Articles about Headphones

Panasonic has introduced its new lineup of headphones, including four over-ear, or monitor styles, and two in-ear, or earbud, models. In-ear has become quite popular after the success of the iPod and now many smartphones even come with an included pair, albeit generally of questionable quality.

My Galaxy Nexus included a set that has proven to be quite a bit better than average, even featuring a remote button on the cord that allows for play and pause -- well, most of the time anyway.

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As the Microsoft mobile ecosystem grows, more popular apps are finding their way into the Windows Phone store. The platform now boasts top-notch games like Angry Birds and Temple Run, as well as video services like Hulu. While customers can get their music fix from apps such as Nokia Music (if you have a Nokia phone), competition and options are good.

Now Spotify makes its official debut in the Windows Phone world. Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president and manager for Windows Phone Program Management, tweeted "Hey music lovers... today #Spotify for #WP8 is out of beta! A big update: more languages, offline playlist improvements, track scrubbing".

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Thursday, American chipmaker Texas Instruments unveiled a new 2.4GHz wireless audio streaming chip and wireless headset development kit designed for portable audio players and audiophile-level consumer audio solutions. Texas Instruments says the headphone reference design is capable of 22 hours of usage (double the current average battery life) with an electronic material cost of only $5.

At just about one year old, Texas Instruments' PurePath Wireless audio family is a low-power Radio Frequency protocol in the unlicensed 2.4GHz ISM band like Bluetooth, WLAN, Zigbee, ANT, and RF4CE.

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American consumer electronics company Koss, famous for its stereo headphones, has filed a lawsuit against its former Vice President of Finance, Sujata Sachdeva, and against Grant Thornton, LLP, one of the nation's largest accounting firms, alleging fraud and deceit, professional negligence, and breach of fiduciary duty.

The company says that Sachdeva embezzled funds for at least five years, and that Grant Thornton failed to properly audit the company's financial statements and discover Sachdeva's actions.

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In what appears to have been an amicable agreement for most involved, Bose Corp. announced today that its legal battle over QuietComfort noise-canceling headphone patents has officially come to an end.

Last year, sound technologies maker Bose filed notice with the US International Trade Commission (PDF available here) that Phitek, GN Netcom (later Jabra), Audio-Technica, Creative Labs, Logitech, and Panasonic were infringing upon Bose's patents for noise-canceling headphones.

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The popular iPod may be doing more harm than good, especially to the hearing of the user, doctors say. According to Christine Albertus, an audiologist with the Marshfield Clinic in Marshfield, Wisconsin, iPod users should limit their use of the device to two hours or less per day.

The problem lies in the in-ear headphones Apple offers for the device. Before, music blasted from the speakers of their home audio systems. With the advent of the Walkman, the sound moved closer to the ear through muff-style headphones.

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With noise pollution becoming an ever-increasing problem in today's society, its no surprise that more companies are looking into ways to quiet things down a bit. Enter Sony's new MDR-NC50 headphones, which the company claims will reduce white noise -- a term used to describe everyday unavoidable noise -- by up to 80 percent.

Behind the technology is a microphone within the headphones. This detects the sound and sends it to a new noise-canceling circuit developed by Sony. Any noise that is below the 300 hertz level, which would include jet engines, leaf blowers, subway trains, server fans and household appliances, could be virtually eliminated.

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