Gadgetory

I'm David Connolly executive editor for cnet.com and I'm here with the Altec Lansing backbeat Pro earbud style headphones these are actually considered sort of high-end for the backbeat line however they're only about eighty dollars a couple of key differences between this model and the step-down models in the line this model has a balanced armature design that's supposed to give better clarity and overall better sound also from a design point of view the cord on these headphones is covered with a bit of plastic that the step-down models the line actually have a cloth this one is a thinner cord does have appear to have a cloth underneath but it is covered by some plastic the cloth covering is good in some ways but it does cause a little bit of a background noise if it rubs against your clothing so in theory this is a better design for the cord another key difference is the design of the plug the other models in the line have a straight plug but this model has an elbow plug in theory that should make this sturdier should hold up better in terms of wear and tear and shouldn't have as many shorts as sometimes the straight plugs get in terms of sound quality the backbeat pros are definitely a step up from the other models of the line there's better clarity and better overall sound that said one of the beefs we had with the pros is really in the marketing altec lansing is promising musician great audio and we can't really say that these offer musician grade audio they're decent but they're not great not a bad value at eighty dollars to get to where you really start to get that reference quality audio you really have to get up to about one hundred fifty dollars models like the monster turbine we found we had a really good sound these are stepped down from that but all in all not bad i'm david carr nguoi and those are the altec lansing backbeat pro earbud style headphones