Oppo’s PM-1 headphones offer luxury for all your senses

By Ryan Waniata May 25, 2014

oppos pm 1 headphones offer mobile luxury all senses oppo manual

Sometimes you just need to splurge on a badass piece of audio gear. If that time has come around for you, we highly recommend checking out Oppo’s PM-1 headphones, a set of cans as beautiful and luxurious in design as they are in performance.

One might find it odd that Oppo, a company best known for its top shelf Blu-ray players, would decide to leverage its highly refined technological prowess toward creating a pair of headphones. But, considering Oppo’s Blu-ray players are as coveted for their audiophile grade sound as they are for their talents in the video spectrum, it actually makes a lot of sense.

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For the PM-1, Oppo employed the highly-revered planar magnetic driver style, which uses a thin membrane similar to the head of a drum, suspended in a magnetic field. Planar drivers are able to create unparalleled accuracy and transperancy, and is the same technology employed by one of the most highly regarded headphones in existence, the Audeze LCD-3.

But unlike the Audeze, which are so large and cumbersome as to render you stationary, the PM-1 are built for the road. The sturdy chassis is constructed from sleek cuts of gleaming chrome wrapped in leather, and stuffed with enough padding to rest comfortably for long listening sessions in the studio, at the office, or on the train. And while the PM-1 are best when used with a hi-fi headphone amplifier, including Oppo’s own HA-1, they’ll also plug right into your mobile device. Accessories include two sets of cables, both velvet and lambskin earpads, a carrying case, and a wooden cabinet so gorgeous you’ll want to sleep next to it.

Most importantly these things sound incredible. The longer you listen, the more you’ll be drawn in, with lightning-quick tracking of fast-paced hits from percussion and brass, rich and velvety bass, crystalline treble response, and transparency across the spectrum for miles. At $1,100, the price will definitely hit your wallet. But if you’re looking for a taste of sonic luxury that won’t keep you homebound, the PM-1 are definitely worth a look.

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Culture

Everything You Need to Know About High-Resolution Music

listening music isolation headphones

A few years back, to little fanfare, Neil Young started talking up high resolution music. The folk-rock legend was tired of people listening to low-quality sounds on their laptops, phones, and streaming devices. In his mind and the minds of a lot of other sound buffs, the status quote wasn’t doing the music justice.
Young went so far as to introduce a product, Pono Music, to encapsulate the need for richer sound. The strange contraption, touting a shape not unlike a Toblerone bar, certainly didn’t jump off of the shelves and music fans mostly moved on to other things. The underlying concept, however, remains important and is being revisited by music nerds and product designers alike. And Young is back with a new line of gear, via the folks at Bluesound.

The idea is pretty straightforward. Just as the heavy, 180-gram vinyl record is known to produce richer acoustics, the high-res sound file is believed to offer thicker, more resonant sound. Proponents say it’s exponentially better than what we’ve been accustomed to — the tinny and petite sound waves that pop out of our built-in laptop or mobile phone speakers.
Even when we’re playing larger digital files through iTunes, Spotify, and any number of services, we might not be fully doing the music justice. We may have a fantastic amp and pair of expensive speakers but if the file itself is shrunk down or condensed for quick streaming, you might be listening to what’s essentially a dumbed-down version of your favorite track, sonically speaking.
Enter high-res music. Think of it as having the same effect on The Beatles as a high-def widescreen television does on the movie Avatar. It’s meant to make music feel like it’s being played live in your living room, more robust and enveloping. Now that concerts seem like a thing of the past, at least for the near future, this brand of sound quality is all the more attractive.
A major and relatively new file type high-res music is built around is called the MQA, or Master Quality Authenticated. The most popular streaming service to use such files is likely Tidal, although Amazon and others offer something similar. The technology is still being experimented on but we’ll likely hear more about it in the coming years.
A good way to imagine it is visually, in terms of pixels. High-res music operates at a higher sampling frequency, meaning more signal samples are taken of the music per second than, say, a standard compact disc recording. For comparison, a CD file usually clocks in at 16-bit or 44.1kHz (kilohertz). High-res audio files hover around 24-bit or 192kHz, if not greater.
One of the hangups with high-res music is precisely that — heavy files. We’re talking megabytes here, which can gobble up space on your computer or storage device rather quickly. We are used to having tons of digital clutter as it’s convenient and comforting. But one of the nice things about high-res audio files is they require us to be a bit more selective.
Instead of toting around thousands of compressed albums, we might have to choose a few dozen, depending on file capacity. Audiophiles should liken it to a DJ mentality, digging through record crates for a few of the best to set up that day or week’s mix.
Major streaming services like Apple and Spotify have yet to take the high-res plunge. They may be engaging in research and development or waiting for what they think is a trend to subside. But with more equipment and websites devoted to high-res music, it’s likely that it will only grow in popularity.
Test it out at home by comparing recordings. Go with a sonically rich band like Pink Floyd or a bumping track like Orange Wedge by the Chemical Brothers and see if it’s time to upgrade your home system to high-fidelity standards.

