Experience spruced-up sound with these wooden earphones
Could wood be better than good?
I’ve usually got a lot of time for wood, but wooden earphones? Pourquoi?
Surprisingly, tree cadavers continue to be a sought-after material for constructing audio equipment. It’s an acoustically sound choice, as woods are more dense than plastics, trapping more of the sound within the cavity and thereby leading to higher quality playback. Earphones made from wood tend to produce a natural mid-range sound and excel at creating booming, rich bass. That’s exactly what the Acorn Audio E2 earphones aim to deliver.
OK, but wood doesn’t conduct electricity. #Justsayin.
Obviously the entire earphone isn’t made out of wood, just the casing. There are still magical metal bits with electrons whizzing around in the driver. Speaking of which, the Acorn Audio E2 earphones are the evolution of the E1 earphones, which were released last year, and the driver has been increased from 8mm to 9mm to facilitate more lucious low-frequency sound.
This all sounds very lovely and very expensive. I prefer my earphones semi-disposable.
Very lovely? Yes. But very expensive? Not at all. The benefit of the E2 phones is that they’re the same price as your bog-standard plastic variety, but you get all that stiff woody goodness. A pair will only set you back £24.99 and that comes with four sets of spare earbuds, a carry case, two-prong aeroplane adaptor, and a cable clip. Plus, the wire enclosure is made of extra-durable braided nylon. That’s a pretty sweet deal.
I suppose they do look pretty fancy.
That they do, and each bud has a unique grain because, well, wood is like that. This means that you can wander around in the comforting knowledge that the thing you’ve stuffed in your ear is a unique snowflake among electronics.
Great, I wood like a pair.
No need to pine, just go to www.acornaudio.co.uk
Justin Mahboubian-Jones
Contributor