Hands-on with Shure Music Phone Adapter

I spent the weekend testing out a pre-production prototype of Shure’s $40 Music Phone Adapter, which provides hope for all of us iPhone-usin’ types who don’t particularly like Apple’s stock earbuds.

I’m an in-ear headphone guy, and quite honestly, I will never, ever, ever go back to little earbuds of the style Apple provides. Not that I’m an audiophile, not hardly, but I can sure tell the difference in sound quality between a transistor radio and a big speaker system, and for me the difference between in-ear headphones and earbuds is similar. Also, earbuds make my tiny ears hurt.

So here comes the Shure MPA-3c, with its svelte iPhone-compatible mini jack at one end and, at the other, a nub with a microphone on one side, a clicker on the other side, and a standard headphone jack (to fit any sort of headphones you like) at the top. Plug it in to your iPhone, plug in your favorite headphones (I’m sure Shure hopes they’re from Shure, but my Ultimate Ears worked just as well) and you’re set — the MPA-3c’s clicker works just like the clicker on the iPhone’s included earbuds, letting you answer or hang up on calls, pause and play music, and double-click to go to the next audio track.

One of the side-effects of wearing in-ear headphones is that they tend to block off all sound coming from your surroundings. This can have some interesting side-effects when you’re listening to music — say, the distinct possibility you could get hit by a bus while crossing the streeet if you’re not paying attention. But when you’re talking on the phone, it’s worse. If you’ve ever tried to listen to your voice while plugging your ears, you get the idea — the person on the other end of the line sounds great through those snazzy headphones, but your own voice sounds like a troll on tranquilizers.

Not so with the MPA-3c, which channels some of your own voice (from its own microphone port) into your own headphones. It didn’t entirely eliminate the sleepy-troll echo inside my noggin, but it definitely dialed it back to an acceptable level.

As the first product of its kind for the iPhone, the MPA-3c does have some issues. Cable clutter is a major problem, because the MPA-3c tacks a couple of feet of cable onto your existing headphone cords. And you can’t just tuck the MPA-3c’s extra length away somewhere, because you’ve got to make sure your fingers can reach the clicker and that the microphone is relatively close to your head. As a result, I had a zig-zag of cables dangling in front of my shirt when I used the adapter.

This is a problem that’s somewhat solved by having headphones with extremely short cords. As with all of Shure’s recent models, the sample SE210 headphones Shure sent along with the adapter come with an extremely short cord and an optional extension, and using the short-corded headphones worked a lot better. (However, it wasn’t short enough to obviate the need for a clip, since the short Shure cord still dropped the microphone and clicker to down around my belly button.)

The MPA-3c does come with a small clip, so that you can attach it to a better place on your clothing. Unfortunately, it’s a tiny clip that clips on itself, and is prone to sliding around on the adapter’s cord. Since it can’t be attached to the microphone-and-clicker portion of the adapter itself, when you do use the clip the top of the adapter inevitably flops over unattractively. It works, but a better solution might have been to integrate a clip onto the microphone section of the adapter.

We’ll have a complete rated review when the final version of the MPA-3c ships. For now, what I can say is that it works as advertised, and for iPhone owners who aren’t fans of Apple’s earbuds some device like this will be a must-buy. Shure deserves full credit for being first out of the gate. I have no doubt they’ll have a lot of competition, but if the MPA-3c was shipping today (it’s due next August) I’d buy one. I have no desire to go back to those Apple earbuds ever again.