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Crazy Affordable Radio Shack Free Beat Bluetooth Headphones
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May 29, 2025
Radio Shack is one of the great electronics brands, a mainstay for so many years at your local mall. Where else could you buy the right cables, adapters, and components for your gear? Now the brand's resurrected and they're shipping some new, extremely affordable gear. Like the Radio Shack Free Beat Bluetooth Headphones. Tech expert Dave Taylor offers a candid assessment of these budget headphones, offering his opinion of whether they're worth your time or not. Model: 3304394 Check it out at: https://www.RadioShack.com/ Visit Dave's Q&A Web site at: https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ #radioshack #headphones #bluetooth #askdavetaylor
View Video Transcript
0:00
budget Bluetooth headphones from Radio
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Shack but are they any good let's check
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them
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[Music]
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out Dave Taylor here and I'm looking at
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a product from Radio Shack can't believe
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it it has been so many years since Radio
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Shack has been on my radar at all when I
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was growing up any time you needed a
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cable or an adapter or anything
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electronic or any component it was just
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Radio Shack you went to they were in
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every shopping mall but as the industry
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sort of moved along and as things became
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more integrated and there was less
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repairability then companies like Target
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and Walmart sort of grew up and took so
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much of Radio Shack's business there was
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a moment I remember they were the place
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to go for radio controlled cars and then
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those cars showed up at Toys R Us and at
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Best Buy and everything was everywhere
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at which point suddenly Radio Shack
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didn't look so glamorous and over the
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last 10 or 15 years they sort of went
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away but what happened is in May of
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2023 so we're talking what about 18
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months ago a huge conglomerate out of El
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Salvador actually called unicomer group
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bought the Radio Shack brand and
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trademarks and all of that material and
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they started producing more
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products now primarily their products
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are currently being sold through their
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own website but I expect they'll get
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back into retail distribution and it
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won't be so long that you'll be seeing
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Radio Shack maybe at your Supermarket
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maybe at Best Buy I don't know exactly
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what their strategy is but it's clear
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that especially being based in El
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Salvador they're really trying to come
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in at the low end with all of their
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products they want them to be eminently
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affordable and that's what these are
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these are the Radio Shack freebeat
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Bluetooth headphones and I can tell you
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they are definitely budget headphones
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there's no way around it they have okay
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components but it's pretty plasticky and
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it doesn't feel like these are something
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that you're going to have for the next
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10 years but when I tell you the price
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you're going to be like holy cow I can
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afford those in fact that's like the
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cost of two large lattes at Starbucks
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they're really really inexpensive now
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having said that they aren't completely
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without some technological interest so
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they feature 40 mm drivers that give you
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20 to 20,000 HZ frequency response with
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a sound pressure level of 100 DB plus or
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minus 2 DB they are running Bluetooth
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5.3 which is really pretty close to the
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latest version of Bluetooth and they say
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it's a 30 foot range I found it has a
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considerably longer range than that
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again walls and other devices can prove
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interfering and get in the way of you
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getting a clean signal but these were
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certainly good enough that I could leave
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my phone in the kitchen and go check the
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mail without any problems so 15 hours of
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battery life two hours for a full charge
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they charge via USBC in fact let me give
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you a quick tour everything's on the
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right hand ear cup and as you can see
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there is a 3.5 mm Jack you can use them
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in wired mode if you don't want to use
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Bluetooth or they just ran out of
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battery you can just use them wired and
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then there are four buttons that are
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really difficult to read the labels the
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first button is onof Play pause the
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second button does Bluetooth searching
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and it lets you answer and make a phone
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call and in a moment I'm going to give
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you a demo of the microphone pickup and
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then on the last two a short press will
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move the track forward or backward and a
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long press will increase or decrease the
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volume and this is all documented in
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this tiny little user guide that's in
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English and Spanish and I will say the
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user guide really needs a picture it
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just has a list of the different
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functions on the buttons but it doesn't
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tell you which button is which and given
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how hard it is to see the labels on the
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buttons that's something that's really
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easy for them to fix and I think that
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would actually probably make for happier
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customers but having said that once you
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get them out of the box once you charge
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them up once you power them on you can
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just push buttons and see what happens
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and it does come with a USBC to usba
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charging cable and as I said a 3.5 mm to
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3.5 mm Jacks so you can use them in
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wired mode and so now let's go ahead
