Headphone News

White Beats: twice the original's price

The Beats by Dr. Dre and Monster will soon undergo a palette swap from black to white — BUT ONLY FOR  A LIMITED TIME!!! Since this is an exploding offer and explosions are AWESOME, Monster figures these new headphones are worth 2x the MSRP price of the originals. The originals were $350, meaning these new ones are $02BC. Oh, sorry, the sheer magnitude of the price caused us to slip into hexidecimal. Ahem. The new ones are $700. Yeah, that’s a lot. There currently aren’t any pictures of it out there, but through the magic of a 15-second Photoshop, we’ve produced the image at right. If the actual product is worth $700, then this picture must be worth at least $5.

[Via Gizmodo]

HeadphoneInfo.com Selects awards

This coming week we’ll be announcing the best headphones we’ve reviewed thus far. There are a few categories: best portable headphones, best active-canceller, best home headphones, and headphones of the year. It’s going to be the best article ever by a significant margin, so you should check it out. If you don’t, you’ll probably never know what headphones you should by for your friends and family this holiday season. Since we know you love your friends and family and know you want to get them the best presents for your money, reading our HPI Select Awards article is virtually mandatory.

Audio-Technica announces winter line-up

Audio-Technica announced quite a few headphones today. They have three over-ear and two in-ear offerings, with higher-end and one not-as-high end models in each category.

The ATH-CK100 and ATH-CKM50 headphones are the in-ear options. The ATH-CK100 uses a fancy triple-drive system, apparently. It spans a frequency range of 20Hz to 18kHz, a 23Ω impedence, and a 113dB sound pressure level. The ATH-CKM50 is a bit more vanilla (it just has a boring old 10.7mm driver), but it is capable of a slightly bigger frequency range: 14Hz to 24 kHz. The CKM50s also have a different impedence and max SPL, which are 16Ω and 104dB respectively.

Both earphones will be available for the US equivalent of $600 (!) on November 21st.

The over-ear, high-end options are the ATH-A1000X and ATH-A2000X. The main difference between the two is their frequency range: the ATH-A1000X runs from 5Hz to 42kHz, while the ATH-A2000X runs from 5Hz to 45kHz, which isn’t really that big a difference. Otherwise they’re the same: an impedance of 42Ω, a sound pressure level of 101dB, and a 53mm driver.
 

The ATH-AFW headphones are a more portable over-ear, which run from 15Hz to 23kHz, have an impedance of 30Ω, are capable of outputting 105dB SPL, and have 36mm drivers.

There’s no street date or price on any of these over-ear headphones yet.

Aesthetically, these look really similar to other Audio-Technica offerings (click here for more pics). We will look forward to getting in some of these units for review. Until the Headphone Review Bot gives us the run-down, we refuse to speculate on how these things will sound. 

[Story and pics via Akihabara News (in-ears, over-ears)]

Humorously mismatched headphones from Scitec

Scitec and Swarovski are coming out with two headphones that look… quite different. The first is the regal IES-100, which has a large crystal and looks like it would feel comfortable playing Mozart at moderate volumes into high society ears. The second, the SEB-100 is perfect for the goth/rocker/hipster/scenester/teenager who doesn’t already have skull headphones.

The headphones themselves only have basic specs available at the moment. Both run on a 20Hz-22kHz band and have an impedance of 16Ω. The fancy pants model is actually capable of slightly more volume than the skullphones — 105dB/mW compared to 98dB/mW — which will surely pop a few monocles off the Edwardian dandies who own them.

Both will be available in Japan later this month with an open price of ¥10,000. Should they come to our shores, this is approximately $100 US.

There’s some more pics after the jump.

[Via Engadget]

Audio Technica jumps on the sparkling pink bandwagon

Since it’s apparently a growing market, Audio Technica is offering their own line of female-only headphones. The press release contains quite a few models, but the only stated differences between them are colors and price. We can only imagine how the person who wrote this release justified the lack of substantial information:

"Typically press releases contain boring specs that only nerds care about. Sure, they’ll let you know if the headphones are pretty awesome — but what if you’re just looking for pretty? Instead of boring everyone with dry numbers on impedence (whatever the heck that is, am I right?), how about we just list the one spec that our demographic cares about: colors. Also, we’ll drop vaguely empowering phrases in there like ‘women on the go.’"

