V-Moda Forza Review - Review 2022

5-Moda'south latest gym-friendly earphones, the Forza, ring in at $100, though you can customize and bling them out to the melody of several thousand dollars if you're looking to kicking things upwardly several notches. Sticking with the gym-friendly baseline model for our review, the wired earphones evangelize some dialed-upwards bass response that manages non to go also far in the thunder section—there's solid balance here, fifty-fifty if nosotros'd like to hear a tad more in the loftier-mids. Add together in a very secure fit and a water-resistant design, and at that place'southward little to complain well-nigh for the reasonable (starting) price.

Blueprint

Available in blackness, orangish, or white models, the blueprint is simple and lightweight at its core, but tin can be optimized with accessories for a very secure fit. Intended for do, the earphones are resistant to sweat and durably congenital. The fit is quite comfy and secure—given all the extras to help you lot continue things in place, the earphones should exist able to withstand the most intense workouts you throw at them without falling out.

The inline microphone and remote control compartment is located at mentum level on the right wire. The remote is of the iii-push button variety, with a central button that controls playback, call management, and track navigation, and two dedicated buttons for raising or lowering volume.

The mic offers excellent intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 6s, we understood every word we recorded. There were no audio artifcats, and clarity was pinnacle-notch, even providing a little chip of depression frequency presence that inline mics often lack.

V-Moda includes quite an array of accessories, most of them in the ear-fitting section. At that place are four total pairs of silicone eartips, in XS, Southward, M, and 50 sizes, as well as three pairs of earfins that rest against the ear for meliorate stabilization during practise, and a pair of ear hooks that spike over the ear for an even more stable fit. A shirt clip and padded drawstring protective pouch circular out the bundle.

V-Moda Forza

Beyond this, there's one easy-to-miss accessory—4 tiny circular safe rings that fit inside the outer ends of the earpieces. These are meant to stabilize the optional 3D-printed custom caps for the Forza. Bachelor through Five-Moda, there are several options to choose from, and they can cease up costing just a trivial extra ($20 or and then) or quite a lot extra if yous opt for 14k gold or platinum instead of, say, acrylic. As mentioned, nosotros stuck with the standard, non-blinged out version with no additional artwork.

Performance

On tracks with intense sub-bass content, similar The Pocketknife's "Silent Shout," the earphones deliver powerful depression frequency response that volition appeal to bass lovers. At top, unwise listening levels, the drivers do not distort, and at more reasonable volumes, the bass is still quite powerful—if deep lows assist motivate your workouts, you won't be disappointed.

Pecker Callahan's "Drover," a track without much deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Forza's sound signature. The drums on this track tin sound overly thunderous on earphones that push the lows besides far forward in the mix. While some bass boosting is definitely added to the equation here, information technology'southward not over the superlative—the drums sound full and round, merely not ridiculously heavy. Callahan's baritone vocals also receive some solid richness in the depression-mids. Nosotros'd like to hear a piffling more treble edge on his voice, or high-mid and high frequency presence bringing out the guitar strums and college frequency percussive attacks, but generally speaking, this is a balanced, clear audio.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church building in the Wild," the kick drum loop'southward assault gets slightly less high-mid presence than we'd promise to hear, but it'southward not dulled, it's just non quite as punchy every bit it can sound through brighter earphones. The sustain of the loop is given some nice weight in the lows, beefing it up a bit, and the sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with serious power. The vocals on this runway take decent brightness to them, as if they're getting some loftier frequency boosting, only non quite as much high-mid presence as we might desire. Again, they never sound slow, and they have solid clarity—so we're nitpicking a trivial, but some added loftier-mid presence wouldn't injure.

Orchestral tracks, similar the opening scene in John Adams' The Gospel Co-ordinate to the Other Mary, sound fantastic through the Forza ($79.99 at Amazon) . The lower register instrumentation is given some actress body without pushing itself too far frontward in the mix. The higher register contumely, strings, and vocals are delivered with a more well-baked presence than we hear in the other genres—much of this has to do with how classical music is recorded and mixed versus modern popular music.

Conclusions

If deep bass motivates your workouts, V-Moda'southward Forza earphones do a solid job of delivering it without things becoming unbalanced—clarity is never sacrificed in the proper name of bass. For the cost, we have few complaints—though we'd probably remember twice before adorning the earphones with hundreds of dollars of jewelry. Most of the gym-friendly earphones nosotros exam these days are wireless. In the wired department, we're as well fans of the 1More Triple Commuter In-Ear, the Klipsch Reference X6i, and for a little more coin, the Bowers & Wilkins C5 Serial 2. For far less, JBL'south Reverberate Mini are solid, practise focused in-ears that won't disappoint.

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