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Sony's XBA balanced armature in-ear headphone lineup headed to the US, we go ears-on
We just met with Sony at its New York City store on Madison Ave. in Midtown, and boy did it have some excellent news for in-ear headphone lovers. While sitting down in the PlayStation Lounge, we briefly demoed nearly every piece of its lineup of XBA balanced armature intra-aurals, which if you'll recall, were announced for parts of Asia back in September. While the 11-model lineup, ranging from standard buds to Bluetooth and noise-cancelling sets, is just beginning to hit those regions now, we've been told that folks in the US can expect them to arrive on American shores next year, with official availability details due at CES. The units we checked out are voiced and finished as those set to hit production, but according to Sony, some of the cabling now in place will change before the stateside release. Interested audiophiles and music lovers can click on past the break for the full details, as well as our initial -- and brief -- impressions. %Gallery-141949%
Sony releases XBA balanced armature headphones, eleven times over
This dizzying array might seem like overkill, but Sony's premium "Experience Balanced Armature" (XBA) 'phones are carefully targeted at different price points and types of listener. You've got the entry-level XBA-1 containing a single full-range driver. Add a woofer for bigger bass and you get the XBA-2. The XBA-3 also squeezes in a tweeter for high-freq perkiness, while the XBA-4 rounds it all off with a super woofer. Each pair also has a smartphone twin with inline controls, denoted by the iP suffix. Finally, there's a trio of single-driver specialists: the noise-cancelling XBA-NC85D, the sporty XBA-S65 with basic waterproofing for sweat and rain, plus the Bluetooth XBA-BT75. It's unclear when these will hit our hemisphere, but we're looking at a November release in Hong Kong and Taiwan with prices ranging from 3,000 to 14,000TWD ($100 to $475) depending on the model. Need more detail? We have product pics and info slides below courtesy of our bros at Engadget Chinese. %Gallery-134197% %Gallery-134196%
Turtle Beach Xbox Chat Adapter gets the hands-on treatment, admirably untethers talkative gamers
Back at E3, Turtle Beach unveiled its wire-ridding Xbox 360 Bluetooth Chat Adapter bundled with its XP500 headset (a re-badged PX5), but there were no accounts of how the dongle performed. That's now changed thanks to Joystiq, who've gotten their lucky mitts on one of ten prototypes. Spoiler: they're really enjoying the little guy. Voice quality was reported as being "excellent" and the device easily paired with headsets. There's no annoying charging cable required either as the XBA juices off the controller, but only time will tell how that impacts battery life. The big quirk critics found was that its single button, which operates as a muting / pairing and on / off switch, was oft-engaged accidentally -- obviously not ideal for newb trash-talking. Sure, it's not totally seamless like Tritton's official digs, but Xbox aficionados should certainly be stoked about soon having options to ditch those chat cables for good.
