ARE They THE BEST? - HEDDphone Review

VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION

Hi, I'm Streaky. And today I am finally reviewing the HEDD headphones. So for some unknown reason beyond my control, I was left out of the official launch of the HEDD headphones. But now they have sent them across for me to check out after a bit of badgering. I've heard some good stuff about these. Everyone's been asking me to review them. So here we are. Before I get into how they sound and everything else about them, let's get into a bit of an unboxing session.

Okay, here we go. So a very daunting box made in Germany, stamped across the front, which is always a good sign of things working well. Let's see the back of the box. Bit of detail there. Just about a kit and a email and stuff. We've got the main box. So, it's been that open and we're given a pamphlet with some details on the back. So the Tech Talk. The concept is an over a headphone with Air Motion Transformer and VVT Technology. Frequency response, 10Hz to 40kHz. Enough for everyone there. Efficiency is 87dB SPL. And the impedance is 42. The connector is Mini XLR and the weight is 118 grams. And then there's some other detailed stuff on the left-hand side for a bit of toilet reading.

It looks pretty super. Now look at these beasts. Now that looks fantastic. Let's check these out. I've been excited about getting these. So there they are. The headphones we've all been waiting for from HEDD, which look like they do on the box, super. HEDD written across their. Leather here, not leather there, which is nice. Padding good, open back. Look pretty special. They look very Battlestar Galactica. Nice bit of foam edge, no carry case. Then we've got this little kit box here, and then that's just got the cable in. No sort of squidgy cable, but high-end ring connectors there and then head on the Jack plug.

That's a nice cable tie action. And then, this is quite a heavy duty cloth wrapped cable, HEDD written there. Two connectors that go there, which look pretty sturdy. They're not going to pop off anytime soon. Let's see how go on. No markings for left or right. So I'll guess for the moment. That's pretty sturdy. That's all pretty good. I like that a lot. No carry cases, it’s a shame if you're traveling with them. But part from that lovely little bit of boxing action.

So with these little beasts on my head, I'm going to give it 24 hours, maybe a touch longer to adapt. Get used to them. Try them against different headphones. Try them against other things. Listen to my reference tracks. Basically, waste about 10 hours, listening to them. Going mental and really giving them a good test out so that I can come back and give you a proper rundown of exactly what I think about them. So, see you in 24 stroke, 48-hours’ time.

So I'm back. 24 hours, after having these on my head. Listening to them in every single scenario I possibly could. 50 tracks later to other five, six, seven pairs of headphones later against them. I've really wanted to give them a good workout. Sort of know what I'm at. I've sort of got them on. I'm about to choke because they're a little bit tight around my neck, as you can see. So before I get going on to how they feel, how they sound, blah, blah, blah, let me just pick up on a little thing. Whilst I was testing, I have got a colleague stroke friend called MSM engineer. He's also a fellow gear geek like me. So we chat about gear and stuff. And I told him I had these and he bought himself a set, obviously. As he does, he's got everything showed me a picture of his studio with the men and stuff.

Zoomed in. He's got head sliders. HEDD, the headphone manufacturers have sent him sliders. Now I'm not a socks and sliders kind of guy. I think I'm a little bit too old for that, but really I'd like a pair of sliders. Come on HEDD, where are they? Anyway, price wise, these aren't cheap in headphones standards. We're not in the kind of realm of these, were more in the realm of these. So we're talking roughly around plus a thousand. So, I think there are about 1500 UK pounds, probably $1,800, depending on what week it is. So they're not the cheapest, but if you want proper headphones that are going to be essential for what either working on or something, you really want this good to listen. To sit back and listen to as an audio file. You need to be spending over a thousand pounds on headphones. Sorry to say it. Because that gets you into the territory where things are starting to sound really clear and punching clear.

So the fit, how are they fit wise? Well, as you can see, they are pretty tight on the head. They're pretty tight. They're pretty weighty. I do think this is all kind of aluminium and stuff. I've got a bit of weight on them. The headbands quite good on there. Feels a little bit heavy, but not too heavy or heavier. I think they look fantastic. I think the chunkiness of them and the way they sit on your head is brilliant. I think that perfect. Now in the design, this is called an air motion tweeter, but it's like a ribbon tweeter if you like, but with a bit of grilling on. So they are open back. I love the look of them. As you can tell, I can't decide whether they retro looking or whether they're futuristic looking or maybe both.

