Headphones

Everyone knows that the audio quality of cheap over-ear headphones is next to useless, which is why in-ear buds dominate the low-end market these days, coming bundled with everything from iPods to mobile phones.

Put simply, jamming headphones into the enclosed spaces of the ear cuts out more outside noise and allows the music to get through to the inner ear more efficiently.

Still, this somewhat crude approach leads audiophiles and professionals to generally go for either large, sealed, over-ear cans at about ten times the price of earbuds or very expensive, tailor-made, in-ear monitor headphones that cost many hundreds of dolars.

Fortunately for the rest of us, JVC now has a third option for obtaining quality sounds, in the shape of audio-isolating buds whose driver unit pokes right into the ear canal along with the plastic.

The company’s HP-FXC50 earphones will go on sale in Japan at the beginning of August for ¥4,000 (36 USD), which is barely twice the price of standard buds.

Their secret lies in a long, thin driver that can be squeezed into the part of the bud that actually enters the ear. This provides better audio through eliminating leakage and outside noises.

SoundEarphones.com has the new Ultimate Ears metro.fi 100, 150 and 200 series earphones for sale on their website. The 150 and 200 both feature dynamic drivers and all three are available in Apple iPhone compatible versions for $10 more. Pricing ranges from $29.99 to $79.99.

Sony Japan has announced the sleek and sexy PSPJ-15012 headphones for the PSP. The unit comes with a microphone to be used with Skype and Talkman which work with the PSP-2000 along with other games and software with support for voice chat etc. With the remote control you can play, pause, stop, rew, ff, adjust volume and activate the hold function. The silver and black PSPJ-15012 earphones go on sale in Japan from June 19th for 3800 Yen ($ 38).

Source: Sony Japan

A lot of high quality headphones and earphones find there way onto my desk. Over the past few years I’ve tested the best from Shure, Ultimate Ears and Etymotic Research, to name but a few. I was therefore curious when Sony announced a new set of headphones sporting a truly radical design.

Although I was keen to hear what these new Personal Field Speaker headphones had to offer, I wasn’t expecting too much when it came to sound quality. And that’s the problem with preconceptions, they are all too often proved well and truly wrong, which is very much the case in this instance. Put simply, the sound produced by the Sony PFR-V1s is staggeringly good, so good in fact that I’ll be first in line to buy a set, with my intrepid news hound Hugo right behind me in the queue!

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TOPlay Earphones. Suspended by a magnetic clip just outside your ear canal, this innovative headphone set promises to safeguard your hearing while still delivering the kind of audio that your brain longs for. They weigh a mere 8g too, which means that the comfort ratio should be right up there with large heavy fake gold earrings. Anyhoo, the audio pressure on the ear drum is reduced 30 fold, which sure sounds reassuring, so colour us impressed. £19.95.

TOPlay is twice as safe: Attached to the ear lobe by a magnetic clip, the TOPlay goes easy on your hearing. Nothing is inserted into the auditory canal and the audio pressure is reduced 30 fold. And you can hear important environmental sounds: Announcements at the airport and railway station, warning signals on the road, … and you can talk even while you’re listening to music. And just like In-Ear-phones, fellow travellers are not inconvenienced. Perfect when driving a car or riding a bike, in the train or on an airplane.

Launched into Sennheiser’s “Classic Range”, the MX 560 are pocket-money priced headphones designed as upgrades for the woolly efforts you usually get supplied as standard with audio products.The 560s have what Sennheiser claims is a powerful bass-accented sound while the new “hook” design ensures that the earphones fit securely in the ear as the supplied cable winder and carrying pouch make for easy cable length adjustment and storage.

Available in shiny black, white and silver as well as burgundy red and aqua, the new ‘phones will set you back £19.99, available now.

Source: Sennheiser

Sennheiser says its new CX 95 earphones are the best it’s ever made, combining as they do a new ergonomic design, effective noise-isolation and a metal/composite hybrid construction.

The new in-ear design, which sells for £80, makes use of advanced drive units, while the shape of the earpieces is all about comfort and a reliable fit.

Source: http://www.sennheiser.co.uk/