In recent years, especially with the proliferation of the mp3 players, the quality of the in-ear headphones has dramatically improved, while the price has been steadily going down. This has enabled many new manufacturers to enter the market, and while this has been a great blessing for the consumers, it makes it harder and harder to distinguish the genuinely good products from the inferior ones. This is my second pair of RHA headphones, and these are meant to be an improved version of the RHA MA-350 that I’ve used and tested before. They are designed for the iOS devices – iPhone, iPod, and iPad. Here are a few of my observations.
***** Sound Quality *****

For any true audiophile, as well as for the most people who care about the quality of sound that they listen to, this is the single most important characteristic that they look for in the headphones. And overall I have been very impressed with the sound quality of these small headphones. They deliver a rich, well-articulated sound, and they are a joy to listen to. The sound felt a bit “rounded” and smoothed-over, but this was not a major distraction. The headphones delivered fairly rich bass, as well pretty crisp high notes. I enjoy listening to all kinds of music genre – classical, pop, techno. For each one of these categories the headphones performed quite well.

***** Noise Cancellation *****

Like most other passive noise-cancelling headphones, these use the design and the physical features of the headphones themselves in order to block the outside noise. Having said that, my impression is that MA-450i is at least as good as the best in-ear passive noise canceling headphones that I’ve tried out. I was able to listen to my music while blocking all of the surrounding household noise. Even having the headphones themselves in my ears served as a great noise-cancelling device. So if you are trying to work or study in an otherwise noisy environment, and don’t have any earplugs handy, you may want to consider using these headphones just by themselves.

***** Build *****

The headphones are pretty well built. The in-ear buds are fairly small and feel and look like very solid. The headphones cord, on the other hand, is built out of nylon and it looks a bit cheap IMHO. The iPhone control buttons on the cord were well placed, and sufficiently well designed to make the phone/playback functionality easily accessible. This was particularly the case with the play/pause button, which is even easier to get to use with the tactile feedback alone than the one on iPhone’s own headphones. Furthermore, the headphones overall seem very durable.

***** Fit and Comfort *****

These are very small headphones, but they fit in my ears fairly securely and comfortably. This is another one of the selling points for these headphones as far as I am concerned.

***** Functionality *****

This category is the biggest improvement over the 350 as far as I am concerned, especially for iPhone/iPod users. You can finally control the music playback without having to reach for your mp3 player, which is great if you are exercising for instance. The headphones now also come with a microphone, and can be used for the telephony. I am not the biggest fan of using the noise-canceling headphones for phone calls, as they tend to distort your perception of your own voice. Furthermore, when I’ve used them for phone calls people that I talked to could notice some echoing. This tends to be the case with a lot of headphones that I’ve used, not just these from RHA. I am not sure what causes it though. These headphones are still more than usable for phone conversations, but this is definitely not one of their strongest suits.

*****The Bottom Line *****

At this price point you will probably not find a better sounding in-ear noise-cancelling headphones. They are also compact and comfortable, and they seem fairly durable. There are a few design choices that I am not too keen on, but the functionality has been significantly improved over their predecessors. If you are looking for just a solid pair of no-nonsense in-ear headphones for your iOS device, than you won’t go wrong with these.