Wicked Audio’s Wicked Empire – Lucky Headphone Review

How Lucky Will These Make You?

The first thing you will notice when you happen to come upon these in your favorite retail store, whether it be online or an actual store, is the eye catching packaging. Once they have drawn you in close enough you will again be drawn in by just how cool the ear buds actually look, but as we all know, looks aren’t everything so during the course of this article we will also look at the comfort and sound factors as well.

In order to put these ear buds through the proper punishment I have enlisted the help of my vast music collection, my movie collection, my severe gaming addiction, and not to be forgotten are my PC, IPod, and another set of “Premium” ear buds. I was actually surprised at how little the difference was between the two.

Alright, as you can see they come packaged in a graphics heavy box with a blister pack inside of it. The cord is plenty long and does not seem to have a tendency to tangle or get caught on things in your living environment. To give these ear buds some credit I have basically had them on since I got them and they are quite comfortable to wear for extended periods of time. I have worn them for up to 3 hours at a time and after about 5 minutes I usually forget that I have them in; it then becomes like I am listening to external speakers.

Now, as for the sound: Up to this point I have listened to A LOT of music using these ear buds and all I can say is that for $25.00 these things stand up to their more expensive counterparts quite well. For this article I put them up against a set of Shure FS210’s, and although the Shure ear buds did have a richer overall sound to them the Wicked Empire ear buds weren’t that far behind. The best way that I can describe it is that with the Shure ear buds the music seemed to be right there and present, almost like it was right next to you. With the Wicked Empire ear buds the music seemed to be just a little in the distance.

However, the sound that came out of them was rich, bright, and warm. The highs were crisp and clear, and the bass was deep and thunderous; I listened to everything from the Beastie Boys to Van Halen on them and I wasn’t let down at any point. Even when using them at high volumes they still tended to sound really good although they did start to distort when you turned them up to full sound capacity, especially with music that had a very heavy bass line. I would like to add that when I tried to switch back to the ear buds that came with my IPod I ended up just tossing them aside and have stuck with the Wicked Empire set.

For movies it was the same as with the music. The sounds were great; I didn’t have any distortion problems, nor did I have any comfort problems. As for gaming, well, I didn’t really think I would ever use ear buds to game with in the first place so it came as no surprise to me that they really weren’t that bad to game with and actually sounded alright. However, I did find myself going back to my regular headset every time.