Core77

BigR Audio's Wooden Headphones Raise Questions, Though Their Packaging Does Not

By Rain Noe - April 16, 2012

in Materials | Object Culture

You've all heard the trope "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" California-based BigR Audio's product twist on this is to ensure particular trees do make a sound, by making headphones out of them.

These foldable headphones from BigR have "cans" made of rosewood, which according to them has beneficial sound-dampening and acoustic properties conducive to music listening.

The company brands itself as environmentally conscious; but curiously, they offer no details of how their rosewood is harvested, while they do go into detail about their sustainable bamboo packaging, below. The idea behind the packaging is both to make it so nice that consumers won't throw it away, and to use fast-growing materials to make it out of.

Sustainability. The raw materials used to make these boxes grow faster than we consume them, which means we'll never run out. Highly renewable bamboo achieves harvestable maturity in just 5 years. Comparable wood products can take more than 60 years.

Reusability. If you've ever stored anything in an old shoe box, you've already got the idea. There's no need to dispose of a beautiful, high-quality, highly functional piece of storage dÃ©cor just because the gift that came in the box has been unwrapped.

We applaud the thinking of the latter object, but would like to see more details on the raw materials for the former.

o

Favorite This
Q
2

Comment

Comments

Energy

12 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

So what processes go into making that bamboo box, and how much energy do they consume compared to a cardboard box? How much cost that the box add to retail price? If I wanted a box, I would get a box. Not a pair of headphones that happened to come with a box I didn't need. The box would just be used to store some other crap I don't need. Please end this trend of making packaging more valuable than the product just to say it's sustainable.
!Report as spam
Rafael Morgan

12 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Unfortunately, the biggest part of exotic woods (in this case, rosewood) is illegally extracted from developing countries.

If they say that the wood they are using comes with a sustainability certificate, it is a big plus for them. If they do not say anything, well, it is always very suspicious.

Anyway, I can not see a solid reason for using such kind of woods these days besides aesthetics since we have so many modern materials with amazing acoustic characteristics.

Also, each kind of wood also adds "color" to the sound, which is great for music instruments, but not so great if you want to listen to music with your high-end headphones, which are supposed to give you the most accurate experience relative to the original studio recording.
!Report as spam