They remind me a little bit of a kind of DeLorean 70’s steel car or 80’s still car. But that's just me being older. Soft leather padding around here, and soft leather padding on the top. Very nice. However, as I think I've said before, if I'm on them for a long period of time, I get a little bit of a sweaty head. I don't know if that's me just because I'm sort of Prince Andrew and a bit sweaty, but it'd be nice to have some kind of, inside there may be an option to have some cloth. Only criticism so far. But apart from that, they look amazing. Love the look of them, love the look of this. Everyone's going to comment. They look great. You won’t wear them on a bus, I'm not wearing them on a bus. I'm wearing ears on a bus. But these are great.

So yes, they look amazing. But how do they sound? No point in looking good if they sound like shit, is it? But the sound is really nice. They've opened back. So you'd expect them to be wide. I was told before by the guy who sent it to me to check out, watch out, they're pretty wide. They're not wide at all. They sound perfectly. They don't sound out here. I've got headphones that sound like there are here. They kind of sound here. They're together. There's nothing to wide about them. I didn't have a problem with the stereo width, so I thought it was spot on, to be honest with you. Now the balance of everything, the EQ to my ear and my ear is tuned to EQ, very flat sounding.

So not flat, as in boring flat. But as in, there's no accentuate base, there's no accentuated highs. They're mid. So it's kind of flat from that point of view. There's nothing going, okay, well it's too bright or it's too, middly or whatever. They sound really good. They sound perfect across the whole mix of every track that I played. When I first heard them, I took it. They did take a little bit of getting use to it. So I must admit, I was a bit like, okay, well they're all right. They seem a bit, in my face. But I think that's more down to the fact that a lot of headphone manufacturers, will just pull out a little bit of the mids, just to give it this smiley face, kind of curve to sort of cuten up their headphones.

I don't think that's the case here. I think these guys have made it so that they are flat across all frequencies. So at first you think, yeah, it's a little bit in my face, sort of thing. But then, the more tracks I listened to, the more I got used to it, the more I switched them between other headphones, I thought, yeah. But I can really hear detail there and I can hear things in tracks that I haven't heard before. So I really liked that. I thought that was really nice. The main thing is they're really fast. So there's this punchy quickness in them. So in the mid to everything comes really fast at you. The tops are really there and the bass is tight and fast as well. So you get this real clarity coming up. There's no smearing, which some headphones do, to smear the sound. And they might feel quite relaxed and quite nice to listen to, in a kind of audio file way.

But that doesn't necessarily tell you what's going on. And it doesn't give you the true picture of how, when someone was in the studio, recording stuff, you're listening to stuff on title where it's like the master quality things. You want to be able to hear that every single intricacy of everything going on, I want to hear the reverbs that are happening. I want to hear the space. I want to hear the punchiness. I want to hear where they put things in the mix. And that's really what I'm getting from these. So you can tell I've really liked them. I do really like them. They're really good. I liked the company. I liked their speakers when I tried those two. This their first headphones that they've made. I mean, they win name, don't they? Straight down, HEDDphones. They were made for headphones, but these, I love them.

They're really good. Really, really good. Definitely worth looking at. They seem the most balanced I've listened to. The tightest, the fastest. I think they look great. They sound great. So if you think these look really nice, now's the time to like them by thumbing up the light button. I mean, I don't want to bang on about how great they are. Totally. I want to make sure that I do say something sort of bad against them. So if I have to say something bad, it would be that they can be a little bit rattly on your head. But if you bang the sides really hard, they sound a bit rattly. But I don't know who's doing that. But I think that's just nature of the beast because as I push them and move them a little bit like this, I can feel them moving and the sound of them are moving.

So I don't know whether that's actually going to break them and whether if they get smashed on the floor, like that's going to make a difference. But really that's one of the only things that I've found that could be annoying or not work properly. I don't know, you tell me. I had to describe this in the little pamphlet that came with it. This is diaphragm crackling, and this is due to the multiple caption folds. It allows air to move faster than traditional dynamic planar magnetic or electrostatic drivers. Due to the principal, sometimes you hear a little bit of crackling. The crackling won't appear when found in your ideal listening position. So when you are sort of still, it's fine. You might hear a little bit, if you start throwing your head around in motion. They're probably going to stay a little longer.

I think it's best for the company. If they just leave them here with me and just forget that this ever happened and we can move on with our lives. So I hope that's kind of summed it up for you. I didn't mean to sort of get too excited and overboard about them. But I really do think they're definitely worth it. If you're wanting to spend, if headphones are important to you, if you're doing music for a living or if you're real audio file and want to hear how things sounded in the studio, they should be on your shopping list. You should be having a look at them. Well, you should be having a listen to them and you should be checking them out against the other contenders in the same price range. And I don't think you'll be disappointed.

You may not have heard of the brand, but I don't think you'll be disappointed in this. Check them out. Let me know in the comments, if you've listened to these or any other headphones or any other audio equipment you want me to check out and review for you, then please let me know in the comments.