I am one who, like many others, has used only Apple’s included earphones for several years. I had always wanted something better, but I never got around to actually buying any alternatives (mainly due to the fact that I already had a pair of Apple’s earphones, which seemed to be decent enough). But today I tried MEElectronics’s M16P budget earphones.
 
These earphones, which are advertised to provide you with “Fun sound with enhanced bass,” do provide just that. “Fun” sound is provided with pretty good bass, though this “fun” sound ended up feeling a little second-rate to me. Despite this, the sound provided is much more immersing than that of your typical earphones due to the in-ear design. I tried my Apple earphones after using these, and I noticed that they felt weird in my ears. The sound wasn’t as full as I had once believed either.

Every so often, we do a few hardware reviews.  This is one of a series of reviews for the Arctic Cooling brand of products.  For more information about the company or its products, go to Arctic-Cooling.com.

Like it’s sister product, the Arctic Sound E351-WM, the E361 delivers quality sound. So why is it offered at a slightly higher price ($51.45 vs $42.20)?  That would involve an examination of the design.

The E361 is slightly curved so it can fit further into the ear. As a result, the sound is delivered louder and more clearly. Of the two possible earphones, while I found both to be excellent, I prefer the E361 over the E351 for sheer power of sound delivery. One just has to be careful not to actually lose the cap of the headphones within one’s ear canal. Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything. Ahem.

The bass is delivered clearly and it’s easy to make out distinct parts of a piece of music. The microphone also works well and a person can easily be heard by someone to whom they are speaking using the phone itself, Skype or FaceTime.

As with the E351, the headphones come in black or white trim, which is differentiated by simply the "WM" or "BM".  The "M" at the end means that the headphones also come with a microphone built-in. Accessories include 3 sets of silicon caps to fit in ears of different sizes (one of which is already on the headphones), an adapter to use the headphones with a computer and Arctic Cooling’s standard earphone carrying case.

Let me mention how big a fan I am of the Arctic Cooling carrying case. It’s a tough case so the earphones don’t get damaged and it looks great.

My only complaint about the earphones is the same complaint I had for the E351, which is the lack of volume controls on the earphones itself. However, once again, the physical volume controls are on the side of whatever device you’re using (iPhone or iPod touch), so it’s not as if the volume controls are inaccessible.

If you’re a music fanatic, then the E352 is still probably your best bet in the Arctic Sound line. But if you prefer to have a microphone on your earphones and are willing to spend a little more, then the Arctic Sound E361-WM delivers a superior quality to the standard Apple earphones and is more affordable than the comparible Apple-branded in-ear earbuds.