I swim laps for fitness, mainly breast and free, and for father’s day, my wife bought me the Freestyle Audio waterproof MP3 player. The player has performed as advertised, but the headphones/ earbuds that come with the player are not great in terms of durability or sound quality. I have been checking out some other options online, and have seen mixed reviews on almost every pair. I really want to spend less than $100 on these, but also want something with some decent quality.
If anyone can offer any advice or has any anecdotal experience, I would really appreciate it. If it helps, I have been looking at the swimman, surge, and aquapac products. I swim with a cap, so fall out is not much of an issue for me, although I do get some water exposure to the ears.
I have an old version of an h2o Audio case, for an iPod Mini. They came with a set of headphones that are no longer sold - but they’re similar to the H3 headphones on that page.
I don’t know if h2o Audio makes Surge or if they just sell them. BUT, I have been an advocate of the h2o Audio products ever since I got mine 4 years ago. Amazing stuff. Headphones work great and I can hear perfectly AND water keeps out of my ears.
But, like I said, neither Surge or H3 is the same style as what I have so I can only tout the company and not the phones.
Thanks for the reply, I think h2o makes the surge as well, and I was really leaning towards them to begin with. The only negative I have heard about the surge phones, and the h2o products in general is the “they will not stay in” issue, but I think the cap will help this.
Did you find it odd to hear music the first time you used these in the water?
Hmm…weird that you hear that the h2o stuff won’t stay in the ears. I cannot get a pair of traditional earbuds to stay in my ears, but my h2o headphones stay in great. They have plastic that goes over the ears and they also are adjustable in 3 places so the buds are pointing wherever you need them to go.
But, it looks like surge and H3 don’t have those features. That sucks 
I will say that their customer support is pretty good. A couple months ago I started back swimming but I had it in my mind that one side of my headset had stopped working. So I went to the h2o site and was dismayed to find that they don’t make any phones compatible with my Mini player. I emailed their support and asked how I can buy a new pair and they replied with “fill out an RA form and we’ll just send you a new pair” even though I had bought the phones in 2004!
When I dug out the phones to send them back, I found that both sides DID work and I didn’t have to send them back. But, I still think it’s pretty cool that they were willing to send me a new set, 4 years later.
They have a section on their faq about returns and it seems pretty stringent, but maybe you should email them and tell them your concerns about fit and ask what your options are if you just can’t get them to fit comfortably. Just double check if you can return them or not. I would bet you can.
As for swimming with music…to be honest, I’ve been doing it for about 5 years now, ever since I started swimming as a workout. First with a small Sony swim radio and then with the h2o Audio case. It’s not weird at all - it’s amazing. I can’t imagine how anyone could do laps without it!!
I am a lap swimmer and have tried a number of the waterproof headsets on the market. I am in total agreement with the above comments about swimming to music enhancing the swimming experience to a great degree. Like others who have tried it, swimming to music is so good that I will not swim without it. However, most waterproof headsets on the market work only marginally. From my experience with the units mentioned above and others, I have found that the Swimman Waterproof Headset is by far the best. Unless you have tried it, you don’t know what you are missing. Great sound, and the most comfortable earbuds. Further, the earbuds stay in your ears without a problem. This is very important to me because messing around with my equipment when I’m on a roll doing laps is annoying and defeats the purpose. At first, I too was put off by the price of the Swimman Headset so I bought cheaper stuff including H2O’s offerings and then others. After experiencing essentially all the problems that have been reported on the web, including bad (and sometimes painful) fit, poor sound quality, and cumbersome interfering design, I finally broke down and bought the Swimman Headset. It and their Swimman waterproof iPod Shuffle has turned out to to be probably the best investment I have made for my swimming enjoyment (besides essentials such as goggles, etc.). If you haven’t tried the Swimman headset, you don’t know what you are missing. The way I figure it, I’ve got only one life. Spending a bit more to make a very important part of my life that much more enjoyable makes sense to me.