Audio Performance AF140 measurements can be found by clicking this link.
June 2014
The headphone biz sure has changed in the last few years. Obviously, lots of companies have been getting into it, but that was 2011’s trend. Today’s trend involves what’s been happening to those companies that have been at it since then. Some of them are getting better.
It’s no secret that many, perhaps most, companies that have recently entered the headphone market began by slapping their logos on models made by some faceless original design manufacturer (ODM) no consumer in the Western Hemisphere has ever heard of. What’s happening now is that some of those companies have decided that, in order to compete, they have to get serious. Mass-marketers such as Beats, House of Marley, Skullcandy, and others have brought in heavy-duty engineering talent and spent tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on test equipment. As a result, their ’phones are getting better, with a more consistent “house sound.”
I don’t know if or how Audiofly has added to its engineering resources over the last few years, but it’s obvious that this Australian company has learned a lot since it entered the market in 2011. Its first earphones had an appealing industrial design and pretty good sound overall, but I found that their sonic signature varied from model to model.
The French company Focal may be best known to audiophiles on this side of the pond for their flagship Utopia line of loudspeakers, formerly sold under the JMlab brand -- but this large hi-fi company has, for decades, been manufacturing a full range of loudspeakers, from the very affordable to the ultra expensive.
Established in 1994 in Vicenza, Italy, Pathos Acoustics has become widely known as an innovative manufacturer of fine audio electronics with stunning industrial designs that are as eye-catching as their sound is wondrous. Guided by a design philosophy that declares that each new product must have a technical advantage over similar gear in its category, as well as an arresting look that announces it as something unique, every Pathos model exudes postmodern Italian sophistication.
Furutech, a Japanese maker of audio accessories, has been on a tear lately through its Alpha Design Labs (ADL) brand. When I reviewed their 
To say that Paul Barton set the audio world on its ear when he introduced the PSB M4U 2, his first headphone design, wouldn’t be exaggerating. Before Barton created the M4U 2, he read all the research he could find about voicing headphones. This led him to design the M4U 2 with a response that, while somewhat idiosyncratic, made many other headphones suddenly sound a lot less good. Barton was attempting to better re-create the sound of real speakers in a real room, and according to most listeners, he succeeded. He called his new voicing RoomFeel.
In Chicago last spring, at the 2013 Audio Expo North America (AXPONA), I browsed the demo tables of head-fi and desktop gear. I was especially interested in reference-level headphones, as I was looking to upgrade from my tried-and-true Sennheiser HD 650 ’phones. The genial Sankar Thiagasamudram, president and co-founder of Audeze, invited me to try both the Audeze LCD-2 ($1145 USD) and LCD-3 ($1945) headphones. Both models impressed me, but especially the LCD-3’s seemingly full-range sound with symphonic music. I’ve found that symphonic music is extremely difficult for any system to reproduce, let alone headphones. Sending to my ears a high-resolution recording of Mahler’s Symphony No.6, the LCD-3s got the strings right -- not only the top notes of the violins, but also the midrange lushness of the cellos and the gravitas of the double basses in their lowest register. Not long afterward, I asked to review them.
Last March, I gave the 
NuForce, based in Fremont, California, is an interesting company for the audio enthusiast. They first staked their reputation on a patented class-D amplifier design with a switching power supply. Although pricey -- their cheapest monoblocks cost $2500 USD per pair -- they sounded as good as anything I’d heard. NuForce has since made inroads in almost all ranges of sound and price, as I found out when I reviewed their 
In 2013, Sherwood, formerly Sherwood Electronic Laboratories Inc., celebrated its 60th anniversary -- a rare event in the home-audio industry. The company was founded in Chicago in 1953 to manufacture an amplifier designed by Ed Miller. Its first products were tuners, integrated amplifiers, and receivers with enamel front panels and knobs rather than the toggle switches typical of the era. And inside, of course, were vacuum tubes. By the early 1960s, Sherwood was supplying FM broadcasters with stereo multiplex equipment, and in the hi-fi era was responsible for a few “firsts” -- such as the first solid-state receiver (the 1005, in 1967), and the first FM tuner with a digital readout (the SEL-300). Like much of its competition, Sherwood had moved production to the Far East by the late 1970s. The company now makes stereo and audio/video receivers, iPod docks, wireless speakers, sound bars, tuners, turntables, and disc players. I was sent a sample of the newest of their 11 models of 7.1-channel A/V receivers, the R-807 ($450 USD).
Boston Acoustics is known for making good-sounding speakers, and the MC100 Blue Bluetooth speaker ($149 USD) follows in that tradition. For better Bluetooth sound, it supports NFC pairing and the aptX codec, though it’s not, as its box proclaims, a “wireless Bluetooth speaker” -- it must be plugged into AC to function. That’s about the only nit I have to pick with Boston Acoustics, who are not alone in confusing this issue. We need to adopt language in which Bluetooth means the wireless connectivity of that proprietary audio-signal format, and wireless means a battery-powered product that can be used without being tethered to a wall socket.
Hong Kong-based Miniwatt burst onto the hi-fi scene in 2009 with a tiny integrated tube amplifier that produced a mere 2.5Wpc -- hence the company’s name. The next year brought a slightly more powerful (3.5W) model, the n3, which still had a footprint about the size of a CD jewel case. While some might scoff at such low power ratings, a few watts are all that are needed to drive a desktop audio system with speakers of moderate sensitivity. Of course, an amplifier requires a source, and if you’re focusing on a desktop system, a USB DAC is the obvious choice.
I hate wires! I hate buying them, I hate hooking them up, and I hate the restrictions they place on my audio system. No matter how neatly I try to organize and route them, most of the time they can’t be hidden. On the other hand, I understand a wire’s importance. Heck, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on cables because I wanted to improve the sound of my system.