Headphone Reviews

If Mary Shelley had written a birthday scene in "The Bride of Frankenstein", the Abyss AB-1266 would certainly have been the perfect gift for old Frankie. Yeah, these are some weird looking cans, and the price tag sure makes you look at them real hard.

Fortunately, it's what they sound like that counts.

You know what's funny about this job? You travel half way around the world and then talk to people you know well. Fang is one of those people. I'm thinking I should go to China one of these days and talk to him again.

Anyway, HiFiMAN had a couple of cool dynamic IEMs that were a good listen. Check it out.

Ed. Note: I've posted my show impressions for Stereophile, you can read them here.

Sony gave these cans the model number 1. I've got to believe this was a "pull out all the stops" effort to make a flagship headphone for the brand. Or at least, one that would enter the fray and kick Beats butt.

Well, we'll see....

Arguably the most important audiophile headphones of the last two decades, the Sennheiser HD 580/600/650 family of headphones have a history of being both revered and maligned by headphone enthusiasts. I must admit to falling in and out of love with them numerous times.

What a long, strange trip it's been.

The bad news is that there's been a bit of a manufacturing glitch with Focal's introduction of their first headphone: The Spirit One. The good news is they've stepped up to the plate and fixed it, and the cans perform quite nicely.

Wanna hear the whole story?

Steve Guttenberg and I have gone back and forth on whether measurements are useful to consumers, but we both agree that the measurements don't tell you whether it's a good headphone or a great one. The V-Moda M-100 doesn't measure great, but that sure as heck doesn't mean they don't sound great.

I'll untangle all those double negatives in the article.