Big idea: Match a headphone manufacturer with a music industry big-wig. Co-develop an exciting, new, cross-branded audio product. Price it somewhere between OMG and WTF. Repeat until everyone's so rich they're barfing up diamonds and using Benjamins to flambé their Crêpes Suzette.
This is the formula being employed by seemingly every youth-market musical artist looking to repeat the magical success of Beats by Dre headphones, (which, by the way, had nothing to do with sound quality and everything to do with savvy marketing).
The latest pair of celebriphones come from Mix Master Mike, the hip-hop DJ best known as the guy who usurped Hurricane's seat as the fifth Beastie Boy – the fourth Beastie being Mark Ramos-Nishita, naturally.
>These headphones are exemplary of Skullcandy's new direction – they're smartly designed, the sound is well-balanced and they have an appropriately eyebrow-raising $300 price tag.
Now, I've seen so many of these collabo-phones cross my desk in the last couple of years, I'm almost at the point where I'm mailing them back without even opening the boxes. But I set aside my cynicism to take a look at the Mix Master Mikes. They're made specifically for DJ use, and I was curious enough about them to test them out. Granted, I'm only a weekend warrior on the turntables, but it's a hobby I take seriously enough to have formed some opinions about what makes a piece of gear gig-worthy.
To make his cans, the Mix Master teamed up with Skullcandy, the company that's rapidly branching out from cheap, day-glo earbuds for the BMX set to higher-end, higher-priced hardware for more discerning listeners. These headphones are exemplary of Skullcandy's new direction – they're smartly designed, the sound is well-balanced and they have an appropriately eyebrow-raising $300 price tag.
The MMMs have some very cool DJ-specific features, my favorite being a trick that switches the headphones from stereo to mono when you twist one of the earpads, dumping both the right and left channels into the driver that's still over your ear. This is handy for beat matching or cueing up a crossfade, as it gives you a better idea of how well the track you've got on deck will sit with the track that's currently playing. To that end, there's also a mute switch nestled into one of the ear cups that kills the sound in the cans so you can hear the room. You can just flip the switch on and off to monitor the sound without removing the whole assembly. The last bit of DJ-friendly business is a coiled cord with a plug that securely screws into the either the left or right ear.
They sound great. Everything is nice and loud with just enough percussion and bass up-front, just what you need for a gig at Coachella (or in my case, the Monday night microbrew happy hour). They also performed equally well at my desk at work. They can't compete with the sound signature of my Audio-Technica ATH-M50 studio monitors, but they aren't too overbearing in any of the frequencies. They're a bit too bulky to wear around town, but if you want to, you can swap in a mobile-ready cable with an inline mic/remote. Also, they're very comfortable, and light enough to wear all day.
The reason they're light is because of the all-plastic construction, and that's actually one of their drawbacks. During a gig, there's a lot of head-turning, waist-bending and moving around, and every time something would brush against one of the thin plastic earcups, it would translate into a loud, jarring KNOCK an inch from my ear. All headphones make noise when you bump them, but the MMM's thin plastic earcups sound like you're holding a red keg cup over your ear and thwacking it with your finger.
Another thing about all that plastic: it makes them feel cheap and flimsy. And after roughly two months of irregular use, my loaner pair is already starting to show signs of wear.
Finally, there's the $300 list price, which is twice as much as a pair of Shure SRH750 or Technics RP-DH1200 DJ headphones, both of which are excellent in every way. I don't think I'd be stretching it to say the MMMs are egregiously overpriced.
So if you're at the level in your DJ career where each needle drop earns you the equivalent of one house payment, these headphones are a luxe, feature-rich joy. Otherwise, stick with the warhorse set of over-ears that'll still be going strong three or four New Years Eve gigs from now.
WIRED Some very smart DJ-friendly features. Removable cable can plug into either ear. Foldable design and hard-shell carrying case for supreme portability. Leather is soft and lush. Weight and comfort are aces. Bay area represent!
TIRED The rent is too damn high. So's the amount of thin plastic in the design. Big silver skulls on the ears and the giant Skullcandy logo on the headband are kind of tacky.
