These custom headphones promise mind-blowing bass, as long as you don't mind looking like a human dumbbell

Date:
Wed, 24 Jul 2024 11:42:50 +0000

Description:
Ol' Thumpy will make music sound better, but it does come with a teeny tiny design compromise.

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You've got to love a set of headphones called Ol' Thumpy. They're the latest brainchild of Californian drummer, headphone creator, Distrokid founder and writer Philip Kaplan, aka Pud; they look absolutely ridiculous; and they're really rather clever.

Spotted by our friends over at PC Gamer , if you don't mind looking like a cartoon character who's been whacked with a dumbbell, Ol' Thumpy should deliver the most incredible bass you've ever experienced.

That's because those spheres include what's called a Helmholtz resonator, which you'll sometimes find in bass reflex speaker cabinets: it vibrates at a specific frequency to produce a specific sound, in this case a 60Hz bass
note. It's based on the same principle that produces a tone when you blow
into the neck of a bottle, or that produces the notes when you play an ocarina.

Ol' Thumpy isn't the only interesting design that Pud has created. If you've been looking for headphones shaped like cephalopods or giant devil horns, Kaplan's pud.com is the place for those too. Nevermind the earbuds: we've got ear Puds

Pud's Small Batch Headphones is where you'll find Ol' Thumpy alongside other distinctive models such as the devil-horned Blasphemy, the four-earpad Polycule for listening with friends, and the Pinnus "invisible" headphones
(it may not shock you to learn that these are, in fact, somewhat visible).

They're all real products, and you'll find Pud announcing them on Reddit
where he discusses the designs with headphone heads, and they're far from being dumb novelties: for example, he explains how he modelled his
Cephalopods on the famous Nautilus speaker from Bowers & Wilkins, and the devil horns are filled with wool to reduce unwanted sound waves.

I'll be honest: I'd never wear a pair of Pud's headphones in public, and probably not in private either. The Nautilus-inspired Cephalopods give me the ick. But I absolutely love them all the same: they're clearly a labor of
love, and while they look completely bizarre there's method in their madness and that goes double for Ol' Thumpy.

As the name suggests, Pud's Small Batch Headphones aren't mass-produced: Pud makes each of them by hand. You can sign up to be notified when each of his designs becomes available, and to be notified of whatever
beautiful/terrifying madness he comes up with next. You might also like These wild-looking open-ear headphones have some even cooler anti-leakage sound
tech Dysons new OnTrac headphones mix things up with a customizable design Beats' Minecraft special edition Solo 4 headphones promise block-rocking beats



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/audio/headphones/these-custom-headphones-promise-min d-blowing-bass-as-long-as-you-dont-mind-looking-like-a-human-dumbbell


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