Edible Apple

In case you haven’t heard, Apple has finally (thank god!) updated its wretched, and yet iconic, white headphones that have shipped with every iPhone and iPod since the beginning of time. Apple touts the new headphones, which it has dubbed “EarPods” as having much better sound quality and being much more comfortable to wear.

So far the reviews of Apple’s new EarPods have been overwhelmingly positive, but if you want a detailed and absolutely thorough rundown of what Apple’s EarPods bring to the table, look no further than the review from the newly created audiophile website Veven. And when we say it’s detailed, we mean it, to the tune of 4000 words!

Here’s a brief recap:

During the casual listening phase,. I tend to listen to more quiet music, often including acoustic instruments.  At some stage in this listening, I had to do a double take, because I was wondering if I’d accidentally turned my studio monitors on. Because, I could swear that there was flesh and blood musicians sitting behind my desk.

I don’t know how on earth Apple has pulled this off.  Knowing Apple, they probably have multiple patents in the area.  Dear Apple: Please license your patents to other manufacturers. Cheaply.

In my over 25 years of having audiophilia as a hobby, I’ve had a few moments I’ll just refer to as “Martin Logan moments”, which is when I have heard something that completely defies belief, and it stems from the first time I, as a 13 year old paperboy, walked in to the local high-end asylum who had a pair of Martin Logan CLS electrostatic speakers set up.

This EarPods are, in two senses, a Martin Logan moment.  The sound stage I was presented with in the demo room (It was nice of the owner to indulge a eyeglass-wearing complete nerd’s curiosity) was that of flesh-and-blood musicians sitting in a room when clearly they weren’t. It made me understand that music could be reproduced in better ways than a mono speaker.  The EarPods are the same. I now have hope that headphones will not remain a facsimile of real music reproduced live or on terrific speakers.

As an aside. The asylum owner ended up getting the newspaper for free every single day.

And he gave me a lifelong hobby in return for that.

Nice. I like it.

And at the end of the day, the audiophile – whose name I couldn’t find – says that the EarPods are absolutely worth the $29 asking price. He also adds in an interesting tidbit in saying that music producers have absolutely no choice when it comes to getting the EarPods or not.

If you produce music: You have absolutely no choice.  Since 2001, 600 million people have purchased a device with the old device.  You’re going to need these to do a fact check on your mix, much like you need to test on an average mono speaker.

If you don’t really care about audio quality: I don’t know how you got this far in this review, but yes: Buy them. They’re worth $29.

All in all, you’ll never read more about headphones again in your life, most likely. This article, though, is worth a read.