Sound high quality is king with regards to headphones and that is a reality – an inescapable one which pains me given the sonic mediocrity of some in any other case lovely audio merchandise. However, would not or not it be good if we may have sonic and aesthetic brilliance in earbuds?
Meet Beyerdynamic’s new second-generation Xelento, gloriously shiny earbuds which would not look misplaced in a high-end jeweller. Add to this Beyerdynamic’s enviable observe report in glorious audiophile over-ear headphones (gaze upon our Beyerdynamic Amiron Wi-fi or DT 770 Studio/Professional opinions for reference) and its debut Free Byrd true wi-fi earbuds (which burst onto the market in July with an edgy look I fell in love with instantly) and also you get a very good sense of what Beyerdynamic is all about.
So the brand new Xelento, which are available in ‘distant’ and ‘wi-fi’ fashions (aka a standard wired design with built-in quantity distant, or a neckband Bluetooth wi-fi cable) are earbuds to not be glanced over shortly – no no, we should gaze upon them and peruse the spec-sheet, in addition to these attractive driver housings.
Xelento is billed as ‘sonic jewels… an audible piece of knickknack’ and it is easy to see why. They’re handcrafted to supply hi-res sound expertise, pushed by Beyerdynamic’s personal Tesla know-how in its smallest kind issue to this point. Gold-plated plugs and silver-plated cables are used within the wiring, whereas the motive force housing is designed with handmade 24-carat gold – to match its internal magnificence.
The TESLA.11 driver is the star beneath the hood, an 11mm dynamic one-way driver with particular new acoustic filters.
For a supreme match, you get no fewer than seven pairs of silicone ear ideas which might be newly developed by Beyerdynamic, plus three different-sized Comply Reminiscence Foam ear ideas for max sound isolation.
Each of the brand-new Xelento fashions includes a 3.5 mm jack cable with distant management and a hands-free mic. The distant mannequin additionally features a symmetric 4.4 mm Pentaconn cable that enables a direct connection to high-quality hi-fi elements with balanced outputs – ie. one thing to your Astell & Kern A&norma SR25 MKII or finest hi-res audio participant of selection.
Xelento wi-fi, then again, comes with a Bluetooth 5.2 neckband that ensures as much as 14 hours of music leisure. It features a digital-to-analogue converter and amplifier from specialist AKM, to boast assistance for the most recent codecs similar to LHDC, Qualcomm aptX HD and aptX for wi-fi audio high quality I can get behind.
Opinion: traditional magnificence has a timeless attraction in earbuds
Previous to right now, I’ve in the identical sentence chastised headphones for wanting ‘boring’ however concluded I might put on them even when they solely got here in slime inexperienced and had an enormous shaky bug-eye on every ear cup. Why? A result of the sound high quality of some headphones (in that case, the Sennheiser Momentum Four Wi-fi) is unmistakably glorious – and people within the know will merely nod sagely and surmise that I opted for expertise over appears.
But it surely is attainable to have each bodily magnificence and elegant sonic functionality: simply look to the Campfire Audio Trifecta, the Audeze Euclid and the Bowers & Wilkins PX8.
In every case, the product boasted a timeless magnificence underpinned by glorious, no-nonsense, best-in-class and no-expense-spared elements. Music is culturally common and has been around hundreds of years longer than any of us (precisely what number of hundreds is a debate for one more day) and whereas fashions come and go, our love for audio won’t ever die.
I’ve misplaced rely on the variety of occasions I’ve shrieked in pleasure on the bijou fantastic thing about Genshin Affect earbuds and the like, solely to be let down by the less-than-exquisite sound. However, I can not think about these specific Beyerdynamic headphones would fall foul of such a problem. For one factor, they’re fairly costly, and for one more, that is Beyerdynamic we’re speaking about.
A brand new contender for our greatest wi-fi earbuds information forward of Black Friday? I’ve but to be given the possibility to listen to them, however, based mostly on this proof I will surely assume so.
The brand new Beyerdynamic Xelento distant and Xelento wi-fi earbuds can be found now for $999 and $1199 respectively (which is around £885 or AU$1585 for the distant mannequin and £1,064 or AU$1900 for the wi-fi possibility) and I for one can not wait to place them in my ears…
