December 2012
Commuter headphones just keep coming -- sometimes it seems that everyone wants in on this market. Polk Audio is a relative newcomer, yet not totally unproven in the field -- they currently offer nine models. I reviewed their UltraFit 2000 sports headphones last February and found them excellent.
Now Polk has come up with its first active noise-canceling headphone, the UltraFocus 8000 ($349.95 USD). It was no surprise to me that these headphones sounded better than any of the others I’ve reviewed in the past few months -- or perhaps they sounded good because they sound more like floorstanding loudspeakers than typical headphones.
In the box
The UltraFocus 8000s’ box is similar to the packaging of other headphones I’ve seen lately. Two sides open out to reveal a sturdy carrying case. Inside that are the UltraFocus 8000s, their earcups folded 90 degrees and laid flat. Under them is a red cover that proclaims Polk Audio Accessories. Lift up on the ribbon to find: a flat, tangle-free cable; adapters (all gold-plated) for 1/8"-to-1/4” plugs, Nokia and Skype connections, and airline audio systems; and an external attenuator, a shirt clip, two AAA batteries, a Quick Fit Guide, an owner’s manual, and card instructing you how to register the product online. Attached to the case is a loop that can be used to attach it to luggage. A zippered net for carrying extra batteries or connectors is attached to the inside of the case with Velcro.
With companies like Denon, Onkyo, and Yamaha bringing new A/V processors to market as frequently as once a year, it can be difficult for higher-end, smaller-volume companies like Anthem, Bryston, and Krell to keep up. Whereas bigger companies often enjoy the luxuries of big engineering and design teams, and seemingly bottomless R&D and licensing budgets, smaller firms must usually make do with far less.
Wi-Fi is in the air, so to speak, and for years wireless loudspeakers have been a holy grail of home audio. Most of us seem to have accepted the truth that our TVs must be plugged in in order to work, as well as the idea that our TVs need to be fed signals by a physical cable. But there’s something about speaker cables that sets interior decorators on edge. In the past, cableless speaker systems have been of notoriously low quality. Small, lacking in good sound, usually poorly made, and subject to interference and/or inadequate transfer of signals, wireless speaker systems have come and gone, never quite measuring up to the performance standard set by an amplifier and some lamp cord.
There’s a specific type of pleasure that comes with buying an expensive product. Whether it’s a loudspeaker, an amplifier, a watch, a piece of fine furniture, a car . . . the giddy anticipation is metered by the awareness of how much you paid for it. The feeling grows all the more acute as the price and quality rise. I vividly remember my conflicted joy at receiving my very first dealer-ordered, high-end product: a pair of Dynaudio Contour 1.8 Mk.II speakers. Having worked hard and saved for several years, I hemorrhaged a good deal of my shallow savings account on the handmade Danish boxes, which I partnered with a budget 5.1-channel surround-sound receiver and a five-disc CD changer. My tender affection for the rosewood Dynaudios was almost completely offset by my guilt at having invested so much money in them.
When I first heard that MartinLogan was venturing into the headphone market, I wondered whether they would come out with an electrostatic design. After all, electrostatic speakers are the products for which this Kansas-based company has been known throughout its 30-year history. For better or worse, the new Mikros 70 in-ear earphones ($149 USD) employ 6.6mm dynamic drivers, but they’ve been developed by MartinLogan to deliver a sound that, according to the promotional literature, was "inspired by the sonic clarity and detail of our legendary electrostatic speakers."
The first "outboard" DAC I ever heard was one built onboard a Bryston B100 integrated amplifier that I was reviewing. I’d just plugged the B100 in and was in awe of its sound, which was more transparent and natural than anything I’d heard in my system up till then. I was listening to the opening track of Tori Amos’s Boys for Pele and decided to switch from the DAC of the NAD C 542 CD player I’d been using to the Bryston’s DAC, to understand why the latter came as a $1000 option. I couldn’t believe my ears. As impressive as the B100 was on its own, its sound through its built-in DAC was phenomenal. As if a curtain between me and the music had been raised, the sound became even clearer, even more revealing, and even more intimate. At that moment, I realized I’d probably never buy another CD player.
When Google released their Correlate tool, one of the first terms I tried searching was "audiophile." At that time, the No.1 correlated search term was "B&W." The British firm has been designing and manufacturing loudspeakers since the 1960s, and you’ll find their products in many of the world’s top recording studios as well as in audiophiles’ listening rooms. In 2010, B&W broke into the vibrant headphone market with the P5 on-ear model, and followed up with the 
Calyx Audio is a division of Digital & Analog Co. of Korea, a company founded in 1999 to produce class-D integrated circuits. In 2008, the company’s CEO, Seungmok Yi, a music lover and audiophile, decided to mix business with pleasure and produce high-end electronics under the brand name Calyx.
In 2009, Beyerdynamic introduced their flagship Tesla T 1 headphones. The use in the model name of tesla, the International System of Units (SI) unit of measurement for the strength of a magnetic field, refers to the fact that the driver's annular magnet achieved the unprecedented flux density of 1.2 tesla in the voice-coil gap. The higher efficiency of so strong a magnetic field allowed the designers to use a smaller, lighter voice coil than would normally be required to generate the same driving force, resulting in better dynamics and faster transients. In 2010, Beyerdynamic used a miniature version of the Tesla driver in their T 50 p portable headphones. In late 2011, they added to the Tesla line the subject of this review: the T 70 headphones ($595 USD).
There’s little sense of showmanship and panache in the world of high-end hi-fi. At audio shows, manufacturers plonk their products down with little fanfare and less style. Walk through room after room, and you’ll see the same sterile exhibits with a few rows of chairs and racks of equipment. If you’re lucky, you’ll see a potted plant or two.