Sweating through a workout has its rewards, but one undeniable hindrance is when headphones continually pop out of your ears.
The issue arises when sweat builds up, lubricating the ear tips. All that movement, all that flexing, and the buds fall from the ear canals all too easily. Rather than listening to your favorite adrenaline-soaked AC/DC track to help you finish that set of biceps curls, you have to hear the guy next to you disgustingly grunt out his bench press reps as your headphones dangle at your side.
It's a problem many manufacturers are trying to solve by making sports-specific earbuds –listening devices designed not only to withstand the sweat of your workout, but also to keep the damn things in your ears.
Along these lines, Polk Audio has introduced an entire family of earphones for athletes. Polk's new UltraFit line is led by the $100 UltraFit 3000 in-ear-canal model I tried. Sonically, they're a huge step up from the $10 buds you get at your local electronics superstore, but they're also engineered to stay wrapped around your ears no matter how many ounces of sweat you work up.
The wrap-around design is critical to the fit. A couple seconds of cajoling nestles the plastic pieces behind your ears, where they remain secure. They never fell off my ears during the month I wore them to my gym, including consistent running sessions and one rousing hour of full-court layup drills (These are the things I do to try to bring you a well-rounded review).
Music sounds great. The bass throbs and pulsates, and nothing sounds strained, even at the higher volume levels. Polk Audio ships the 3000s with seven pairs of differently-sized tips, which is more options than most in-ears. Finding the correct tip, and thus attaining the proper seal to get the best sound performance, is easy with all those options.