Fortunately, for you females that also want to know something about the products, we rounded up a few specs from Audio Technica’s product page. Since there’s a bunch of tables and pictures, you’ll have to click here to read the full post.

[Press Release]

New bone conduction headphones

Are you deaf? Do you like to listen to music but don’t want to block out any ambient noise? Do you like shooting vibrations into your skull? Perhaps you should continue reading this very blog post, because we have quite a product in store for you!

	Photoshop is a cruel mistress.

It’s the Audio Bone! It shoots vibrations into your head which jiggle around your inner-ear bones, letting you hear music without all the fuss of shoving sound drivers into your ears. As a general rule, ambient noises ruin your music, but we understand there are times when you’d rather keep an ear out. We can see these things being useful for people who absolutely need to hear ambient sounds, or for people who are too careless to wear real headphones.

You can buy the standard Audio Bone headphones in orange, black, blue, or white for $189 plus $8.95 shipping & handling. You can also buy them in Super Special Secret Limited Edition Bonus Colors, but they’ll cost you an extra $30. We remember back when pallette swaps were a lame, unimaginative way to create the illusion of quantity; nowadays the service actually makes stuff more valuable.

"But HeadphoneInfo.com," you cry, "these headphones can’t move around to conform to my freakishly deformed head! What am I to do?" To you, dear reader, there is but one solution: the Ultimate Thundervenom Double-Dog Awesome Edition, aka the Audio Bone Adjustable. This purchase ($219 + $8.95 s&h) will allow you to rotate the ear clip in what appears to be a 90-degree arc. You can also fold them up and store them in the included carrying pouch!

Our initial impression: it’s an overly-expensive, uncomfortable gimmick. Time will tell if we’re correct, but we’re wary for a few reasons. First of all, that picture above and to the right is from them, and it’s quite bad. Secondly,the product launched with no distributers, which is a bad sign. Finally, the press release says, "For More Information Contact: Larry Popelka, President, GameChanger Products." The president is running customer service?

You can find the press release here, and Audio Bone’s official site is here.

Headphones for hip hypochondriacs

These unlikely headphones were created by designer Yoosang Kim. As some might remember, there was an erroneous internet factoid making the rounds a while back: using in-ear headphones for an hour will cause bacteria in your ear to multiply by a factor of 700, making ear infections all but a certainty. As it turns out, that number was misquoted and in-ear headphones aren’t really that dangerous. In any case, Kim didn’t get that memo, and he made these headphones to be less bacteria friently so your music is more antiseptic.

First of all, yes they do look neat, and we think the clasp-behind-the-neck design is an interesting way to keep your ear buds in check when they’re not in use. We can see these things being used, assuming there’s some really, really fancy active cancellation involved. You’d need something to cancel out the incoming sounds and, so as to not be a jerk to those around you, some active cancellation blasting the sounds leaking out. You’d need some ridiculously good engineers, and you probably wouldn’t be able to implement the technology in such a small set of in-ears right off the bat, but somewhere down the line this design might see the light of day — in theory at least.

Practically speaking, how can you mass-market a set of in-ears that have no customization? We could understand if they were on-ear or over-ear, because those designs allow you to build big and typically those headphones have extendable bands. These things are just metal loops; what’s to prevent them from falling out of some people’s ears or being too big for others? 

(more pictures after the jump)

[via Gizmodo]

Denon makes the AH-D7000 official

Although virtually everyone knew they were on their way, Denon has just made the AH-D7000s official. The AH-D7000s, which are a step up from the AH-D5000s, should be available in the middle of September.

Why are these headphones interesting? Well, in following the latest trends, the case will be made of Mahogany. In terms of specs, they should be similar to the D-5000s, but with a better driver: 50mm Neodymium drivers, 25Ω impedance, 108dB/mW sensitivity, and a frequency range of 5-45,000Hz.

It should cost around 800€ when it’s released, which is about $1,180.48 in the US.

(there’s some bigger pics after the jump)

[via Akihabara News]

East Coast-West Coast headphone rivalry

Perhaps you have heard of Monster’s Beats by Dr. Dre headphones? Apparently Jay-Z did and, not to be outdone, has teamed up with Motorola to produce his own pair of headphones. That’s right, it’s the mid-90s all over again.

