Polk Audio’s speakers are hands-down some of our favourites, so we’re pretty curious what the company’s new UltraFocus 8000 noise-cancelling headphones will sound like. If they can cram some of that goodness into a portable package? Aural heaven.
The UltraFocus 8000s will compete with the Beats by Dres and Boses of the world in both pricing and, presumably, quality. The on-ear, active noise-cancelling headphones have 40mm drivers and Apple-ready on-ear controls that allow you to play, skip tracks and activate the “push-to-hear” feature — so you can run around doing errands without fumbling around too much every time you need to talk to someone. If on-ear headphones aren’t your style, the Polk UltraFocus 6000s are active noise-cancelling in-ear headphones with the same controls on an in-line remote. Both headphones will hit the streets in March, with 8000s retailing for $US350 and the 6000s $US150.
Polk’s first foray away from your bookshelf and onto your ears came in the form of sports headphones. Impressive, if slightly niche for most of us nerds. Will these more mainstream models be as brilliantly designed as Polk speakers? We’ll have to try them out at CES next week to find out. [Polk Audio]