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and what you're hearing now is my voice
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as picked up by the Radio Shack fre Beat
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headphones and as you can hear it's not
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very loud and it sounds pretty far away
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so I wouldn't use these on a long phone
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call because I think it will be
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challenging for the person on the other
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end to hear you but in Ain an emergency
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if it's just a 60c yeah Mom I'll be at
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the stop on time I'll see you in a few
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minutes something like that it's going
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to work just fine so that's the audio
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demo
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now what we really need to talk about is
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the sound reproduction so I thought hm
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all the different music that I have and
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all the different music that I listen to
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I decided to go back to the 80s when
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radio attack was a big deal and listen
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to Duran Duran so I listen to like Duran
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Duran Greatest Hits and boy that band
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when they were a firing on all cylinders
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they were just producing hit after hit
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after hit and they sounded
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okay on these headphones these are
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budget headphones with a budget driver
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on each earpiece and there's no
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expansive sound there's no real Sound
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Stage I would say that from my listening
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there's a low frequency and then low
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mid-range there's not a lot but then
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mid-range and high are okay so it is
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kind of somewhere between am and FM
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radio for people who actually know what
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I mean by that in terms of like the sort
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of sound compression and expansiveness
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so these are not going to win any awards
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for their sound
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reproduction but they're not intended to
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these are not $900 audio file headphones
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these are headphones that are under $30
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that are intended to be affordable and
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the kind of thing you can give to
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grandma or give to your 10-year-old and
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if they break it they break it whatever
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it's not like it was a big investment so
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you know for the price point I think
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they are reasonable sounding I don't
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think anyone's going to buy these
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because of the audio reproduction but if
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you're listening to a podcast or you're
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playing games or you just are looking
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for something for your commute because
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you're on the train going into the city
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every morning these will actually work
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okay and because they're so affordable I
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think that that's a huge thing going for
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them again I want to be clear you heard
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in the audio recording demo and I'm
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telling you on the audio reproduction
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they're fair to midling at best but
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that's not what they're trying to do and
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I think anyone who's criticizing the
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sound reproduction doesn't understand
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the purpose of this brand is to make
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technology super affordable so that
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everyone can pick up a pair and everyone
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can get the benefit is is it as good as
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something that's five times 10 times 100
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times more expensive of course not
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that's true of all consumer
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electronics so that's not what they're
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trying to do and so given their goal is
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to have something that's eminently
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affordable they actually succeed pretty
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well there are some things I would
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change I think that microphone could do
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with a little bit more gain so you have
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a little bit better pickup and certainly
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better drivers are going to give them
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better sound but it'll increase the
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price so all in all these are entirely
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functional for what they're intended to
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be which are super affordable budget
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Bluetooth headphones and in that I think
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the company succeeds pretty darn well so
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we do need to talk price before we get
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there I'm going to ask you to subscribe
8:52
to my channel click or tap on that
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subscribe button hit that Bell icon to
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get notifications give me a thumbs up if
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you found this of value and I hope it's
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pretty obvious that I'm very honest in
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my reviews they sent me these headphones
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but that doesn't mean I'm going to tell
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you they're fantastic because they're
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not really fantastic but they're not
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horrible so they're somewhere in the
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middle that's not a strong glowing
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endorsement but I think I gave a pretty
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fair assessment of them so they are the
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Radio Shack freebeat Bluetooth
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headphones and they are
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26.99 at radioshack.com
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so for
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$26.99 you can pick up these headphones
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and give them to someone who might be
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prone to breaking them or losing them or
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you might use them yourself because all
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you're looking for is something where
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you're just having a little privacy
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because every time you're watching a
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show on your phone or something people
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are like dude can you turn it down and
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so now you got a solution for the cost
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of a burger and fries so that's what I
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got I hope you appreciated this review
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and I'll hope to catch you in my next
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review
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[Music]
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