Cracking open the packaging our white Fontopia's certainly look the part and are no less stylish than a set of Apple Ear Buds, perhaps a good sign of the overall quality is that like many more expensive systems Sony have shipped these with a fitting system. You get 2 lots of each size of sleeves, small, medium and large, you select the size that best fits your ear and attach the sleeve making for a snug and noise reducing fit in the ear.

So they are certainly comfy for long listening sessions and they even come with a little carrying pouch and a 1 meter cable so that your MP3 player doesn't need to be in a chest pocket.

Onto the sound, we paired the Sony Fontopia Headphones with our 3G Ipod as this seemed a very common use for the Sony units, trying a variety of music we were first impressed by a very clear sound from the 9mm drivers far beyond the price of these headphones. Trying some of LP's grinding Hammond tracks the bass had a good amount of weight if a little weedy compared to a set of full on HiFi headphones, but even at high levels on a heavy bass track the Sony's do not distort something Apple ear buds do at the very sight of a RAP CD jewel case.

Perhaps its fair to say that the bass while rich is a bit uncontrolled and prone to being muffled or even obliterating the mid range, the top end is there alright and is a bit tiny for our tastes, this is shown up on more delicate tracks rather than middle of the road POP.

The ability of the Fontopia's to block outside noise is excellent, not quite up to the standard of the Shure headphones we've tested but still very good, even on noise roads or public transport the daily grind is kept away from the music. You will notice that sounds like your breathing and gulps become more obvious but you soon get used to that fact and can easily block that out and enjoy your MP3's.

For £26 the Sony Fontopia Headphones represent real value for money, they are not HiFi quality headphones but as a replacement for the often terrible cheap and nasty units supplied with most MP3 players they are possibly the best option. We tested a white set but they are also available in black if you are not insistent on having a matching set for your Ipod.

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