Headphones

When testing headphones with multiple listeners—our standard practice at S+V—I've learned that perceptions of a headphone's tonal balance can differ among listeners. Of course, individual taste in sound varies, too.

One solution to this problem is a headphone that can be tuned to the user's taste, a feature we've encountered on in-ear monitors from AKG and Phonak. Both have interchangeable filters that can alter the headphone's tonal balance. But the former costs $1,299, and the latter uses extremely tiny filters that require a special tool to change.

A new company named Torque Audio has what looks like a more practical approach.

If you're wondering what kind of common thread we've found between two such obviously different headphones, stop wondering. They have nothing in common. Except three things:

1) They're both headphones
2) They both employ unusual engineering.
3) They've both been sitting around my office way too long.

To most people, a high-end in-ear monitor costing hundreds of dollars doesn’t look much different from the $10 IEMs you buy at Walgreens. But usually, the difference is huge. Perfect example: the $199 Klipsch Image X7i.

Even though I campaigned against California’s Proposition 8, I have to confess that I can’t quite get the whole product positioning and marketing of the Fanny Wang brand. The WangBud increases my confusion, although it intrigues me at the same time.

For its first in-ear headphone, Fanny Wang didn’t just get some generic IEM and slap its logo on. It created a product unlike any other I’ve encountered: a headphone using dual dynamic drivers, with earpieces the size of the old iPod earbuds and oblong silicon tips like those supplied with most Bluetooth headsets.

The video guys didn't stand a chance. Even with all the talk about 4K TVs, CES 2013 was a headphone show. There were so many new models introduced that it'd be impossible for anyone to see and hear them all. But I tried.