"With these, I can physically feel my ears moving", says the creator of Ol' Thumpy, a set of headphones with twin Helmholtz resonators attached.
Ol' Thumpy is a new headphone design from Philip at Pud's Small Batch Headphones. You might have noticed the two spheres protruding out from each driver—an almost imperceptible solution for improving the bass response on a set of cans.
"You know that thing when you blow into a Coke bottle and it goes 'ooo'. That's a Helmholtz resonator. It's tuned to a certain frequency. You have a cavity, a neck, and a throat."
"This is a Helmholtz resonator, tuned to 60 Hz," Philip says, indicating towards one of the large protrusions on his head, "which is very deep base tone."
The inclusion of twin Helmholtz resonators on this pair of headphones makes for a beefy bass response unmatched by traditional designs. That means that true bass heads need look no further than Ol' Thumpy for their next headphone upgrade—I truly believe some audiophiles would go as far as to wear these regularly, too.
You can actually buy yourself some headphones from Pud's Small Batch Headphones. True to the name, Philip makes around 20-50 of each design and puts the up for sale on his website.
I asked Philip about another pair of headphones originally, the Polycule, which caught my attention for a reason we'll come to very shortly, and he told me that each headphone takes around a week to make.
The Polycule is a set of headphones with four earpads so "a friend can listen". Or, in other words, headphones capable of creating a sort of aural human centipede situation. Grim, but if you think of it instead as hardware that allows for the sharing of music between people, between souls, it becomes slightly less unpleasant a thought. It's rather beautiful, actually.
What's not so pretty is the Pinnus: a pair of "invisible headphones" with an unfortunate name and an even more unfortunate faux-skin colourway. Though I know of a few people who would wear another of Pud's excellent creations, the Blasphemy, which comes with a "wool-filled transmission line to dissipate backwaves" (read: devil horns).
There are some in the shape of Cephalopods for all the big mollusc fans out there.
That's what I love about Pud's creations. They're not stupid designs. They might look ridiculous but they get something done. They're well-designed, even. Just check out one of the threads over on Reddit for more details for each pair.
Would I walk around in Ol' Thumpy? Hell no. But would I take a listen? You're damn right I would. Get me an iPod with some drum and bass loaded onto it and I'm lounging in Ol' Thumpy for at least an hour.
