HeadphonesCom
Member of the Trade: Headphones.com
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2011
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Hey head-fiers,
We wanted to thank all of you who came out to Gather the vibes with us
. The festival was a wonderfully unique experience for the Headphones.com team. Never before had I been in the presence of so many devoted music lovers who didn’t let the weather stand in their way. Yes, this was the weekend of the record breaking 100+ degree weather! Many of you whom made your way to our booth were surprised to see an outdoor headphone set up work so awesomely! We want to thank Soul by Ludacris, Sennheiser, Klipsch, Able Planet, Audio-Technica, Grado, Thinksound, Head-Fi, Stereophile & InnerFidelity for helping us make that all possible.
As Jude had featured in a previous Head-Fi video, we had made a special discount available to head-fiers, 15% MOST ITEMS on our site. We have decided to put that promo back into effect for all of August - click here and take advantage:
We took along with us, not necessarily the most expensive models, but rather the models which felt would demonstrate drastic audio differences to people. You’ll be happy to know that many people had the pleasure of listening to their very first open-back headphone. The Grado SR60 made a huge splash with the devoted rock listeners who came by. One of the many listeners noted to me what you head-fiers have been expressing on the forum for years: “the guitars just sound so alive with the Grados” he said.
Another headphone which made quite an impression was the Audio Technica ATH-T400. This was the largest in size at the table and people thought it looked like quite the contraption. But once putting it on, many noted to us that the sound felt bigger and the sound more spacious. I greatly enjoyed sitting in the sun listening to the T400s to some good old Bob Marley. The T400s made an impression on myself as well as they were just so comfortable and a really good value.
We had the pleasure also of unveiling the top of the line Soul by Ludacris models. The younger audience was truly impressed with the sound and the looks of these. Because of the popularity of the 2 models we brought along (the SL150 and SL300) both reviewed here, we had to form a small line and enforce a 5 minute time limit in order to make sure everyone who wanted hear got a chance to do so. One guy who came to the booth with Beats Solos around his neck appeared to walk away a Ludacris convert when he asked me if he could trade his Solos for the SL150.
Of the many Sennheiser selections we could have made we chose the HD238 for its size and value. The HD238 is a very good on-ear choice for those looking for a compact headphone, but with Sennheiser quality. What I like very much about this pair is the headband design which allows for the headphone to have the pads rest on the ear, but not exude all that much pressure on them. To my surprise, some people were not familiar with Sennheiser brand headphones, which of course prompted me into a very long list of all their great models. I’m a bit of a Sennheiser fanboy. In fact, one of the most enthused Sennheiser listeners was celebrating his 10th birthday that weekend. He reminded me of myself at age 10 – a budding audiophile youth. He kept coming up to our booth nearly every hour to see if he’d won in hourly Headphone giveaway and to listen to the Sennheisers! Even though he never did win in the raffle drawing, he did win our hearts and we couldn’t let him leave the festival without an HD238 of his own. It was his 10th birthday after all
.
Many people came to our booth specifically came to our booth when word traveled around that we were demonstrating the Klipsch Image Ones and offering it in our hourly headphones giveaway. These noise isolating on ears seemed to be a model which many were already familiar with. The Klipsch brand is well known by mainstream audio connoisseurs and was very well received at all of our listening stations. The ipod compatibility and built in microphone made this item a big hit with the ‘iPhone crowd’. For an on-ear model with no active noise cancellation, we were all pleasantly surprised with the sound isolating properties of these cans.
Finally, we were all extremely honored that Mike Zucconi of Able Planet came to attend the festival with us and demonstrate his company’s wonderful product selection to our attendees. Able Planet remains unjustly under-known in the headphone community. They specialize in noise cancelling, portable and wireless products and they are really quite excellent within this field. This festival was the first time many of our attendees had become acquainted with the name Able Planet, but the buzz around the four selections we brought for demonstration definitely showed that the cat was out of the bag. The Able Planet headphones appeared to resonate loudly with many of our attendees who had been familiar with, but less enthused by Bose noise cancellers for many years. What I found most interesting about people’s reactions to Able Planet was that it didn’t appear to draw in a specific type of music listener or age range. The Able Planets which we brought along were NC300B, NC500TF, NC600 and the funky plaid XNC230 series.
Now, on to the Silent Disco....
This event was our first Silent Disco experience, and it was really something special. With 500 pairs of wireless headphones, we threw a beach party from 1am until Sunrise both Friday & Saturday nights. Over the two nights we estimate over 1,000 people joined the party, featuring DJs Motion Potion & U9lift from San Francisco. It was quite surreal of an experience to witness droves of people dancing with no audible sound (without headphones) other than laughter and some conversations. If you every have the opportunity to expeirnece a Silent Disco event, we strongly suggest you check it out, even if just for a short while. It was definately an interesting experience which we are looking to do again soon.
