By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
The headphone market has never been more saturated with an unbelievable range of choice in price, finish, design and special features that aim to differentiate each brand. Aside from sound quality, companies are exploring a variety of materials and treatments. Longtime accessory maker Griffin Technology has turned to wood as the inspiration of its latest line of over the ear headphones.
Finding a comfortable pair of headphones isn't easy, specially since some users spend hours a day conjoined with their headphones. There's no easy way to tell if a pair is great beyond the first hour or two unless you try it. I've had the opportunity to test various sets of headphones this year and these range for expensive high-end noise-cancelling models to moderately priced over the ear headphones.
Griffin Technology released their WoodTone Headphones (SRT $99.00) which are one-size fits all headphones featuring real hand-turned wood enclosures with unique woodgrain. The wooden housings enhance voice and bass frequencies without coloring the sound. At first glance, the WoodTones have this groovy, timeless look that some may identify with Hi-Fi headphones from the 70's.
Wood is actually a good choice, some of the best sounding acoustic instruments rely on the type of wood they are made of. While I'm not entirely sure if the wood used in the WoodTone line helps augment the sound character or quality or if it is merely aesthetic.
Pick up the Griffin Technology WoodTone headphones and you're quickly stunned at the feathery lightness of this pair. Not only are the WoodTones handsome to look at with their wooden housing. Here's the feature set from Griffin.
Features
- Real hand-turned wood enclosures with unique woodgrain
- Wooden housings enhance voice and bass frequencies without coloring the sound
- 50 mm moving coil neodymium magnet drivers for powerful sound
- Over 90-degree pivoting earphones
- One-size-fits-all headband
- Impedance: 32 ohms
- Sensitivity: 108 dB ± 3 dB
- Frequency response: 20 to 20,000 Hz
- Lightweight for comfort
- Detachable 1/8" (3.5 mm) cable with built-in mic
- Built-in mic also has controls for Siri, call answering and hangup and audio (play, pause, next/previous track)
I've been testing the WoodTone headphones on and off for close to three months and while I wouldn't say that they are the absolute best in terms of sound, they are hands down the most comfortable.
Sound quality is generally good with impressive voice reproduction, sublime high and midrange sounds, it is a superb set of headphones for general use and I enjoyed classical, jazz, blues and electronica as well as various podcasts and audiobooks. Noise cancellation headphones will give you a purer sound experience, but they're more expensive and require batteries.
Griffin says that the WoodTones headphones impart warm overtones that accentuate the mid-range. "Vocals come alive, and low frequency bass emerges without distorting harmonics or clarity-destroying echoes. You'll notice an improvement in sound volume, as well; you may find yourself listening at a lower volume level than usual, yet enjoying it more."
I did realize that I required a lower volume setting specially when using it with a vintage Sony DiscMan CD player.
The WoodTone headphones also managed to fit easily on various sized heads, including my toddler's who likes tryling them on. Griffin has found the delicate balance between a good fit and comfort.
I also like the long and sturdy cable which is detacheable and comes with a built-in microphone and button to trigger features like Siri on an iOS device as well as to pick up and end phone calls.
I've travelled with the WoodTone headphones and they've been the perfect companion to my smartphones, MacBook Pro and ThinkPad X220 as well as the aforementioned DiscMan. Not only do they look great and feel amazing, they're clearly different from many of the bright, candy-coloured headphones we see all over the place.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5