Headphone Reviews

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

First, how in the hell do you make a pair of headphones, distribute it to retailers, and have it shipped overnight to your house for $20!? I shake my head; how can this be? Well, the answer, of course, is economies of scale. And with 312,000,000 headphones sold world-wide annually, there's plenty of scale in that economy.

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

HiFiMAN touts this headphone as great for direct play from portable devices—and I'll agree, it does play very well directly from a tablet or phone. Pretty nice not to have the burden and expense of having to carry around a portable amp, but at $1800 it doesn't really seem like a more affordable solution. And then, it's an open headphone while most portable cans are sealed to get rid of environmental noise. So...this is a flagship headphone for use with portable devices indoors? I'm not sure what to think...let's work through the details.

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

On-ear portable headphones don't get a lot of love from headphone enthusiasts...that's about to change.

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

A technological tour de force. But sound quality is the question.

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

A beauty more than skin deep, the Caeden Linea No. 10 sounds as good as it looks.

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

I'd love to meet a super-model with a good head on her shoulders. But being an old dude, I'll happily settle for the way-more-than-skin-deep beauty of the Meze 99 Classics.

This story originally appeared at InnerFidelity.com

In the end I think these are pretty good for a wireless headphone, but you're going to have to wade through a lot of mixed feelings from me to get there.