Imagine Dr. Dre sauntering into the Apple boardroom with these ultra-white special edition Beats headphones on his head. That would make an amazing scene. This special collaboration for the Beats by Dr. Dre x Snarkitecture Studio Headphones breaks out an all-white design and a special edition Pillow. Don’t rest your head on this Pillow though; they’ve made it out of all concrete. Head over to the Beats site on June 9th to grab you own pair.
High-end headphones maker Grado recently collaborated with whiskey producer, Bushmills, for these limited edition Bushmills Whiskey x Grado Headphones ($395). Actor Elijah Wood and his buddy Zach Cowie (who deejay as Wooden Wisdom..yea, never heard of the group either) worked with Bushmills in the past, and sought out a partner to do a collab on headphones. In comes Grado. Before you think ‘vanity project’, everyone put some real thought into getting this partnership just right. Each handcrafted pair features Irish oak and leather, a choice made for leather’s natural ability for durability and the unique character it gets over time. Watch a behind-the-scenes with Elijah Wood below and get a pair exclusively at Turntable Lab.
The high-end audio cats from across the pond, Bowers & Wilkins, is finally dropping a pair of headphones with supple cups that go over the years. B&W says P7’s dual-cavity construction promises to help the pads mold to your dome, no matter how misshapen it may be. noise isolation. Of course they’ve gotta sound good, and the newly crafted audio drivers are aimed squarely at the discerning audiophile. Four crisp Benjamins gets you a pair.
The word “Walkman” kinda seems tied to that mid-80s to mid-90s period, but Sony is aiming to change that with its WH series of headphones. The top-of-the-line NWZ-WH505 features a 16GB MP3 built-in, as well as the ability to plug into any other source. Plus you can go all Optimus Prime with ’em and turn them into xLoud tech speakers with Virtualphones surround sound. We didn’t ask if any of the models have built-in cassette playback, so we’ll just assume they do.
If sharing is caring, Muzik ($300) is like the Mother Theresa of headphones. With built-in buttons on the right earphone you can instantly let your Facebook fam’ and Twitter ‘tourage know what tunes you’re digging, or just add a song to your playlist. Right now the headphones work with streaming services Spotify and Rdio, but Muzik’s open architecture will open it up to all sorts of apps in the months to come.
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, according to a review from a pediatric hearing center, 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.
