Okay, I've never been a huge fan of earbuds. In my book any device that intends to cocoon you in music has to meet two primary requirements: it has to sound good and it has to be comfortable. If it falls short in either it shouldn't get a second thought. And over the 15 years since the first iPod made them ubiquitous, buds have usually failed in both.

But they've been getting better. The sound quality that is being achieved these days with transducers that are smaller than your littlest fingernail is nothing short of remarkable. Someone came up with plugs that seal off the ear canal as the pods are inserted, and this vastly improves bass response and presence. They've also become, in various cases, sweat-proof, waterproof, Bluetooth-capable and noise-cancelling. Sony has built a four-gigabyte Walkman into a pair.

But then, they've also been getting expensive. You'll pay $410 for a pair of B&O H3s with noise-cancelling, $449 for the equivalent Bose. A pair of Audeze iSine20s costs twice that.

And now Porsche Design has entered the fray, teaming with Kef to produce premium buds that, while not noise-cancelling, do have Bluetooth aptX or, if you're pedantic about your sound, a conventional cable connection with a 3.5mm minijack at the end.

These ones give you a dollar change from $400 and, being Porsche Design, they're beautiful, beautifully packaged and clever. I liked their being magnetised to stick together; handy for storage. Mind you, the recommended storage is a carry case that, while very slim, is almost the height and length of some carry cases for conventional headphones. And charging has to be done with a 20cm USB cable. A charge lasts up to 10 hours, and if you run out you can still listen through the cable connection.

Being Kef they sound great, Well, great for buds. They insert into the ear canal with small, medium or large plugs, but you don't get the extra-large size that some manufacturers are offering lately.

I started listening to these through Bluetooth (there are voice prompts for power on and Bluetooth connection) and pairing is easy and fast. The technology is all contained in two lumps in a neckband that sits unobtrusively at the back of your neck, and it brings phone compatibility as well as volume, pause and skip. Use the cable connection and you get better body, immediacy and presence but you lose the phone.

Spend a few hours with these and you'll become fond of them. The comfort is as good as you'll get with buds and the sound quality is very good indeed, with acceptably strong bass and good definition throughout the mids and highs. These are best buds I've tried both in comfort and sound quality, and I was feeling very warm towards them indeed, but a few minutes into Gorecki's Symphony Number Three I started to want more than they were delivering, so I put the sound through a pair of bookshelf speakers that cost around $800, and suddenly all the missing depth, spaciousness and atmosphere came flooding back in, turning good sound into great.

Most conventional headphones half the price sound better and are more comfortable, but if it must be earbuds the Motion Ones are terrific.