Today, I want to review the HEDD Audio HEDDphone. I've heard very good things about these headphones. Before I get into how they sound and everything else about them, let's unbox them and see what we got. A box with a made-in-Germany stamp in front (always a good sign) It is a good-looking box and the opening part is magnetic, so you can use it as a carrying box as well. There are some details on the back:
The concept is an over-ear headphone with air motion transformer and vvt technology Frequency response: 10hz to 40khz
Efficiency: 87 db spl
Impedance: 42 ohms
Connectors: mini xlr
Weight: 118 grams
I can say at the first glance this pair looks fantastic. They have this HEDD logo on each ear and open-back grills on the outside. Leather is used on the top and earpads which feel very high quality. The ear padding is also very thick and soft, feels luxurious. If you're planning on traveling with them, unfortunately, there is no soft carrying bag or anything similar comes out of the box. There is a cable with high-end ring connectors which is a cloth-wrapped cable, that feels very heavy-duty. It has very sturdy connections on the headset that are not gonna come off very easily. I gave it 24 hours on my head to get used to them and tried them against different headphones and listened to all my reference tracks as a mastering engineer and really gave them a good test in every single scenario I can think of so I can give you a more realistic review.
Price
Price-wise these aren't very cheap by headphone standards. So we're talking roughly around 1900 dollars. But if you want really proper headphones that are going to be essential for what you are working on, these pair could be the right choice. They get you into the territory where things are starting to sound really clear and punchy.
Fit
If we talk about how they fit; they are pretty tight on the head and also a little weighty. I think this is all due to aluminium. They have something called an air motion tweeter, it's very similar to a ribbon tweeter. The headband's quite good, feels a little bit heavy but not too heavy. I've had heavier headphones in the past. I think they look fantastic still. They have a bit of chunkiness but still, the way they sit on your head is awesome.
I love the look of them. I can't decide whether they look retro or futuristic, maybe both. Sometimes they remind me of an 80’s car but that's probably just me being old. I think soft leather padding is very nice however if I'm wearing them for a long period I get a little bit of sweaty on the head. It might just be me, usually bit sweaty. But it'd be nice to have the option to have cloth maybe rather than leather.
Sound
So yes they look amazing but how do they sound? No point in looking good if they sound bad, right? The sound is actually really good. Since they are open back, you think they might sound a bit too wide but that’s not the case. I think they don’t sound too wide at all. I've had some headphones that sound like they're playing outside your ears. I didn't have a problem with the stereo width with this pair and I thought it was spot on.
The frequency balance to my ear sounded very flat but not flat as in boring. There's no accentuated bass or accentuated highs or mids. They sound perfect across the whole mix of every track that I played. I must admit their sound took a little bit of getting used to. At first, I felt like they sound a bit in my face and I think that's more down to the fact that a lot of headphone manufacturers just pull out a little of the mids to give it this smiley face kind of curve to sweeten up their sound. I don't think that's the case here though. I think these guys have made it so that they sound flat across all frequencies. At first it makes you think it's a little in-my-face sort of sound, but then the more tracks you listen to, the more you get used to it. The more I switch to other headphones, I thought I can really hear detail with these headphones. I could hear things in tracks that I haven't heard before.
The main thing is they're really fast, so there's a punchy quickness in their sound. So in the mids, everything comes really fast at you. The tops are really there and the bass is very tight. You get this great clarity and there's no smearing which some other headphones do. I have some pairs that smear the sound like that which could generally sound kind of relaxed and quite nice to listen to but these kinds don’t necessarily tell you what's going on and give you the true picture. I want to hear the reverbs, I want to hear the space, the punchiness. I want to hear where they put things in the mix and that's absolutely what I'm getting from HEDD.
You might already know the company has speaker models also which I really like the sound of. They brought the same quality to their headphones. I love them, they're really good, definitely worth looking at. They seem the most balanced, the tightest, and the fastest that I've listened to. They look great and they sound great.
Anything Negative?
If I have to say something bad, it would be that they can be a little bit rattly on your head. If you bang the sides really hard they sound a little rattly. But honestly, I don't know who would do that. I think that's just the nature of the pair, because as I push them and move them around, I can feel them moving and the sound of them are moving. I don't know whether that actually would break them. That's the only thing that I've found that could be annoying. They describe this in the little pamphlet that came with it. According to the information here, this diaphragm crackling is due to the multiple caption folds, it allows air to move faster than traditional dynamic planar magnetic or electrostatic drivers due to the principle. Sometimes you hear a little bit of crackling which probably won’t happen in your ideal listening position. But you might hear a little bit if you start moving your head around too much.
Conclusion
They're definitely worth the money. If headphones are important to you and if you are a mixing engineer or you're a real audiophile, these should be on your shopping list. Check them out against the other contenders in the same price range yourself and compare. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Also check out this nice video review about this model.
