Dedicated to Headphones and Earphones
Headphones
- Details
- Written by S. Andrea Sundaram
4 Comments
Sound: 
Value:
(Read about our ratings)
Measurements can be found by clicking this link.
Four score and three years ago, Peter J. Walker brought forth, on the island of Great Britain, an audio company called S.P. Fidelity Sound Systems, which would later take the name Quad Electroacoustics. With its many successful products over the years -- especially the original ESL electrostatic loudspeaker (later nicknamed the ESL 57) and its derivatives -- it’s safe to say that Quad is one of the most venerable British hi-fi companies. But while in the past decade many traditional hi-fi brands have come out with headphone products, Quad’s only entry in that race has been a headphone amplifier, the PA-One. That changes with the subject of this review, the ERA-1: full-size, over-ear, open-backed headphones ($799 USD).
- Details
- Written by Brent Butterworth
5 Comments
Sound:
Value:
(Read about our ratings)
Measurements can be found by clicking this link.
Headphone enthusiasts differ from the traditional stereo enthusiasts in many ways, but the most extreme difference involves transducer sensitivity. While many stereo enthusiasts feel that the best sound is achieved by using low-powered amplifiers with high-sensitivity speakers, many headphone enthusiasts feel that the best sound is achieved using high-powered amplifiers with low-sensitivity headphones, such as the new HiFiMan HE6ses.
- Details
- Written by Brent Butterworth
1 Comment
Sound:
Value:
(Read about our ratings)
Measurements can be found by clicking this link.
Thanks largely to two relatively new companies, Audeze and HiFiMan, planar-magnetic headphones now dominate discussion of high-end headphones. But I’ve owned a set of planar-magnetic headphones for about 20 years and didn’t even realize it until a few years ago. They’re Fostex T20s, which I bought in the late 1990s to monitor mixes of my multitrack recordings of jazz and folk groups. The T20s are still available as the T20RPs. They’re part of Fostex’s pro line, but because so many audiophiles use them, Fostex has released a more consumer-oriented version of its pro headphones, under the model number T60RP ($299.99 USD).
- Details
- Written by Brent Butterworth
4 Comments
Sound:
Value:
(Read about our ratings)
Measurements can be found by clicking this link.
Closed-back audiophile headphones became something of a big deal in the last year, with lots of new releases in this somewhat neglected category. Does this reflect a desire to block banal chit-chat in open-plan offices? An urge to keep Starbucks’ innocuous playlists from mixing with Miles? I don’t know, but I do know the Audeze LCD2 Closed-Back headphones ($899 USD) are the latest example of this trend. The original LCD-2s ($995) and most other Audeze headphones are open-back designs, which produce a spacious sound but do almost nothing to block the sound from your environment. The LCD2 Closed-Backs have big, semi-spherical rear shells that keep outside noise from interfering with your music and your mental well-being.
- Details
- Written by Brent Butterworth
Write a comment
Sound:
Value:
Measurements can be found by clicking this link.
Fostex has one of the most unusual product lines in the headphone biz. They mostly split between pro ’phones priced under $200 and high-end consumer models priced at $599 or more. I’ve been a fan since 1997, when a very well-informed sales guy at the old Sam Ash store on Manhattan’s 48th Street “music row” steered me toward a set of Fostex T20s to use for mixing my music recordings. True to Fostex form, the new TH909s ($1799.99 USD) cost more than 11 times the price of the current version of the T20s, the T20RPmk3s. But of course, they’re almost completely different headphones -- all they have in common is that they’re open-back and they wear the Fostex brand.
- Details
- Written by Brent Butterworth
2 Comments
Sound:
Value:
Measurements can be found by clicking this link.
Why do we generally avoid reviewing headphones priced under $99 on SoundStage! Solo? The first reason is you: Our readers are audio enthusiasts, so they’re likely more interested in $1000 headphones than $50 headphones. The second reason is me: I get e-mails everyday pitching me cheap headphones for review, and setting a minimum price lets me weed them out more easily. So why are we reviewing the Tribit XFree Tunes, a set of Bluetooth headphones priced at just $49.99 USD? It’s because I think there might be something special going on at Tribit Audio.
Latest Comments
cheers
SoundStage! Solo is part of
All contents available on this website are copyrighted by SoundStage!® and Schneider Publishing Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
This site was designed by Karen Fanas and the SoundStage! team.
To contact us, please e-mail info@soundstagenetwork.com