Swirl is all wrong. If I were to make a list of things to avoid when creating a set of earphones at least half of them applies to the Swirl. It is like if AIAIAI has taken all that is known about design, and flushed it down the drain. The end result is still the coolest pair of earphones ever to grace my ears. If I had to choose a product of the year when it comes to design it have to be the Swirl. Still there is so much wrong about it.
Starting with the thick cord, and by thick I mean really thick. It reminds me of the cords I had for my keyboards in the early PC days. About halfway down it has a classic extension swirl just like keyboard and corded phones had. It is about 10 centimetres long, but extends into about 50 centimetres when stretched. The Y-split is far too low below the chest even, and it is huge. Even larger than the thick cord it has clear L and R for each split. All wrong.
The microphone is the special old-school piece that AIAIAI uses for their products, and it is perfect for the Swirl. Large buttons that feel like something used in an old tape recorder. The rugged design is waterproof, and durable. It has to be as it swings all over the place due to being placed far too low below the neck. Audio is good for the microphone, but it has to be held up to the mouth.
There are a whole array of different earbuds included in the package. The one that is attached from the start is the one that is colour matched, and fits the earphone best. It is the same kind of foam ear bud that Koss has used extensively for their Plug and Sparkplug designs. For the Swirl it works really well, and shapes according to your ear. As long as you don’t have any moisture in your ears they stay still. After a shower/heavy rain/hard sweaty training they tend to glide out, as the friction is lowered. With the foam earbuds the noise isolation is really good, and the bass gets really heavy. There are four sets of silicone earbuds included that fail to make sense to me. One set is full-size, and extends all the way to the housing of the earphone just like the foam one. This is the one of the silicone buds that can actually be used properly. It does leak sound, and fails to noise isolate properly. 
Finally there are three sets of ordinary silicone earbuds in different sizes. These are just weird to use, as there is a gap between the housing and the bud. As the housing is like a wall there is no help with grip, and I can’t get the earbuds to stay in my ear when doing anything more mobile than sitting down. This is really strange, and I would rather have liked to see a range of different sizes for the colour matched foam buds.
Finally the sound, and this is where the Swirl actually follows the rules. The sound is thick, powerful and comes with a pronounced bass boost. This is of course with the properly sealing foam buds, and to some extent the full-size silicone buds. Fun sound with focused bass, ok midrange and good high range. In my opinion it works really well with most forms of popular music. Hip hop/rap as well as other bass heavy genres sound marvellous. Metal sounds kind of dirty, and gets a garage feel to it. Genres not benefiting from the Swirl are classical music and jazz where the focus is on clean sound.
The Swirl is my favourite set of earphones when it comes to design by far. It is the only in-ear headset that has actually attracted attention from people around me. And the verdicts are the same as mine, the Swirl is the coolest design available. Despite getting so many practical aspects wrong such as having a long heavy cord, just one pair of really good foam buds and too low placed Y-split and microphone these compensate with personality and great sound. I award the Swirl an Editor’s Choice, and recommend it to anyone who really want to have a set of earphones with a unique design. Definitely not the best earphones out there, but by far the most interesting.
Final Rating
Swirl at the UK Apple Store £59.95
