Take it to the limit: Fostex TH600 headphones

The Fostex TH600 full-size headphones' sound is downright addicting. They take you inside the sound of a recording like few other headphones can. Unfortunately, Fostex's U.S. distribution of its high-end headphones is very limited (it's a Japanese company), but Fostex dealer Moon Audio was kind enough to send over a sample pair of TH600 headphones ($1,299) fitted with an extra-cost Black Dragon V2 cable. Fostex also offers much less expensive models, including the $129 T50RP, but the company mostly caters to the pro sound market.

The TH600 has large 50mm drivers, matched with an unusually powerful … Read more

Being there: The Hifiman HE-6 headphones


The Burson Soloist will make your headphones sound better than ever

The Burson Soloist looks and feels like a scaled down high-end stereo power amplifier, but the Soloist is a headphone amp. The chassis is constructed from thick slabs of machined aluminum that dissipate the heat from the amp's Class-A electronics. The amp would appeal to Ferrari and Leica camera owners who appreciate no-holds-barred industrial design. The Soloist is the real deal.… Read more

Microsoft hires former Clinton adviser Penn as corporate VP

Microsoft has hired a new vice president with strong ties to Washington and public relations.

Mark Penn will join the company as corporate vice president for strategic and special projects. Leading a small team focused on "key consumer initiatives," Penn will report directly to CEO Steve Ballmer.

Microsoft will rely on its new hire's experience in "strategic development, branding, and positioning" to come up with "breakthrough" ideas designed to meet consumers' changing needs, the company said today.

Dubbed "one of the best-known political and campaign strategists in Washington" according to The … Read more

How the world's biggest companies are doing social media

The graphic above show the 10 most-often mentioned companies on social media among the Global Fortune 100. That's according to the third annual Global Social Media Check-Up Study of how Global Fortune 100 companies are using social media, conducted by Burson-Marsteller and Visible Technologies. You can find the full study at BM.com/social, including the executive summary and an infographic.

Here are five findings highlighted by the authors of the study:

1. The Fortune Global 100 were mentioned a total of 10,400,132 times online in one month. Gone are the days that companies and brands … Read more

Beyerdynamic T1: Mercedes-Benz of headphones

You can buy a set of great full-size headphones for $100 from Grado or Sennheiser, but if you want to pick up one of the world's best headphones, be prepared to spend more than $1,000. Granted, no one needs a $1,000 headphone to listen to music or a $140,000 Porsche Panamera Turbo sedan to drive to work, but they're nice things to have. That's why we cover them on CNET.

Audio-Technica, Sennheiser, Grado, and Ultrasone's latest attempts to advance the state-of-the-art are really expensive, but before the introduction of the T1, Beyerdynamic's top models all carried an MSRP of less than $400. With the Tesla T1, Beyerdynamic joined the $1,000-and-greater club; it sells for $1,295.

Steep prices haven't stopped the high-end headphone market from booming, and Beyerdynamic can't keep up with the demand for the T1. It's hand-built and tested in the company's headquarters in Heilbronn, Germany.

Its padded leather headband and soft earpads provide high comfort levels, and while we were testing the T1 over some rather hot and humid late spring days, the headphone remained comfy for hours on end. The T1 comes packed in a very impressive aluminum storage case.

According to Beyerdynamic, the T1's transducer is the first to produce more than one Tesla of magnetic flux density (hence the T1 designation). A more powerful magnet better controls the diaphragm's movement, which should produce lower distortion.

Most of the T1's outer earcup is covered with a finely woven wire mesh, which allows the user to hear outside sounds. Actually, the T1 is classified as a "semi-open" design, so it partially limits how much sound the wearer would hear, compared with open Sennheiser and Grado designs. The T1's thick cable is just shy of 10 feet long (118 inches) and it's fitted with a 6.3mm connector. Beyerdynamic doesn't include a 3.5mm adapter for use with iPods or other portable devices.

I listened to the T1 with three different amplifiers: an Onkyo TX-SR805 receiver, Woo Audio WA6-SE vacuum tube amp, and Burson Audio HA-160 solid-state headphone amp ($699). Beyerdynamic's headphone amp, the A1 ($849), would likely be a serious contender, but I didn't have a chance to try it. … Read more

Great headphones need a great amplifier to sound great

If you've invested in a set of really high-quality headphones--and you're plugging them into a headphone jack on your receiver or computer--you ain't heard nothing yet. The sound may be pretty good, but the weak link is the "good enough" headphone amp built into the receiver or computer sound card.

Dedicated headphone amps, like the Burson Audio HA-160 take the high road and are built like bona-fide high-end audio amplifiers. Little amplifiers to be sure; it doesn't take a lot of power to drive a headphone, but the quality of the power is something else again. Burson Audio is based in Melbourne, Australia.

I love the HA-160's understated design; the silver anodized-aluminum chassis feels nice and solid. Up front you get two headphone jacks: one for use with low-impedance (15-150 ohms) headphones, and one for high-impedance headphones (150-500 ohms). The large, machined-aluminum volume control is a little unusual; it's a "stepped attenuator." That's a big draw for serious audiophiles, stepped attenuators have matched sets of resistors that sound better than more commonly used continuously variable volume controls.

Most solid-state headphone amps, including a lot of high-end ones, use off-the shelf "opamps," integrated circuit chip sets, but the HA-160 uses circuits developed by Burson Audio, and it features discrete circuits with resistors, capacitors and transistors. That's a more labor-intensive way to build amps, but there's no other way to build true high-end designs.

What does the HA-160 sound like? Nothing at all. Switching back and forth between my Onkyo TX-SR805 receiver's headphone jack and the HA-160 was a study in contrasts. The TX-SR805 certainly didn't sound bad on its own, but the clarity gains with the HA-160 were dramatic. The sound was far more vivid, and the "spaces" between the instruments and vocals were in sharp relief. Bass was also clearer with the Burson; the TX-SR805 sounds softer and veiled by comparison.

I next compared the HA-160 with my reference headphone amp, the Woo Audio WA6-SE ($1,050). It was a closer match, but there were still very significant differences between the two amps. Listening to Peter Gabriel's new "Scratch My Back" CD, the WA6-SE was sweeter and more laid-back than the HA-160.

The orchestral accompaniments were richer, but the HA-160 was more immediate, it sounded much clearer, as if there was nothing between the music and my ears. All of my listening up to this point was with the Beyerdynamic Tesla T1 headphone ($1,295), which is one of the very best headphones I've ever heard (full review is in the works). … Read more