14 DAY TRIAL // All speakers and headphones have some sort of fabric covering the drivers, leaving only earbuds as the exception to consumer audio output products. Betabrand decided it was high time someone used that same fabric to make clothes.
Maybe you're cold but still want to listen to music on your headphones while on the way to school or whichever other destination you have in mind. Maybe hoodies are just your style and you aren't comfortable with stuffing your headset beneath it.
Maybe you're a DJ at a disco where earbuds just don't cut it for mixing music. Or maybe you just aren't the kind of person who feels comfortable with them.
Whichever your reason may be, you may now crow with delight, for a new startup called Betabrand has introduced a hoodie that doesn't muffle sound at all if you place your on-ear or over-ear headphones over it instead of beneath.
One has to wonder why clothes made of speaker fabric weren't done before. Maybe there wasn't a sturdy enough version of it, or maybe no one got the idea. Perhaps some did, but never got anywhere because of poor or nonexistent advertising.
If that is the case, it is a pity, as the crowd-funding campaign seeking to supply the Audio Engineer's Hoodie has clearly shown that there is high customer interest. The Betabrand campaign would not have met its funding goal less than a day after posting if that hadn’t been the case.
Admittedly, the Audio Engineer's Hoodie isn't fully made from the porous material, but the side panels are, which is all that matters. A sound engineer named Nic Pope was the primary designer.
The hoodie is intended for people who make a living off composing music or playing it, but everyone else will have just as easy a time getting it. The campaign is open to everyone after all.
You can order one of the hoodies for $142.20 / €105, which is 10% less than the retail price will be later this year. There were early-bird offers with 20%, 25% and even 30% lower price, but they have all been claimed.
And yes, when placing an order, you can choose the hoodie size: X-small, small, medium, large, x-large. xx-large, and xxx-large. We do not know if this hoodie will open the floodgates for other audiophile-friendly garments, like caps and headbands. Probably not, since if it's just keeping the ears warm that you seek, circumaural headphones can do it just fine just by being there themselves.
