10 Jul
Hands On: Able Planet’s Clear Harmony Headphones
My mother through all ages. told me I’d remorse procrastinatng. For months I’ve had Able Planet’s $349 Clear Harmony headphones sitting on my desk, abeyance for me to get encircling to trying them out. Last month, I finally opened the bale. I wish I’d done it sooner.
The headphones use Able Planet’s Linx Audio technology, which was originally designed for the hard of hearing; it not only reduces outside noise, it amplifies higher frequencies in the audio. Applied to headphones, the result is something that’s useful towards people with natural hearing as well.
Think of it as preventive aural maintenace. When the ambient clamor is so drastically diminished and the audio you’re listening to is selectively boosted, you don’t have to turn the volume up as high to hear clearly. In a not many random tests where I switched betwixt fairly good Sony earbuds and the Clear Harmony headphones, I was surprised to discover in what way much I’d turned up my iPod to hear score clearly on the earbuds. Keeping things at a lower volume with the headphones meant I was subjecting my ears to less stress, and incidentally reducing power demands forward the iPod.
I’ve been using the headphones in a variety of environments, such at the same time that mowing the lawn (the reason I finally put them on) and riding on trains, buses and planes. The large cans seal my ears in nicely, shutting out a lot of the ambient noise on their own; turning on the noise-cancelling circuitry — the headphones are powered by pair AA batteries — takes care of almost everything else.
I’d recommend the Clear Harmony headphones with regard to anyone who regularly listens to music out of the house, needs a slightly peace and quiet in noisy environments (even without minstrelsy playing, the headphones form a nice little audio cocoon), or just values their opportunity to be heard. There are, however, two caveats, aside from the high price: one is that after a few hours, they can get a little uncomfortable; the second is that they do in addition good a job of blocking outside sound — wearing them while walking down the street would conceivably be a safety hazard.
