A CAREFULLY CURATED HEADPHONE SELECTION......
/There are times when we want to listen to music in peace, or when others don’t want to listen to our music! Perhaps you like to listen in your office, or work from home or maybe you live in a flat with thin walls? Well, there is a way you can still listen to the full emotional and sonic magnificence of your music collection. High fidelity headphones are the answer. So, with that in mind we have carefully curated a selection of headphones, the ones that our resident expert on the subject, Gareth, thinks hit the sweet spot at each price point.
CLOSED BACK OR OPEN BACK?
What does this mean?. Basically, closed back headphones do not leak much sound from the ear cups, open backed ones can leak sound to those close to you, which others may find it intrusive. so, you have been warned!
THE SELECTION
In cost ascending price order we have…
The Mezes are well built and sturdy with a precise assembly. The closed back ear cups are made with a satin finished wood, each with its own individual and unique grain. Real luxury here with CNC carved wood ear cups, cast zinc alloy hardware with electroplated coating, stamped manganese spring steel headband, memory foam and soft PU leather are the materials your hands, eyes and ears will enjoy. All the parts are completely serviceable.
The mezze audio 99 classics & Sennheiser 660s
Put them on, sit back, and enjoy your favourite sound of strings, upbeat grooves or thumping beats, with stylish good looks to boot. As one of our colleagues has already said, “pretty much anything sounds fun and engaging through these wooden gems"
The HD 660S have been created so that you can enjoy music in supreme quality and from many different audio sources. Accordingly, it comes with a choice of cables for just about any occasion. All cables are made of highly conductive OFC copper, featuring very low handling noise
The open-backed 660S is strong yet lightweight in construction. The elliptical ear cups are shaped to follow the anatomy of the ear, while thick padding on the headband and the replaceable ear cushions guarantee hours and hours of listening in supreme comfort. Uncompromising craftsmanship combined with a high-end aesthetic
The sound is pure and effortless, with a crisp bass, excellent mid-frequency response, and a gentle, pleasantly natural treble, the HD 660S has a musical expressiveness that stays exceptionally accurate and transparent.
The Amiron has Tesla technology to make your living room sound more like a real concert hall. This is a cutting-edge innovation from Beyerdynamic, employing a much stronger magnetic field than standard headphones.
The beyerdynamic T1 & T5 V3, together with A beyerdynamic A20 Headphone amplifier
These open-back headphones produce a spacious three-dimensional sound, allowing you to experience music of incredible closeness and transparency. It feels like you are in your own personal concert hall. The Amiron combines a very precise bass with transparent mids and pleasantly clear highs, with a real concert hall feel.
Beyerdynamic T1 and T5 V3 Headphones
The Beyerdynamic T1 and T5 headphones look very similar at first glance, especially considering they both currently sit at the same price point. The T1 is semi-open backed and the T5 is a closed back headphone. Both are designed for hi-end sophisticated music enjoyment, including high resolution music. Again they employ Tesla technology giving an unrivalled richness of detail and spatiality.
So how are the T1 and T5 different? Well, the heart of the third generation T1 has a gently intensified bass to give the very neutral, spatial sound signature even more warmth. The third generation T5 achieves better, more natural reproduction of high mid-range frequencies. This means the sound signature is even more realistic.
Fit quality, comfort and materials standards are as you would expect. High-end through and through.
The latest HD800S offers a more natural and balanced sound compared to its predecessor through the inclusion of an acoustical absorber. This gives an extended and smoother frequency response with fewer "peaks", resulting in a more natural sound throughout the frequency range.
At the bass end, improvements have yielded a headphone that sounds more balanced and cohesive as a whole when compared to its predecessor. Rather than just increase amount of bass, with a consequential detrimental impact on sound quality, Sennheiser have instead opted to extend the useful output of the phones allowing them to dig deeper at the bass end. Clever.
Generally, the 800S majors on exceptional sound quality, design, and comfort.
The sennheiser HD800s & HD 820 with the beautiful Chord Electronics HUgo TT2 DAC/headphone amp.
The sound field of the HD 820 is wide open, which is not what you would expect from closed back headphones. So, you can listen to your music without intruding into the sound space of those close to you.
The signature breakthrough to such a transparent performance had been achieved by the legendary Ring Radiator transducers being fitted with unique glass covers. This visually striking feature was actually developed wholly in service to the sound. The concave glass reflects the sound waves from the rear of the transducer to an absorber, which results in minimal resonance. Thus, the sound waves are effectively “gone”, as they would be in open backed headphones.
SUMMARY
Headphones are very much like speakers – a matter of personal preference and taste. They are similarly affected by the conditions in which they are expected to work and need to be right for that situation. Another variable to consider is how will the music be delivered? It could be a hi-res mobile player, a preamp or integrated amp, a specialised headphone amplifier, a streamer or a DAC (digital to analogue converters).
We will be happy to help you make the right choice to match your requirements, whether it be for the delightful aesthetic of early renaissance Italian choral music, the sonic charms and signature changes of Nitin Sawhney, or the immense dynamics of Massive Attack. Whatever floats your musical boat.
As we said earlier this is a curated selection and we can also obtain other headphones for you to hear from across the Audio T range.
Happy listening!
Rob & Gareth – Audio T Reading
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A selection of headphones can be found at the following Audio-T stores -
