Coloud’s Boom headphones take on a topical set of World Cup Team colours, but they’re otherwise mid-range headphones at a mid-range price.
Coloud Boom Football Edition Headphones: On the plus side
Coloud’s Boom World Cup Headphones aren’t actually marketed as “World Cup” headphones, because that rather clearly would cost a certain amount of licensing money. Instead, they’re “Football Edition” headphones in a variety of national team colours. Specifically, you can buy the Boom headphones in the national colours of Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Mexico, Holland and England.
Yeah, no Australian team colours, although you could always argue that the Brazil pair were Aussie inspired if you were so inclined. It’s fair to presume that anyone buying a Football specific pair of headphones would care about colour accuracy, and there’s no doubting that the Coloud Boom Football Edition Headphones are colourful. The review pair sent my way were for the Holland national team, which means that as I write this there’s a bright orange — cups, cables, headband and all — pair of headphones staring at me. These aren’t headphones for introverts.
Audio quality from the Coloud Boom Football Edition Headphones’ 40mm drivers is moderate; it’s not quite as crisp as you might get with a really solid pair — for the sake of comparison I set them up against the Sennheiser Momentum headphones — but then they’re on the acceptable side for the most part, with a slightly treble-heavy tone.
The Coloud Boom Football Edition Headphones use a flat cable, a design choice I’m a big fan of, simply because it reduces tangle considerably. There’s an inline microphone remote for phone users as well.
Coloud Boom World Cup Headphones: On the minus side
The Coloud Boom Football Edition Headphones aren’t the highest priced headphones, and it does rather show. The cups are very light plastic, and while that does aid in carrying weight, it also leaves them feeling rather cheap in the hand. The headband is in the same boat, leaving me wondering about long-term durability.
Most buyers of full headphones will be after the full noise isolation that you can get by enclosing your entire ears within the cups of the headphones. Indeed, the Coloud Boom Football Edition Headphones sell themselves on having a “noise isolating design” on the rear of the packaging. The problem there is that the actual cups are very small, and at least on my ears they sat beside my ears instead of isolating them.
The inline microphone is workable, but that’s about all it is, with a single button that covers play/pause and track skipping functions, but no volume controls
Coloud Boom World Cup Headphones: Pricing
The Coloud Boom Football Edition Headphones retail for $49.
Coloud Boom World Cup Headphones: Fat Duck Verdict
Moreso than the Football team colours, which will appeal to some and mean nothing to others (and you can probably guess where I sit on that spectrum), the pricing is the key differentiator for the Coloud Boom Football Edition Headphones.
They’re not the best headphones money can buy. They’re quite far from that, and they’re priced appropriately enough in terms of overall audio quality, although I’d advise shopping around and at least trying on a pair to make sure that you’re happy with the level of ear enclosure offered.