For more info and pictures from our time at the Vibes, check out our blog post below:
We wanted to thank all of you who came out to Gather the vibes with us
As Jude had featured in a previous Head-Fi video, we had made a special discount available to head-fiers, 15% MOST ITEMS on our site. We have decided to put that promo back into effect for all of August - click here and take advantage:
We took along with us, not necessarily the most expensive models, but rather the models which felt would demonstrate drastic audio differences to people. You’ll be happy to know that many people had the pleasure of listening to their very first open-back headphone. The Grado SR60 made a huge splash with the devoted rock listeners who came by. One of the many listeners noted to me what you head-fiers have been expressing on the forum for years: “the guitars just sound so alive with the Grados” he said.
Another headphone which made quite an impression was the Audio Technica ATH-T400. This was the largest in size at the table and people thought it looked like quite the contraption. But once putting it on, many noted to us that the sound felt bigger and the sound more spacious. I greatly enjoyed sitting in the sun listening to the T400s to some good old Bob Marley. The T400s made an impression on myself as well as they were just so comfortable and a really good value.
We had the pleasure also of unveiling the top of the line Soul by Ludacris models. The younger audience was truly impressed with the sound and the looks of these. Because of the popularity of the 2 models we brought along (the SL150 and SL300) both reviewed here, we had to form a small line and enforce a 5 minute time limit in order to make sure everyone who wanted hear got a chance to do so. One guy who came to the booth with Beats Solos around his neck appeared to walk away a Ludacris convert when he asked me if he could trade his Solos for the SL150.
Of the many Sennheiser selections we could have made we chose the HD238 for its size and value. The HD238 is a very good on-ear choice for those looking for a compact headphone, but with Sennheiser quality. What I like very much about this pair is the headband design which allows for the headphone to have the pads rest on the ear, but not exude all that much pressure on them. To my surprise, some people were not familiar with Sennheiser brand headphones, which of course prompted me into a very long list of all their great models. I’m a bit of a Sennheiser fanboy. In fact, one of the most enthused Sennheiser listeners was celebrating his 10th birthday that weekend. He reminded me of myself at age 10 – a budding audiophile youth. He kept coming up to our booth nearly every hour to see if he’d won in hourly Headphone giveaway and to listen to the Sennheisers! Even though he never did win in the raffle drawing, he did win our hearts and we couldn’t let him leave the festival without an HD238 of his own. It was his 10th birthday after all
.
Many people came to our booth specifically came to our booth when word traveled around that we were demonstrating the Klipsch Image Ones and offering it in our hourly headphones giveaway. These noise isolating on ears seemed to be a model which many were already familiar with. The Klipsch brand is well known by mainstream audio connoisseurs and was very well received at all of our listening stations. The ipod compatibility and built in microphone made this item a big hit with the ‘iPhone crowd’. For an on-ear model with no active noise cancellation, we were all pleasantly surprised with the sound isolating properties of these cans.
Finally, we were all extremely honored that Mike Zucconi of Able Planet came to attend the festival with us and demonstrate his company’s wonderful product selection to our attendees. Able Planet remains unjustly under-known in the headphone community. They specialize in noise cancelling, portable and wireless products and they are really quite excellent within this field. This festival was the first time many of our attendees had become acquainted with the name Able Planet, but the buzz around the four selections we brought for demonstration definitely showed that the cat was out of the bag. The Able Planet headphones appeared to resonate loudly with many of our attendees who had been familiar with, but less enthused by Bose noise cancellers for many years. What I found most interesting about people’s reactions to Able Planet was that it didn’t appear to draw in a specific type of music listener or age range. The Able Planets which we brought along were NC300B, NC500TF, NC600 and the funky plaid XNC230 series.
Now, on to the Silent Disco....
This event was our first Silent Disco experience, and it was really something special. With 500 pairs of wireless headphones, we threw a beach party from 1am until Sunrise both Friday & Saturday nights. Over the two nights we estimate over 1,000 people joined the party, featuring DJs Motion Potion & U9lift from San Francisco. It was quite surreal of an experience to witness droves of people dancing with no audible sound (without headphones) other than laughter and some conversations. If you every have the opportunity to expeirnece a Silent Disco event, we strongly suggest you check it out, even if just for a short while. It was definately an interesting experience which we are looking to do again soon.
For more info and pictures from our time at the Vibes, check out our blog post below:
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