By David Ponce

Let’s break that headline down a bit, shall we? The Superbeam USB earbuds from Andrea Electronics are primarily meant to be used with your computer while doing video calls. They are boomless, which means you won’t have that annoying microphone extend right in front of your mouth, making you look like a failed boy-band member. They are also binaural in that they will pick up your voice from both sides, rendering your sound in stereo. And they’re recorders because, well, they can record. In stereo. Without a boom.

There’s talk of neodymium drivers, noise cancellation, “adaptive beam forming” and other tech things that are meant to justify their $129 pricetag. Oh and an extra $10 for the accessory that would let you use them with a regular solo 3.5mm jack for audio only, since they have two plugs. It’s a lot of money to get rid of a boom but maybe not looking like Justin Timberlake on a conference call is worth that much to someone.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ NewLaunches ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Every year at CES we tend to be drawn to the smaller booths where you can find some truly unique and innovative gadgets if you look hard enough. It’s not that we’re not impressed that Sony or Panasonic has managed to add a couple of extra inches to their flagship 3D TVs, it’s just that we like rooting for the smaller guys too. Like a company called Yurbuds which make silicone ‘earbud enhancers’ that not only vastly improve the performance of the stock earbuds you get with devices like the iPhone & iPod, but also provide a more comfortable in-ear listening experience with a comfortable design that avoids touching sensitive nerve endings in your ears.

Since the Yurbuds come in different sizes to be most effective for every user, we were mostly drawn to their booth last year after seeing a demo of their clever iPhone sizing app. But it turns out the Yurbuds actually work very, very well if you’re still using the stock iPhone/iPod earbuds, and one of our OhGizmo! writers has actually been using his set non-stop since last year’s show.

So this year we were happy to see the company has already grown quite a bit, and now offers an official Ironman-themed version of the Yurbuds featuring a matching set of red earbuds and enhancers. It makes sense too given the idea for the Yurbuds came from the company’s CEO, Seth Burgett, who’s an avid triathlete. In fact besides comfort and sound quality, the soft silicone design of the Yurbuds makes them damn near impossible to fall out, even during extreme physical activities like marathons, or in our case, battling for seats on the subway. Available now for $49.99.

[ Yurbuds Ironman Series Earphones ]