The headphones, the MOTOROKR S7-HD, have A2DP stereo and an integrated mic so you can use it with your cellphone. Also, don’t assume these headphones look anything even remotely like this, because the FCC  themselves hit the FCC late last night. The FCC is notorious for taking horrible pictures, so there’s no telling what these things actually look like (there’s a bigger picture after the jump).

[Via Engadget]

Cute and elegant headphones for girls

Are you female? Do you feel women aren’t being adequately represented in the headphone industry? Have you secretly been longing for pink headphones with a bow and jewels and a color palette straight from a Lisa Frank drawing? 

The headphone industry, much like the video game industry, has been known to dabble in reinforcing gender stereotypes. The Fiore line of headphones, by Radius, is just the latest awkward attempt to reach the frighteningly alien female demographic. There are two headphones in the line: the HP-HWF31 (Elegant) and HP-HWF11 (Cute) by Radius,

Here’s a run-down of their selling points: 

• 10mm/6.4mm dynamic drivers (for Cute and Elegant respectively).
• 98dB/100dB sound pressure level (for Cute and Elegant respectively).
• 16Ω  impedence.
• 3.94 feet of cable.
• Won’t snag your hair or mess it up.
• Come with a clip, which is shaped like a jewel-encrusted ribbon.

At the end of the month, you’re free to purchase Cute for $27 and Elegant for $18 (on the Japanese market). For a mere $45 investment, you could buy both for a lady friend, then say something like, "Now you’re both cute and elegant!" Then you can spend the next awkward 15 minutes explaining no, that’s not how you meant it, and that no, you didn’t stop and think how unprofessional she’d look to the partners with pink, bejeweled headphones.

[Via CrunchGear]

Headline: Headphone habit harming hearts!?

We recently found an article with a promising headline: "‘Radioholics’ beware! Headphones may cause ‘heartache.’"

"Interesting," we mumbled at our computer, readying headphones-attack.jpg for another hilariously sarcastic blog post.

As it turns out, however, the article doesn’t really deliver. There is one (1) line in the entire write-up that talks about headphones’ effect on our heart. The claim is that, other than causing deafness, listening to really loud music, "may develop psychogenic disorders and hypertension which will end up in cardiac ailments." That’s it. The rest of the article continues on to elaborate about why loud music is bad for your ears, but doesn’t mention these "cardiac ailments" again in any sort of detail.

We were expecting lots of quotes from "doctors" making outlandish claims! What about errant soudwaves getting lodged in your left ventricle, or perhaps cardiac arrest induced by an overdose of binaural beats (digital drugs)?

Like most insinuated threats, we’re guessing this story will soon be picked up by countless other news publications, who plan on interviewing doctors and doing a lot of journalism. We’re going to take the high road, however, and offer up some good, old-fashioned hearsay. We write about headphones, so we’re just as good as any doctor at guessing how headphones affect the human body. Therefore, we hope to beat mainstream media to the published punch: here are just a few educated guesses as to what horrors can befall your heart when… headphones attack!

Unfortunately, in an effort to conserve valuable blog space, we’ve been forced to relocate this list to another page (this one).

Logitech buys Ultimate Ears

In a $34 million deal, Logitech bought out Ultimate Ears today. The deal is expected to close in August. It’s an interesting acquisition, since Logitech has only been producing low-end headphones up until now. Ultimate Ears is known for making customized headphones (that cost upwards of $1000) for famous musicians and also rich people who want to feel like famous musicians.

Therefore, we found the following quote from Logitech’s president and CEO somewhat interesting (mainly just the emphasized part): 

Since its inception, Ultimate Ears has been driven by innovation, close ties to its customers, and the desire to enable an immersive audio experience. Logitech’s success has been built on using a deep understanding of our customers to create innovative products that let people immerse themselves in their pursuits – whether they are listening to music, gaming, watching a video or otherwise enjoying their digital lifestyle. We look forward to using our worldwide distribution network and operational efficiencies to help more people discover this superior listening experience.

