Headphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 10 September 2021

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Consider Focal headphones the opposite of AC/DC albums. AC/DC albums look different but sound the same. Focal headphones look the same but sound different. Sure, the Focal Celestee headphones come in an attractive shade of metallic dark blue, but other than that, I can’t see anything that distinguishes them from the company’s other headphones. So do they sound like the heavenly Utopias? Or more like the good but mid-forward Elegias? Guess we’ll have to find out.

Read more: Focal Celestee Headphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 10 August 2021

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I finally checked out this new “You Tube” thing that my friends tell me their grandkids are watching for 16 hours a day. You know what’s weird about it? It looks like everyone on Earth is now a headphone reviewer! Why they’d want to do that, I can’t figure, but what I am pretty sure about is that every headphone reviewer has already reviewed the Sivga P-II planar-magnetic headphones. So by that logic, I would appear to be the last person on Earth to hear these. But even this late in the game, I think I still might have something to offer, because it doesn’t look like these handsome headphones have ever been treated to a full set of measurements with gen-u-wine laboratory-grade test gear. In fact, if you don’t want to read the opinions of the last person on Earth to weigh in on these ’phones, hit the link right above this paragraph to check out the measurements.

Read more: Sivga P-II Headphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 20 June 2021

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When I lost my Sony MDR-7506 studio headphones a while back, I faced a conundrum. I’d switched to using AKG K371s for mixing and monitoring my music recordings, but I still needed something visiting musicians could wear when laying down tracks. I just wanted a good, cheap set of studio headphones, but professional reviews of cheap headphones are few and far between. The AKG K72s looked like they might be a safe bet: established brand with a strong rep for studio gear, rave reviews on retailer websites, apparently decent build quality, and $49 on AKG’s site—or just $38.95 on Amazon.

Read more: AKG K72 Headphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 01 June 2021

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I’m actually not interested in the Life Q35 headphones for the reasons Soundcore wants me to be. They want me to get all excited because the Life Q35 headphones feature Sony’s LDAC codec, which in its highest-quality mode transmits data at 990 kilobits per second (kbps). That’s about three times the maximum that the standard SBC Bluetooth codec can achieve, and pretty close to the 1411kbps data rate of uncompressed 16-bit/44.1kHz audio.

Read more: Soundcore Life Q35 Bluetooth Headphones

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Written by: Brent Butterworth

Created: 20 May 2021

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I’m reluctant to review any headphones more than a few months past their launch, because I worry that readers won’t be interested—and that all the search traffic for those headphones will go to sites that got their reviews posted earlier. Technically, I’m not making an exception with the DALI IO-4s, because the company recently introduced the IO-4 and the IO-6 headphones in two new colors: Army Green and Chalk White, in addition to the existing Iron Black and Caramel White. I liked the IO-6es so much when I reviewed them last year, but sadly, I got only a few weeks with them. The new colorways gave me an excuse to check out the company’s line again; the IO-4 ($399 USD) is basically the same model, except that the IO-6 ($499) adds noise canceling.

Read more: DALI IO-4 Bluetooth Headphones