Monster, long time suppliers of speaker cables, interconnects and power conditioning products, has recently entered into the portable audio market. They now offer a full range of products from the Dr. Dre branded Beats headphones all the way up to the professional Turbine Copper Pro ear buds. I had the pleasure of checking out their middle-of-the-line offering, the Monster Turbine High Performance ear buds. (Monster calls them "In-Ear Speaker".)

Tags: Audiophile | Copper | Earphones | Headphones

2009 is a good time to be a headphone fan. The supply of high-end headphones is exploding. At the head of the pack is the new Sennheiser HD-800. This is a cost-no-object assault on the state of the art in headphone listening. They are more than twice as expensive as Sennheiser’s previous top of the line, the HD-650.

Tags: Headphones

Recently, I have started to put more of a focus on using headphones in my office instead of speakers. I enjoy listening to music while working, but my cubicle neighbors don't necessarily appreciate the same type of music that I prefer. When a pair of  Ultrasone Pro 900 headphones became available for review, I obtained them to see how they would work in my setup and how they compare to my current reference headphones, the AKG K701's.

Tags: Headphones

Let me start this review by getting a few things clear: I am not, or was not anyway, what I would consider a true audiophile. I also am not (or was not) much of a headphone user. All this changed when I got the chance to spend a couple months with the Sennheiser HD 238 Stereo Headphones. Have you ever had a toy or product that just made you giddy every time you got to use it, and you ended up loosing track of time because it was so enjoyable? The HD 238s have been that for me.

Tags: Headphones

My first “high end” system consisted of Sennheiser HD-580 headphones, an original HeadRoom headphone amplifier, an Audio Alchemy DAC in the Box, and a Sony Discman with an optical digital out. I was a college student at the time, and there was no way of having a real, properly set up hifi system in my dorm room. It was clear to me at the time, listening to both my system and uber high end Hifi in shops, that my little headphone setup blew away many high dollar loudspeaker based systems.