Earphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 01 March 2020

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Although I don’t know much about you, dear reader, I am pretty confident you’ll eventually own some true wireless earphones -- even if you’re a hardcore audiophile. The sheer convenience of them seems to win over everyone who tries them, and they’re expected to take about 50% of the earphone business this year. Audiophiles haven’t shown much interest yet, but with new models such as the Edifier TWS6 earphones ($119.99 USD) appearing, they probably will.

Read more: Edifier TWS6 True Wireless Earphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 20 February 2020

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I signed on to review the JVC HA-FW01 earphones ($329.95 USD) because one of the many ideas about audio that I’m working hard to disprove, dispel, and sometimes even deride, is the absurd obsession with driver materials in headphones and speakers. Pick a driver material, and I can almost certainly cite examples of good- and bad-sounding products using that material. Or as Voice Coil editor and Loudspeaker Design Cookbook author Vance Dickason told me, “I certainly have my favorites, but given any decent set of drivers, I can make you a good speaker with them.”

Read more: JVC HA-FW01 Earphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 01 February 2020

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I tend to love headphones with planar-magnetic drivers. And I tend to love hybrid earphones using a couple of different types of drivers. So when I saw the oBravo ERIB-2a hybrid earphones ($899 USD) at CES a few years ago -- combining a planar-magnetic driver and a dynamic driver in a single earpiece -- I thought it might be love at first listen. Sadly, I never saw them again. But the new oBravo Cupid earphones ($179) seem like a miraculous rebirth of the ERIB-2a earphones -- the same concept, but at a price most listeners can afford.

Read more: oBravo Cupid Earphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 10 January 2020

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Atlantic Technology’s just about the last audio brand name I’d have expected to see on a set of earphones, even ones as complex as the FS-HAL1s. I first encountered Atlantic Technology when the company and I were both just getting started, at my first CES in 1990. It built a solid reputation in the ’90s and ’00s as a pioneer in home-theater sound. Now under new ownership, the company’s branching out into products designed for the listening preferences of the early ’20s -- including headphones and earphones.

Read more: Atlantic Technology FS-HAL1 Earphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 01 January 2020

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Like most high-end earphones, the Meze Audio Rai Pentas ($1099 USD) use multiple drivers -- but multiple drivers aren’t a simple prescription for great sound. With speakers, a complex electrical crossover circuit is typically used to optimize each driver’s performance. While some multi-driver earphones do include simple electrical crossovers, most of the tuning is done using acoustical chambers -- a method that typically requires much lengthier trial-and-error sessions than simple crossover tuning.

Read more: Meze Audio Rai Penta Earphones