Ultimate Ears has never been a mainstream headphone company with a robust consumer line. It seems like Logitech is planning on steering the company away from its musician niche. Custom-fit headphones don’t really benefit from a larger distribution network — unless there are going to be Build-a-Bear-esque Ultimate Ears outlets. More than likely, Logitech just wanted to get in on the higher-end in-ear market and bought Ultimate Ears for their name and reputation. Our prediction: expect their .fi line to grow exponentially.

Fun "facts" from the press release:

• "An estimated 75 percent of today’s top touring rock musicians now use the Ultimate Ears custom-fit in-ear monitor while performing"? Not to diminish Ultimate Ears’ achievements, but the term "top touring rock musician" can mean just about anything. They could be referring to three-fourths of Nickelback.
• "Ultimate Ears employs nearly 40 people." This ballpark figure is tantamount to understanding this acquisition. Nearly 40 people implies Ultimate Ears is classified as having "Lots" of employees.

Headline: Headphones help hapless humans huff high-tech heroin by the Hertz!

Man, just when we couldn’t imagine headphones getting any worse, it turns out they’re a gateway drug. That’s right, today littly Suzy is listening to her newfangled Warped Tour ‘08 compilation CD. Tomorrow, Suzy’s gone from a headphone user to a headphone "user." She’s an audiojunkie. Just another freq freak in search of another amplitude trip. Welcome to the seedy underbelly of the internet: binaural beats.

Don’t be fooled by websites claiming binaural beats are some benign meditation aid. Binaural beats are, scientifically speaking, the devil’s serenade. Even more scientifically speaking, it’s when two close-but-not-identical frequencies play back through your headphones, corrupting your brainwaves with aural LSD. The worst part: anyone can download binaural beats off the internet (this means your children). That’s right, your kids are, at the moment, downloading these "digital drugs" and soaring high on their addicting amplitudes.

Want more proof? Read this exposé, which was recently published on USA Today’s website by their internet journalists. You’ll find out all about how binaural beats can emulate the effects of marajuana, alcohol, heroin, or even HEAVEN OR HELL. That’s right, mad science has quantified the experience of being in Hell, figured out a way to emulate the experience using only off-tone soundwaves, and then arranged a demonic cacophany that will corrupt your kids.

The most terrifying part about this story is binaural beat abuse, like the inexorable march of time or music piracy, is virtually impossible to stop. There is literally one (1) way to save your child from the hell of being a high-fi hop-head, and you’ll have to click here to see it.

Headline: Headphones to Herd Heiffers!

Farmers, who traditionally shake their collective fist at headphone-wearing youths, will soon be employing headphone technology themselves. Cow headphones.

The headphones, called "Ear-A-Round," don’t work like the typical invisible fence, either. You know how cowfolk always wisper sweet nothings into the ears of their cattle to get them to move? These headphones will play the farmer’s croonings, among other sounds and voice commands. The sounds will help the farmer wirelessly corral his livestock. If the cows don’t respond to their owner’s dulcet tones, they’ll get a mild electric shock.

The most interesting part of this story, though, is each headset will be outfitted with GPS: the farmer will be able to see where each cow is in his field, so he can direct them away from over-grazed parts of the pasture. Is it us, or does this sound like a real life hybrid of StarCraft and Harvest Moon?

[Via Delaware Online]

Sennheiser MM50 iP review retrospective

It’s always easier to write reviews about headphones with hilariously glaring issues than those without them. Unfortunately for us, the MM50 iP headphones are really pretty good. They have great audio quality with ridiculously low distortion levels, are comfortable, come with a microphone, and only cost $100.

We only have three complaints, two of which aren’t very important. First of all, the MM50 iPs don’t isolate as well as other in-ear headphones. They still scored above the Bost QuietComfort 2 and 3, and well above the average result for our site, but there are in-ear headphones out there that can do a better job. Secondly — and this is partially responsible for the previous issue — the MM50 iPs don’t come with many sleeve options. Had there been a triple-flange sleeve available, we’re sure they would’ve isolated much better.

The one main issue has to do with durability. The plug sticks out and the MM50 iPs don’t have a great cord guard. We can see the cable bending sharply at the plug, getting pulled and just generally accruing wear and tear quickly. If you’re keeping your media player in your pocket, try to keep the plug facing upwards.

