Headphones range from the cheap Walmart off-the-shelf units to professional grade thousand dollar units. We all know that the bottom of the barrel is unacceptable for general usage and the top of the top is generally out of our reach. Therefore, the mid-range price point is the best approach and typically offer some excellent sounds.
People tend to fall towards the popular option, even if it’s not the best. The feeling of being hip and cool overcomes our feelings towards having a better unit. This is the reason many people fall towards Apple and Beats Electronics products.
Finding a diamond in the rough may be tough, but it is possible and sometimes well worth the invested time.
Based in Germany, Beyerdynamic is an audio manufacturer who just recently introduced their mid-ranged product. A product that is aimed to capture the style and heart of people always on the go or perhaps those who want something different over the popular, but cheap red and white headset.
Placed under the Custom lineup, the Custom Street headphones are a lightweight, travel friendly headset that strives to look good, but offer some of that German engineering. Having the ability to be customized to your liking and being engineered and designed in Germany, can these new on-the-go headphones really be The Ideal Companion (Der ideale Begleiter)?
Welcome to my review of the Beyerdynamic Custom Street headphones. Throughout this review, I will be discussing the following topics: the design, comfort, performance, and my final thoughts. A special thank you to Beyerdynamic for providing these headphones.
Design
The Germans are known for their supreme engineering ability, but they should also receive an award in design and style as well.
Beyerdynamic’s image of the Custom Streets are to be a lightweight, travel anywhere headset that can offer excellent music reproduction, but they face a tough competitor with their white and red iconic style.
Offered in two colors, the Custom Streets come in a matte black and smooth white. Sent to me was the black variant and from an online imagery comparison of the two colors, I prefer the black due to its capability to match with any clothing style.
Durability of the product comes from the metal inlay located around the ear cups and the headband. Furthermore, the headset is mostly built out of a plastic frame which offers a feather weightiness of only 205 grams. Under a twist stress test, I was actually afraid of twisting the headband more than an inch.
Continuing with the design of the headset, their on-the-go functionality comes from their ability to fold. Both ear cups have a folding mechanism that allows them to fold into the top headband. Moreover, Beyerdynamic provides a hard vinyl case to carry them around.
If folding and putting them into a case doesn’t do it, both ear cups also rotate 90 degrees and resting the headband against your neck, you can lay the ear cups flat against your chest so that they don’t get in the way.
Interface options on the headset consists of not one, but two 3.5mm headphones jacks. My first impression was that you could choose which side you wanted the detachable headphone cable on and while that is true, it’s not the intention of two jacks. People always ask if they can listen in on your music or perhaps they want to watch a movie or video with you. If you’re in an area that requires headphones or very low volume, that can be difficult. With the Custom Street’s dual headphone jack, a friend can connect their headphones into the open jack and listen in on your experience. This makes for a new and enjoyable way to share music on one jack.
Next, the headphones also offer Beyerdynamic’s iconic and supreme bass adjustment sliders. Both ear cups contain a plastic slider on them and by selecting either position 1, 2, or 3, you can increase or decrease the bass performance. With just a quick adjustment of the slider, you can go from an integrated subwoofer to just a standard headset. My usage of this technology carried over from my personal favorite, the Beyerdynamic Custom One Pros and I find that maximum bass is the best for every application.
Being a part of the Custom lineup, the Custom Streets come with the ability to customize their look and style. Beyerdynamic branding is found on the top headband by default as well as on the swappable plates on the ear cups. Inside the packaging are 16 swappable style plates that can be screwed into the exterior side of the ear cups. You can either mix or match plates.
Finally, the 4.2 foot detachable 3.5mm cable is a rubberized cable and contains a microphone/button inlay. The microphone is used for phone calls while the multipurpose button can play, pause, or change songs. While both ends of the cable are 3.5mm jacks, only one side is designed to be put into the ear cup as it has the ability to be notched into place to prevent accidental disconnections.
Comfort
Around the ear cups are a leatherette foam padded material and the same goes for the minimalistic padding found on the top headband.
I’ve always been a fan of Beyerdynamic’s headphone padding, but the Custom Streets are slightly disappointing in my eyes. The comfort is there, I can wear them for a few hours, they don’t get hot, and they feel well, but it’s not the Beyerdynamic comfort level that I expect. I expect a superb memory foam pad and leather covers; perhaps I am pushing my expectations for this mid-ranged budget headset too far, but this German company should always reach that level of excellence just as they have done in the past.
The top headband padding is there and helps suppress the downwards force, but I feel like more padding would be ideal.
These ear cups are around the ear, ear cups and they do a good job with comfort levels here. There is enough room inside that I can fit my entire ear inside of them and create a completely closed seal around my ears.
In return for the perfect seal, noise leakage is set to a minimal with even 50% volume barely audible by somebody five feet away.
When placed around my neck, the headset lays flat and stays out of the way. I can easily work and type this review without any annoying objects in the way. When it’s time to put them away, I use the included carrying case which offers excellent protection for traveling and is even protective inside with its felt material.
Performance
Although the Custom Streets didn’t meet par for my comfort levels, Beyerdynamic engineers didn’t take a sick day when it came to designing the audio replication of this device.
As I said earlier, the Custom Street is the little brother to the Custom One Pros. Naturally, you may think it comes with little brother hardware, speakers that are less superior to the upper brand. This isn’t the case.
The frequency range of the headphones is between 20 Hz – 20,000 Hz and uses a nominal impedance of 38 ohms. While that isn’t beating the Custom One Pros, it comes in a close second and is a great achievement especially due to the smaller form factor.
I’ve spent the last two months using the Custom Street headphones and I have found that they sound very close to other headphones in their class, notably the Kingston HyperX Cloud 2 and Beats by Dre.
Listening to hip-hop, rock and roll, top 40, and YouTube videos, the Custom Streets excel in their music production, so much so that it sounds like you’re actually hearing it live.
Mid and high range is solid sounding, with the lows in the average rating. Bass production is superb and does better than all the headphones in this class. These headphones can hit a maximum SPL of 123 dB and anything after 50% is incredibly loud. If you turn it up to 100%, expect it to blast your ear drums.
In the end, performance of the Custom Streets were exceptionally good, with the sound and music production hitting better standards than the other two headsets it competed against. Everything from gaming to videos to music sounded well and would not disappoint you.
My Final Thoughts
Priced at $150, the headphones are a great match for anybody who is looking for a mid-ranged headset and is constantly on the go. Their portability and design allow you to travel lightly, but still remain hip and fashionable. Comfort levels may not be up to my standards, but they still feel tolerable when placed around the ears. A new padding material or slightly larger ear cups would have been better in my view. It’s the performance section that should really matter as these headphones sound great and play loud. For the price, they go unmatched and certainly push their competitors out of the way.
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3 Comments
Too much money for this level of tech.
Break down the cost, and where they’re made, and they’re $100 overpriced.
I would agree with you if you said that they should be $100 even. Then it would be a great deal.
Yeahh agree with Dt Bell . It should be lower than that .