Now in the Shop!

Goals

• Small, I hope the smallest, over-ear headphones. I have nothing against large headphones, I have a few myself, but there is something about being small-and-mighty that appeals to me. But also, the larger drivers - I use 40mm ones, will have higher distortions, it’s just physics. The outside diameter of the earpads is 80mm.

• Hopefully the most comfortable headphones out there. I have been selling earpads for Grado for close to 7 years now. All the feedback I’ve gotten regarding comfort stated that, with my earpads, those headphones were the most comfortable those clients ever tried. This is, in part, due to the merino which touches the skin. But also, you, the client, are to adjust the clamping force: people’s heads are very different, there is no such thing as a clamping force which fits everybody, all the time, it is up to you.

• As lightweight as possible. Now, I know that they could have been lighter if, for example, the earcups and/or the baffle were made from some sort of light wood, plastic or other materials. But they had to sound the best they could too and this means that the enclosure had to be rigid/dense and Aluminium was a straightforward choice.

  • The closed version weights about 340 grams (no cable)

  • The open version is about 310 grams (no cable)

• Parts as interchangeable as possible.

  • It is easy to remove the headband and so, for example, you can have both open and close designs but just one headband.

  • You can have earpads/headbands in various colours and change them as you please.

  • No cable is included, I don’t want to “force” on you a cable you don’t want/need. See below for the cables I have available, if you want any.

• Open or closed designs.

You will have access to multiple tuning mechanisms

If you know my earpads for Grado, you know that I like giving options to the clients. In that case, I could only provide a few different densities of foam for the earpads. Here, I can do a lot more.

Of course, you don’t have to use any of them, but then you’ll have to rely on what I like or, if we communicate well enough, I might be able, to a certain degree, to tune them according to your preferences. But do not take it as a promise, do not set your expectations too high on this.

Please note that as I don’t have measuring equipment, I cannot say where exactly in the audio spectrum the following effects take place. But if you like to experiment, now you can.

• I will supply a few different densities pieces of foam which are to be placed in the front tuning basket. The denser the foam, the more pressure builds inside the closed earcup and the more bass is produced.

• The 3 breathing holes at the back of the earcup can be closed off, 1, 2 or all 3, although if you close them all, there won’t be much bass at all. The more holes are being left open, the more mid bass is produced.

• Foam inside the earpads. I have 6 types of foam to choose from and I also experimented with “sandwiches”, both vertical and horizontal, of foam.

The mechanism in the photo above allows for the earpads to sit around the ears but tiled towards the back of the head which is deeper than the front. And so no supplementary twisting gimbal movement was necessary.

Also, there is no rotational movement of the gimbal which would have contributed to the cables getting tangled.

And there is no swivel movement of the earcups either, there is no need for it once you adjusted the clamping force to your head.

Voronoi

I always liked geometrical patterns and while the repeating once can be nice, I’ve always been fascinated by the ones which appear random, such as this one called Voronoi. I’ve always wanted to use it at the back of headphones!

Cables available

You may already have cables, or you may prefer to source your own quality, length, etc. And so no cable is included with the headphones, but if you want to get one from me, here are the choices:

• The left one in the photo: 1.5 meters, silver plated thin copper, the smallest connectors I know, unbalanced.

• Middle: 1.6 meters, braided, 7N copper, balanced.

• Right: this is a cable I made specifically for when you want to use a portable player/BT receiver, anything which can be attached on you or headphones. The small cable is 40cm and the other part is an extension of 1m. When you get home, you can just plug them into each other, and you get a 1.4m cable. 7N copper, braided, unbalanced.

If you don’t know what all those words mean, just don’t worry about them. Choose the length and the physical features you like.