All this being said, the bad sides don’t even come close to marring how good the MM50 iPs are; they scored more in their audio performance section then most of the other headphones we’ve reviewed. They’re currently #1 on our rankings, with a healthy margin between them and second place. The MM50 iP headphones are well worth their $100 tag.

Monster Beats review retrospective

We just finished our review of the Monster Beats. The audio quality wasn’t great, but we did hear a lot of detail. The active noise cancellation was terrible: it was weak, created noticeable noise, and is mandatory for hearing playback, so when you run out of batteries you lose your music privileges.

The Beats are versatile, but not very. The poor isolation, lack of leakage control, and overall size mean they’re not the most portable headphones. You can remove the cord, however, so if you have a longer audio cable you can hook up to your home theater setup. We think the Beats are a good option if you were considering the Bose QuietComfort series, but either way we still think you can get a better value.

JVC expands Gumy line with the Airs

JVC has recently announced a new line of Gumy headphones: the Gumy Airs. So, what’s changed? Well, other than appending the word, "Air," the new Airs look a bit more ergonomic (as you can see from the image to the right).

Other than that? Well, the press release states these headphone feature a "large" 11mm neodymium driver, but the old ones had a 13.5mm driver. The release also says "friction noise has been greatly reduced through the use of a 1.0 meter friction noise reduction cord." The Airs’ cord is also 0.24 inches longer than the old Gumys’. They still come in a wide variety of colors, which match the third-generation iPod Nano/Shuffle color schemes. These headphones are also priced the same as the old Gumys did at launch: $14.95 (the original Gumy headphones have since dropped to $9.95).

So, to wrap up the changes: different shape, smaller driver, fancier cord, and they cost an extra $6.

CNET must think we're awesome

CNET’s resident digital audio doyenne, Jasmine France, recently posted an article describing why most headphone reviews are bad. The reasons cited were all based on the overwhelming subjectivity involved. We agree: headphones are a rough review. There are obvious subjective issues like comfort, and less obvious ones such as the fallibility of the human ear and any given person’s unique sensitivty to any given frequency. Since our office has less inhabitants than planet Earth, no matter how many people we pass a pair of headphones to, there’ll always be some head shape unaccounted for, or someone’s aesthetic opinion that goes ignored.

She goes on to mention that sound quality itself is highly subjective. This is also true: if a reviewer has a love of a booming bass and, as such, has less sensitivity to low bass sound frequencies, his or her readers will be steered into buying headache machines. Also, what are the odds that the reviewer is listening to the particular type of music preferred by any given reader? Of course, this is why most savvy consumers read myriad reviews before purchasing. Even still, with something as subjective as sound quality, the only aspect a reader can ever glean from a set of reviews is a general sense of good or bad.

If only there were a better way…

We finally got some Beats in house

Yes, long after Youtube was inundated with unboxings and tech blogs were flooded with positive reviews, our copy of the Beats has finally arrived. It just goes to prove that old internet adage: if you can’t get your review unit through PR channels, you’d better have $350 in your bank account. Given the lack of timeliness with our procurement, we can’t offer you anything new in the way of breaking news. What we can offer is an unbiased opinion and also a few pictures of Julius, the official office dog, who is remarkably old.

If you love dogs, you’ll love our first listen of the Beats, by Dr. Dre and Monster.

The "No Headphones" Logo: Saving Lives and Warming Hearts

This isn’t particularly new, but it’s silly nonetheless. While we’re not fans of headphone bans, we can understand why sometimes it’s the best solution. For example: races. Now, anyone with access to Google and the wherewithall to search for "headphones running bad" can find a ton of runners’ complaints. Apparently, people who wear headphones drunkenly swerve around race tracks, slowing down other runners. Also, wearing headphones can lead to runners not hearing important announcements (and there are a few other valid arguments as well).

While we don’t necessarily think this is the best reason for banning headphones — do they ban deaf people, or the act of "drunkenly stumbling into other racers" itself, etc. - we do understand how a ban is an easy solution. After all, it’s their race, so they get to set the rules. I’m sure they also ban the use of shotguns or scooters, especially when both are used in tandem with headphones.

All this being said, is this seriously the best graphic they could come up with?

—No-Headphones—-logo-505.htm#"> Read on for some scathing satire!