Skylab

Nice surprise ending to this one.

You may remember my trip to Harman International last year to plonk my measurement head down in front of a reference level speaker system. My motive was to determine exactly what speakers looked like with my particular Head Acoustics dummy head. My basic assumption was that good headphones should measure like good speakers. If I could capture the head response with good speakers, I could then build a compensation curve for headphone measurements that would be related directly to my particular head and a speaker based reference.

Just the other day while reviewing the Sennheiser HD 471 I had an interesting experience: In comparing three relatively neutral headphones (HD 471; HD 569; and ATH-M50x) I found my mind switching between analytical and experiential modes—some might say objective and subjective modes. What I found, oddly, was that while I could pick out the flaws of the HD 569 more easily than the HD 471, I also found it a more pleasing listening experience. It got me to thinking about measurable flaws, quantitative vs. qualitative differences, and the listening experience.

The Massdrop x Cavalli Tube Hybrid - limited availability, exceptional sound.

At the moment, the Cowin E7 is Amazon's top selling wireless, noise canceling headphone and has a four star rating with 3,800+ reviews. We headphone geeks might recognize the brand, but I very much doubt if the average person has ever heard of Cowin. I thought maybe it's just the cheapest Bluetooth, noise canceler on Amazon. Not even close; this one is $13.21! (How in the world do you even deliver the box for that price?) I tried to find a PR contact for Cowin for review samples to no avail. Oh well, it's cheap enough...I just bought a pair.