 Welcome to another unboxing and first look online as Tech Tips. We're going to be using our Fancy Pants dual camera setup and today we're going to be having a look at the Flux In-Ear Pro from SteelSeries. And Slick's getting distracted because he was looking down at the box but he doesn't have to because we have two cameras now. So basically SteelSeries has a lot on the go in terms of audio products. They've got their over the ear headphones but this is the first time we've really seen an in the ear headphone product from them. So what separates this from other headphones in a similar price range? Well SteelSeries is saying that the most important things about this guy are the fact that they have balanced armature drivers. So what that means is a very flat response. In fact they even have a helpful little graph here on the box that shows you a more typical headphone frequency response versus the Flux In-Ear Pro's which is very very flat. So according to Diesel who is actually in some ways a bit more of an audio nerd than Slick and who is more of an audio nerd than myself, this is good because it means that you can use a software equalizer or other kinds of voodoo magic in order to achieve sort of a more poppy sound or a more bass heavy sound. As long as you know that the headphones or earbuds that you're using are flat then any adjustments you make are not going to accidentally overcompensate for what was essentially a deficiency in the product itself. We've also got an inline microphone and controls so it is still functional as a headset and can be used for music or gaming with a mobile PC or a Mac because it just uses a 3.5mm plug. Not just a 3.5mm plug, more on that later. So here's what they have to say. Balanced armature technology offers an incredible audio experience, the highly accurate drivers allow you to hear new layers, level subtle details and rediscover your games and music. So we're not going to let this unboxing finish without Slick actually taking some time to compare these IEMs against sort of his experience because he's the one who tried them at the SteelSeries suite where we picked these up and overall his impressions were very very positive although I'd love for Diesel to try them out as well. Cool thing about these is they actually come with a variety of different ear tips so it's normal for these earbuds to come with sort of a small, medium and large but these ones actually come with comply foam tips as well. So silicon tips are good for sort of isolating noise which is great and they're reasonably comfortable. Eh, well, okay, a lot of people don't find silicon tips reasonably, or silicon silicone tips reasonably comfortable at all which is why comply tips are a very very popular choice. So comply tips actually use a foam, a memory foam that you can squeeze and then it will expand in your ear to make it extremely comfortable as well as to make it form a very tight seal. So it comes with a quick start guide although quite frankly if you need a quick start guide to operate your headphones then you probably need some help. Although, in their defense, these headphones do actually have a couple of nuances that make them a little bit tricky. So in terms of included accessories we've got a carrying case which has the earbuds themselves inside. So you can see there they are with their little, oh that's kind of cool, check this out. So it has a velcro surface here and then the band that you can use to wrap up the headphones has velcro on the outside of it as well so it will actually stick there. Okay, then you can take things like extra ear tips or extra cable adapters or whatever else you want and throw them in there. Nice and soft, kind of like a little coin purse if you catch my drift. Okay, then we've got the earbuds themselves. There's that little carrying strap that we have with the velcro. Got a SteelSeries sticker inside. Alright, a couple of little bits and pieces here. So this is kind of important. So SteelSeries whole thing with the Flux In-Ear Pros is that they went back to the drawing board in terms of ergonomics and instead they, I think, what did they say? They picked up like 150 earbuds or something stupid like that, like some ridiculous number, I don't remember how many it was. But they bought a bunch of earbuds when they were trying to figure out the ergonomics and tried them all and basically went, well, we don't really like any of them. So back to the drawing board, they decided to look back at hearing aids, something that's actually designed to be worn all day in order to determine how they wanted these to fit. So hearing aids often go over the ear and I apologize, these are slicks but I'm totally going to put them in so hopefully these aren't the silicone tips that he wants to use. So the way that they work is they're labeled in terms of left and right so I'm going to hold this one up so that Diesel can have a look right here. So there's a little R or an L on the inside, hopefully you guys can see that. I think that you can, oh, I'm covering it, that's why you can't see it. There it is right there. Little R and an L. And then what it does is it goes over and around your ear much like some of the very high end earbuds that are out there or like something like hearing aids. They also include an accessory. So this is just a little sort of rubber strip thing here that acts as a guide. So if you don't like the feel of the thin wires hanging on