Culture

Time to Flip to Side B: The Cassette Tape is Back

cassette tapes are back tape unraveled

Look out vinyl, the cassette tape is back. Nostalgia is part of the trend but there’s actually more to it than that.
According to Forbes, tapes experienced a relatively staggering 20% sales growth last year alone, putting them ahead of their vinyl counterparts. Since 2011, sales have quadrupled. It’s the kind of boon that puts the lights back on in places like the National Audio Company. There’s even a widely recognized Cassette Store Day (October 12) to celebrate the medium. All told, it’s music to the ears of audiophiles, the tape industry, and cars with dated music systems alike.

Why the rise in popularity? Well, we’re very enamored of the '90s, that’s for certain (does that mean the compact disc is next in line?). Economics plays a big role, too. Tapes are cheaper to produce, while still offering a richness of sound that’s hard to come by in the streaming era. Bands appreciate the low cost, as well as the speedy turnaround time. Pressing a vinyl record, while cool in its own timeless and tangible way, takes an eternity in comparison. A tape can be produced in a matter of days and is easy to pack along and sell on tour.
It’s a very real thing for indie labels like Burger Records in southern California, POST/POP out of London, and more. They’re taking advantage of the industrious nature of the cassette, along with its retro-cool factor. And it’s not just a counterculture move within music. Big-name acts like Jay-Z, Taylor Swift, and Lana Del Rey have released albums in this format.
For older music fans, it’s a way to become reacquainted with something from their formative years. For the younger crowd, it’s simply something new and wondrous, as they didn’t grow up troubleshooting stuck cassettes.

Culture

The Evolution and History of the Home Stereo

Cassette Tape

With well over a century in the making, the home stereo has brought tantalizing airwaves into households for everyone to enjoy while sitting on the couch, providing ambiance to an otherwise mundane gathering, and even fueling spontaneous dance parties. Certainly with technological advances the music quality has dramatically increased along with accessibility and the design of home stereos. But the radio, CD, cassette, and Bluetooth sorcery wouldn’t have come to be without the evolution of the record player.
Record Player

Turn the dial back to 1877 to when Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. It was more like a recorder than a player, but it did have playback capabilities. The sound was recorded on a tinfoil sheet wrapped around a cylinder that could eventually be played back through a horn-shaped speaker, similar to how a player piano ghostly plays the keys. In 1895 the phonograph was updated to play sound from flat discs that we now call vinyl, and the design took close shape to the modern record player. This was the point in history when records became a necessity for sound and leisure listening. The popularity of the record player grew right along with music culture, booming in the ‘20s, spinning through the blues, and eventually falling into the hands of the ‘80s/’90s DJs and their manipulative powers. And now in 2019, the record player and/or turntable is finding its way back into homes across the globe with artists choosing to release new music on vinyl, audiophiles claiming the purest sounds come from the grooved discs, and the revolution of hipsters deciding the record player was cool -- again.
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