Aerial7

New headphone brand Aerial7 have popped up over the last few months, SkullCandy have competition!
However, when looking through their new range I couldn't help noticing a few.. ahem.. similarities.. between the new pretty colored Aerial7s and some more familiar designs, see for yourselves!
The 'chopper'andPanasonic's RHX7.

The aerial7.............................sonyMDR-V700DJ, and boosted.

Audiophile fashion

You can tell alot about a person by their headphones. In many cases you could probably have a fair guess at what they're listening to too. I've noticed a recent trend for public displays of audophilia! Bose and Grado especially.. I'm not a big Bose fan, they're decent headphones but hugely overpriced and have a tendancy to break in the 13th month. Whats worse is the people who wear them! They are a status symbol saying 'I'm serious about my music' worn only by people swayed more by marketing than sound quality.
What surprises me about this trend for high end headphones is the lack of Sennheiser HD-25s out there on the street. These come in at around £110, on par with the cheapest Bose and are widely considered to be the best headphones you can buy before silly money sets in. A staple with broadcasters and studios, this is what I'd reccomend if you're really serious about music.

Back in the day..

These beautiful Pioneer SE-505s are always available on ebay and, if vintage is what you're going for, they're golden! and normally pretty cheap + I've never seen anyone wearing them!









These vintage Bang and Oulfsens may have had something to do with a certain
WESC line i feel?!

Anyone? Mind you they looked so futuristic back then that when WESC copied 'em no one would know it was a vintage re-issue of sorts!




These Pickerings are just one of many weird and wonderful vintage models out there, type in 'vintage headphones' into ebay and see!

SkullCandy go Vintage!

SkullCandy showed off their new direction of vintage headphones at this years CES.
Huge Huge cans! They aren't on sale yet and there is no news on price either but here is a sneak preview:

Para / Perfect Unison Wooden Headphones!

This isn't really a review as I haven't got a pair... but I too this extract from the Swedish site www.belowtheclouds.com:

"Dutch illustrator and designer Para, together with The Perfect Unison has produced a couple of cool headphones. Hörlurarna är tillverkade i finsk björk av David Burel och känns väldigt mycket skateboard. Headphones are made of Finnish birch by David Burela and feels very much skateboard.

Paras headphones you will be able to buy his solo exhibition in Paris in December, otherwise you can contact David Burela and buy a couple from him but Paras illustrations."

I think they look fantastic- simple design is the hardest to pull off. One problem which jumps out at you though: they aren’t adjustable, and when it comes to headphones, one size doesn’t fit all.

Apparently they’re 350 Euros and are in a limited run of 50.

www.theperfectunison.com

Skull Candy Double Agent

NO CABLES!
First impression: These are a handsome pair of cans! I've been getting quite excited about getting my hands on these, they've had a LOT of good reviews...no mp3 player needed-its all contained within the headphone! .. and at £60 they're SkullCandy's most expensive offering.

SO, they come with a 1Gb SD card and a usb cable to charge and load music> i plug them in and given an hour we're set and ready to go.
Having no cables is very liberating! It sounds strange but it makes a big difference and i imagine if you're one of SkullCandy's crazy extreme boarding customers this would be even more umm.. awesome dude!!

Sound: for £60 headphones, these are shockingly bad. Horrible. There is a constant buzz which you can just hear which will drive you mad. Not so bad on the go, walking around doing your ting ting but if you sit down and listen to music> they suck. On the upside they do block outside sound well, although when then have their own annoying hum inside this doesn't really matter.
Ease of use: They're comfy. Snug fit and my ears are kept warm. They don't fold up at all really which is a pain but on the head they're fine. Battery lasts 5-6 hours with switching on and off. Controls are poorly designed, a simple play/pause, forward&back, volume up and down set of buttons on the side. My skip forward and backward buttons where the wrong way round, very confusing!
Build: Along with sound this is where the Double Agents are let down. The cable was coming loose from one earcup and there was a crack in the plastic on the other side, and this is before I'd put them on.

Overall: I want to like these! People like these, I got positive comments from strangers (and I had the fairly mingin green ones too) and the idea is brilliant... but the sound is akin to a £10 pair of Koss 'phones and the build quality, as seems to be the case with SkullCandy, is piss poor.

www.skullcandy.com

The Advent of Headphones for Style

Headphones used to be rather like computers before apple came along... functional and boring, aesthetics wasn't a part of the package... until recently!
There are a few companies making funky looking headphones and I plan to review them here. there is a lot of clever marketing involved and my first pair of fashion cans weren't worth a quarter of what I paid for them!