your ears, then you can actually wrap them in this, there's just a little slit in the top of it and then it will be a bit of a thicker piece that sits over top of the ear which should help it be a little bit more comfortable for those who aren't really used to this whole approach to things. So where was I going with that? Right, included accessories. So there you go, you've got your medium, small and large tips and then these guys right here. So these are the comply foam tips and I'm going to switch to the other camera here so you can have a look at these. So the way that you're supposed to use these is you actually squish them up into a tighter sort of ball like that and then you wait for them to expand inside your ear. Now they don't last forever unlike normal silicone ear tips which will last for a really really long time. These should be replaced probably every few months if you use them frequently but they're not actually all that expensive so you know it's up to you. Both options are included. You can try the complies, you can use them if you want or you can just not end up using them over the long term and you can stick with the silicone ones which will last pretty much forever or until they become sort of a hygiene issue which is, I don't know, for gamers is that an issue? Is a hygiene issue a thing? Alright, other included accessories, we're almost done here. So there's a little proprietary connector on the end here that actually serves a very distinct purpose. So you can plug in either, here we go, sorry I know I'm covering up the camera here and there's nothing Diesel can do about it, there you can plug in either a three banded three and a half millimetre so that will carry your microphone and your headphone signals through one connector or you can use the other included connector to plug it into a PC or other sort of more conventional device where you have two separate two banded connectors. So you can swap those out and I would like it to be noted that this is actually one of the better non-tangle cables I've seen in the past so it's quite a bit thicker which actually gives it some additional weight so when it's hanging off of your ears, the good news is it doesn't hang right out of the ear tips, out of your ear canals themselves because it wraps around your ear but it gives it some extra weight so it pulls a little more than normal but because of its thickness you can actually crumple it up in a little ball, stuff it in your pocket, so we're going to hope that this live demo actually works pretty well, whoops, and then you can untangle it in a matter of sort of less than seconds so that's a good thing as well. On the, I believe it's the left earbud, yep, on the left earbud you've got that inline volume control as well as a microphone that I had talked about before, so here I'm going to give you guys a close look at that, so all that is pretty straightforward, so there's the microphone on the back and there is the integrated controls on the front and I don't know if we're missing anything at this point so let me just see, we've got all the accessories, we've got the general features, right, so basically SteelSeries' whole thing with this is that for the price which is in sort of the mid-hundreds range it should pretty much blow the doors off anything else that's out there so we're going to take a moment and let these guys try it out. After much testing in our audio laboratory, well the Tech Tips studio if nothing else, actually well Slick forgot his phone at CES so his music library is conveniently not here however Diesel and I spent some time with it so my point of comparison is my Clipsch S4i's which I know aren't fantastic earbuds by any stretch of the imagination, overall I'd say if I had to pick something where the Fluxe and Ear Pros just utterly destroyed the S4i's it would be in terms of bass however it didn't sound just sort of boomy and ridiculous like a lot of IEMs or a lot of headphones do especially if they're oriented towards gamers. Diesel's a bit of an earbuds diva so he uses Sennheiser IE8s which are obviously a much more expensive pair of earphones than these ones so his whole take on it was eh they're not as good as my IE8s but if we had to make you draw a conclusion that wasn't based on just sort of being a diva, Diesel it would be probably what something along the lines of very competitive for the price compared to the IE8s okay so he's given me the thumbs up so I'd like to show you guys that I did install the metal piece yeah the metal piece that like you know straps to your head and you nail it in place I know the rubber piece right here that actually for me made them quite a bit more comfortable now there's the obvious problem where if you scrunch them up and put them in your pocket and they come off or you have to adjust them in any way then they might be a little bit inconvenient but I would say for me personally the comfort factor is definitely improved by adding those so I think that pretty much wraps things up thanks for checking out this unboxing and first look at the SteelSeries Flux In-Ear Pro guys I've been saying this for a long time about my 7Hs but it's time to stop thinking of SteelSeries as gaming audio because they're a cut above what anyone else in the gaming headset space is doing in terms of audio quality with particular emphasis on the 7Hs and now the Flux In-Ear Pros don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos.