Ah, branded consumer products. Seems every time we turn around, there's another auto manufacturer who's spun off a Jeep mountain bike, a Fiat espresso machine, or a BMW pencil sharpener-- which speaks more to bleed-through brand cachet than it does to actual exclusivity.
?
Then there's Ferrari, the Italian car maker who is famously elusive about access to its press vehicles, but surprisingly aggressive with co-branded products as of late. Heck, Maranello HQs have even OK'd a?$400, "V12" powered hair dryer-- you know,?for the most dedicated (read: vain)?tifosi.
?
And so it was with burgeoning curiosity (peppered with mild suspicion) that I received a set of $249 Ferrari-branded Logic3 headphones for review. Dubbed, seductively enough, Scuderia P200, the premise behind these cans is that they're styled after the headphones worn by Ferrari's Formula 1 pit crew...
?
?
... and opening the box indeed revealed a flexible, carbon fiber-like carrying case and a pair of shiny red, cavallino-branded headphones. Exciting, right??
?
?
But picking up the headphones turned out to be disappointing, mainly because most of those glossy surfaces turned out to be plastic, and its lack of heft belied the racy appearance. For what it's worth, beneath the faux lacquer and carbon fiber trim lies 50mm drivers running at 32 Ohms, with a frequency response of 20-20,000 Hz and 1.5% total harmonic distortion.
?
As with any four-wheeled review, the only way to evaluate these puppies was to test drive them (so to speak), so I kicked back, closed my eyes, and swapped between the Scuderia P200 and a pair of $300 Bose QuietComfort 15 headphones. I used back-to-back tracks as benchmarks, including "Travelling Without Moving" by Jamiroquai, which, appropriately enough, kicks off with an actual recording of what is rumored to be performer Jay Kay's Ferrari F50 firing up and running through the gears.
?
The verdict? Team Red's headphones sound full and a bit bass-heavy, though they lack the midrange articulation and overall delicacy of the Bose unit. They're really more like the SRT Viper of headphones: loud and charismatic, but a bit brutish and... well, plasticky.
?
So, while unabashed Ferrari fans might feel compelled to grab a pair of these relatively inexpensive listening devices in order to stand out in public (or, who knows... while grooving to Jamiroquai on their private jet), serious audiophiles will likely look elsewhere for their high performance hardware.
Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/auto-blog/ferrari-logic-3-headphones?src=rss
at the drive in alternative minimum tax modeselektor gran torino gloria steinem war of the worlds rock and roll hall of fame
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.