Continuing to expand their product line from their amp empire, Marshall hits you now with their first-ever over-the-ear headphones. The Monitor ($200) pumps out studio quality sound (that’s music studio btw, not yoga studio) and lets you customize your sound through Marshall’s f.t.f. system. Plus you get a built-in mic to handle calls, and of course that timeless Marshall logo, which in our books, kills the Beats “B” every time.
There are sometimes, like when that Pitbull song gets played for the 6,058th time of the week, that your sense of hearing is less than appreciated, but otherwise it’s pretty damn important. That’s what makes the LSTN (pronounced “listen”) headphones ($50-$150) so special. The proceeds from each pair sold will help restore hearing to a child in need. An estimated 95% of children in deaf schools can be helped with a hearing aid, and 80% of the hearing impaired live in developing countries; that’s who’ll be helped here.
Meanwhile, the headphones themselves are built with natural reclaimed wood — no trees are getting chopped down — giving a unique boost to the aesthetics and acoustics that can only come through Ebony, Cherry, or Beech. So your music will sound great and your money will help a child hear–something other than Armando Christian Perez, we hope.
The race for bass has gotten out of hand. When “Guaranteed to make your eardrums bleed!” is used as a tagline, you know things have gone too far. That’s what makes the BeoPlay H3 earbuds and H6 headphones so nice. Bang & Olufsen along with industrial designer Jakob Wagner have created two stylish models that focus on outputting dynamic and balanced sound. The H3′s aluminum body features 23 ventilation holes which promise to yield superb clarity. The H6 cans feature an internal bass port for delightfully balanced low frequencies–just as it should be. You want ear damage? Go nuts with a Q-Tip.
Onkyo’s long been a brand to be reckoned with in the home theater business, creating quality receivers and speakers for decades, but how hard would it be to shrink down a pair of full-sized speakers and wrap some soft padding around ‘em to make headphones? OK, maybe there’s more to it than that, but Onkyo’s up for the challenge with the new ES-HF300 On-Ear Headphones ($180). The 40mm titanium drivers are housed inside aluminum earcups, with the soft leatherette earpads and headband likely feeling a lot better on your dome than a 5.1 surround system.
Can you imagine being a professional gamer? The fame, the money, the groupies… OK, so maybe the groupies wouldn’t be so hot, but still, that job would roundly slay every other possible profession. And all you’d need to bring to work would be a controller and a headset. Perhaps this one? The Level_10 M Headset is equipped with a 40mm driver unit and embedded with Tt eSPORTS’ most advanced acoustic engineering; the result gives you the ability to detect sounds at 10K frequency – virtually undetectable by human ears , which is what we assume you have. Plus the air-Through Ventilation System means your ears won’t sweat as much, because sweaty ears will result in an ever lesser quality groupie. ::shudder::
Gaming headsets often tout their ability to let you hear enemy footsteps behind you, a key feature that can do wonders for your Kill/Death ratio. But Turtle Beach’s Seven series headsets take game audio so seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if you can hear the footsteps of the tens of thousands of insects on the ground beneath you. There are three models in the new line, and the XP Seven ($279) and Z Seven ($249) both come with Audio Control Units for adjusting even the most minute details of the audio. Pitter patter pitter patter pitter patter SQUASH! Yeah, OK, maybe you will wanna dial down the ISR (Insect Step Ratio).
While some shady manufacturer could probably claim to have “the world’s first interactive headphones” by say, slapping a Facebook Like button on them, the Beyerdynamic Custom One Pros ($195) thankfully go several steps further than that. These customizable cans let you change the sound and style to match your needs. Sound sliders control the flexible bass reflex vents on the earcups pads, letting you go from “Nice bass!” to “WHY ARE MY EYEBALLS SHAKING?!” in a matter of moments. The rings, covers, and cushions on the ear pads are also interchangeable, along with the cushioned headband.
Competition in the headphones arena has grown more fierce than the fight for the last corn dog in Kirstie Alley’s kitchen. Despite that, Aedle is entering the fray with its first set of cans, the VK-1 ($325-$360). Handcrafted in Brittany, France, these audiophile-centric headphones are held together by CNC-machined aircraft grade aluminum and hand-sewn lambskin leather. Is it the second best use of lambskin ever? Well, first we have to agree if this is still #1.
