Can Celebrity Products Like Beats, Pono, Motörheadphönes Popularize High-End Digital Audio?

For years, pointy-headed freaks with golden ears have told everyone within earshot that MP3s, CDs, and just about every other popular format sounds like garbage. Instead, they say, we should all buy expensive headphones or speakers (which are the biggest factor in sound quality), and then seek out the hardest-to-use, best-sounding audio format we can find for a particular piece of music, be that SuperAudio CD, DVD Audio, any of several lossless formats, or even that rarest bird of all, the better-than-CD quality digital file.

Nobody heeds their pointy-headed advice, which is why A) most of us listen on poor-sounding headphones and speakers B) so much music sounds so dynamically compressed, and C) some producers are actually mixing their music to sound good on a little cellphone speaker.

Following Dr. Dre’s lead, none other than Motörhead plans to show off its own headphones, the aptly-titled Motörheadphönes, at CES this week — “from the loudest band in the world to your ears.” Made by the Swedish manufacturer Krusell, Motörheadphönes (and earphönes) look quite durable indeed. But their main selling point is sound quality. Designed to be “for rockers by rockers,” Motörhead’s Krusell headphones could do for rock what Beats purports to do for hip-hop and electronic music..

Source: Hyperbot