Musicians have been partnering with companies for some time now to create the best possible audio headphones for music lovers. Tiësto, one of the world’s most popular DJs, is one such artist and has partnered with Audiofly, a company that has a reputation for creating products with detailed sound and outstanding frequency response across all audio spectrums, to create a series of headphones. Our Clublife Adagio earbuds review takes a look at the top end ear buds in this collaboration.
Specifications
The Clublife Adagio earbuds feature:
- Dynamic driver and balanced armature driver
- S/M/L silicone and foam ear tips
- Braided cloth cord
- Leather storage wallet
- Driver type: 9mm Dynamic/Balanced Armature Driver
- Frequency range: 18-22 kHz
- Impedance: 16 Ohms
- Noise attenuation: 23 dB
- Magnet type: Neodymium
- Sensitivity: 108 dB at 1 kHz
- Cable length: 1.2m
- Plug type: 3.5mm stereo gold plated (3.9′)
Design
The Clublife Adagio earbuds are very well designed. The cable from the gold plated stereo jack to each earbud is sheathed in a nice braided fabric cover giving it a nice finish. The cord going to the left earbud contains the simple music & call control and microphone.
The earbuds themselves are a nice design, the outside features Tiësto’s bird logo, and your choice of small, medium, or large silicone or memory foam ear tips slide snugly on the speaker nub. The electronics housing on the Adagio series is angled about 45 degrees from the earbud and when worn I couldn’t feel it touching my ear at all, and it does look kind of sweet sitting inside your ear. As with most earbuds, they are stamped with L and R on the inside, but these earbuds also have a moulded braille R on the right earbud for the seeing impaired. The splitter from the main cable to the cables leading up to the earbuds is also emblazoned with the Tiësto bird icon, rounding out the branding nicely.
Presentation also goes a long way and the Clublife Adagio earbuds are definitely nicely packaged and presented in a nice cardboard flip case with the earbuds nestled in a foam pad.
Sound
I’ve been using a pair of Samsung earbuds that came with my old Samsung Galaxy SII Skyrocket for a few years now and I’ve always been fine with them. When used at the same volume, the Clublife Adagio headphones aren’t quite as loud, but the audio range is much more pronounced and the bass is slightly deeper. Once turned up a bit more to bring up the volume level, they sounded fantastic and even though these aren’t noise cancelling headphones, I could barely hear anything around me using the foam ear tips and the volume on my device was only at 40%.
As usual, I tested various genres of music – starting out with a few select tracks from Tiësto of course, and wasn’t disappointed as all types of music – from club to reggae and rock to rap – sound great. Audio from the treble end of the spectrum to the bass was clear and crisp without any muddling or distortion. The headphones also sounded great when gaming on my laptop.
Audiofly recommends using the headphones at low to moderate volume for a few days “before you really go hard” to loosen up the speaker components, and state that the headphones will reach peak performance after about 40 hours. To be honest, I didn’t really notice any difference after using them for a couple weeks, and I have them running pretty much 8 hours a day for at least 5 days a week.
Performance
I don’t usually add a performance section to headphones but these do come with a microphone and single button unit to control calls and music operation. When connected to a smartphone, you can answer or end an incoming call by pressing the button once, or send to voicemail by holding it down for 2 to 3 seconds. It works quite well, and the option to send to voicemail is a nice touch. You can also switch to a new call while on a call or send the new incoming call to voicemail but I didn’t have a chance to test that out.
As for music operation, one short press toggles play/pause functionality, two presses skips to the next track, and three presses skips to the previous track. You can also long hold the button and once you hear a tone you can use voice control on your smartphone, which also worked quite well using my Nexus 5 and Google Now. This added functionality was especially useful when using the Clublife Adagio headphones while cycling.
Price/Value
The Clublife Adagio earbuds are available in black or red at a cost of $149.99USD on the main website. I’ve had a hard time ever justifying spending that kind of money on earbuds, but they can also be had for $129USD at Amazon (currently on sale). Given the build quality, excellent sound, comfort, and built in mic/call/music operation control, and not to mention the 2 year warranty, they are definitely on the high end of the quality spectrum as far as in-ear headphones go. The headphones also come with a nice leather headphone case in which the headphones and extra ear tips fit into nicely making it easy to transport them without having to worry about getting cords tangled when in the pouch of a backpack, laptop bag, or other carrying case.
Wrap-up
If you are looking for high-end in-ear earbudswith great comfort, sound, and a nice design and are willing to spend a few extra dollars, you may want to consider the Clublife Adagio headphones from Audiofly and Tiësto.
[rwp-review id=”0″]*We were sent a demo pair of the Clublife Adagio headphones for the purposes of this review.
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
