HEDD Heddphone Two headphone review https://the-ear.net

HEDD Heddphone Two headphones I don’t often get over-excited by headphones, using them only when listening via loudspeakers is not possible for whatever reason. However, at the Dutch Audio Event last autumn I discovered some rather amazing German headphones using AMT drivers, my preferred type of high frequency drive unit for speakers, rather than more […]

Sendy Peacock planar magnetic headphone review https://the-ear.net

Sendy Peacock planar magnetic headphones It’s so obvious once you’ve seen it, but it was three or four weeks before the light caught the Sendy Peacock’s outer earcup at just the right angle and it dawned on me that they looked like peacock tail feathers. Having initially found the name of these headphones rather challenging, […]

Meze Audio Empyrean II headphone review https://the-ear.net

Meze Audio Empyrean II headphones Romanian headphones are, I have to admit, new to me; likewise, the idea of spending almost £3,000 on a pair. And yet that’s a comparable sum to my everyday loudspeakers and my former reference streaming amplifier, so it’s far from an outlandish amount, especially if it’s a principal source of […]


Dali IO-12 headphone review https://the-ear.net

Dali IO-12 wireless headphones There is a sizeable cohort of music lovers for whom the world of portable audio is off-limits. It’s true that there is a rich choice of in-ear monitors (IEMs) and some of them, I have it on good authority, are really good-sounding. So what’s the problem? The portable audio exclusion zone […]

Sennheiser HD660S2 review

Sennheiser HD660S2 headphones Designing the HD660S2, a mid-priced, dynamic open-back headphone, to supplant the legendary HD600 and HD650 was never going to be easy. When Sennheiser finally made their 600 series into a trio in 2017 with the release of the HD660S it’s fair to say it caused some confusion among HD aficionados. Despite using […]

Sivga SV023 review

Sivga SV023 open-backed headphone Using a headphone like the Sivga SV023 on the move is not something I do anymore but back in the late ‘80s and the pre-iPod years of the ‘90s I was regularly involved in work-related long haul travel, and my trusty Sony Walkman and then Discman were always in my hand […]


BW Px8 main

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 headphones The Px8 headphones came up in conversation with the editor while I was immobilised with a fractured ankle we agreed that about the only things I might be able to handle for review would be headphones, shortly thereafter a pair of Bowers & Wilkins Px8s a few weeks ago. Back […]

The Ear BEST OF 2022 820 547

The best of the best that we have reviewed on the Ear over the last 12 months

momentum 4 main

More than one fellow reviewer has suggested that I find some noise-cancelling headphones to to use on my travels. Goodness knows who’s previously used the ones supplied on long-haul aircraft and, as far as European travel is concerned, passengers are left to their own devices. That in mind, I was very excited to read the […]


Meze LIRIC main

This review has been a little emotional for reasons other than musical. Although Meze is a Romanian company, Rinaro Isodynamics, their drive-unit partner, is based in Lviv, Ukraine. I am informed by the distributor that they have not been attacked so far, I pray this remains the case as events are developing quickly. Rinaro Isodynamics […]

LCD-5-main

It’s been such a long time coming that some people in the head-fi community were beginning to wonder whether California’s Audeze had lost interest in the high-end headphone market. After the launch of the company’s flagship LCD-4 in 2017, which Stereophile’s John Atkinson claimed was the finest sounding headphone he had heard in 45 years, […]

HD660S-x2

“The legend continues…”, said Sennheiser, upon the release of their HD660S dynamic open-back circumaural headphone, the successor to the venerable HD650 that has brought aural bliss to music lovers around the world for the past 15 years.  As a long-time admirer of the HD600 series, I was both eager and anxious to discover whether the bold […]