by the amount of bass that these little things can deliver! The bass was deep and clean. But of course not as deep as what can hear with your beats by dre's or any bigger head phones, but for ear phone-level bass, this one nails it big time!

For the mids and highs, I played 2pac's "Thugz Mansion" just to test how clean the mids and highs can be with plucked acoustic guitar sounds. The mids were perfect, everything was clear, the vocals were very present, and vibrant. Just perfect. The highs were just enough that it will not be tiring to listen to. High hats are vibrant and not irritating, cymbals sounded balanced and is not obtrusive.

Of course I am not saying that these are the "best" ear plugs ever, I'll get killed by other ear plugs afficionados if I say that, but for the price range of 16 SGD, man.. I think no other brand can beat this at this price range.

So if you're looking for budget ear plugs with awesome sound, then the Kicker EB91 Microfit ear plugs is a must try!

Take it from me, a newly converted ear plugs fan.

Bow.