- Luxury brand Hermés unveils its first over-ear headphones
- Yours for the same price as 33 pairs of the Sony XM6
- Specs are still secret, but the design may offer clues
Luxury brand Hermès has announced a set of high-end wireless headphones, and as you might expect they’re going to cost a bit more than a pair made by 1More.
As WWD.com reports, the headphones will cost $15,000. And if you think that’s a lot of money, you’re not the target market. But they do sound intriguing, not least because of what the brand hasn’t announced.
Hermès’ $15K headphones: what we know – and what we don’t
This isn’t Hermès’ first audio product, although it’s the first pair of headphones its produced; the brand has previously made a jukebox, a boom box, and a cubic speaker.
The new headphones aren’t just brand engineering with Hermès sticking some dead cow on someone else’s earcups. They’re being developed by Hermès’ Ateliers Horizons workshop in Paris, which makes some of its most-wanted products, and that workshop is collaborating with unnamed manufacturing partners who it seems are taking care of the sound.
According to Axel de Beaufort, Ateliers Horizons’ creative director, “We need to understand the engineering of things. It doesn’t mean that we do the engineering, but we need to understand and we need to be able to push boundaries.”
Specs are currently secret but the grilles look rather like those of planar magnetic headphones, which have a more advanced speaker design than regular dynamic headphones, so it’s possible that the spec could be as high as the price. We do know that the headphones will be made for both wired and wireless use, and that they will deliver a tuned “Hermès sound”.
Planar options are rare among the best wireless headphones, but not unheard of – and having this much budget to play with in the production of the headphones would certainly help with the engineering challenges involved.
The headphones will feature hand-stitched cowhide leather and will come in Kelly bag-inspired colors including “naturel”, black, chocolate, “rouge H” and Prussian blue. Start saving now: they’ll launch this summer.
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