Product Details

Design

The SC1000 offers elegance and simplicity. Machined metal parts provide beauty and durability. The microphone housing doubles as a handle to assist in putting the earpieces in the ear. The cable exits naturally above or below the ear. The amplifier hangs comfortably around the neck for easy access to controls. Look good, feel good and enjoy the music!

The Sound

Recording engineers and artists spend a great deal of time dialing in the sound they want. Our goal was to deliver that sound to the listener. This means the headphones need to replicate the sound of the best studio monitors. We spent hours measuring, listening and comparing to monitors and high fidelity speakers to achieve this.

As portable players typically have very poor amplifiers and can significantly degrade the audio, the SC1000 also includes a high-performance power amplifier to maintain the highest possible sound quality. Refer to this technical note for more details: Technical Note 001

The Speaker

We use an in-ear style earpiece for the highest isolation and best acoustics. A single dynamic (moving coil) speaker provides an extremely wide, flat frequency response with very low distortion and great dynamics. Distortion problems with multiple driver systems and frequency response issues with balanced armature speakers were avoided.

The integrated power amplifier matches the speaker perfectly and isolates it from the poor amplifiers found in portable players. The result is the best sounding in-ear headphones ever produced!

The Ear Tips

We looked at three options here. Custom ear molds, deep insertion universal tips and shallow insertion universal tips. The shallow insertion tips were by far the most comfortable and when combined with the light pressure from the flexible stabilizer produced a great seal, incredible sound and extremely high isolation. The perfect balance of performance, ease of use and comfort!

The Flexible Stabilizer

Cone shaped ear tips can naturally work their way out of the ears and lose their seal. The flexible stabilizer pushes off of the back of the ear (under the antihelix) and holds light pressure on the tip keeping it in place.

Ambient Sound Control

Isolation from ambient noise is unsurpassed with in-ear headphones but sometimes you want to hear what’s going on around you. Adjustable high-fidelity microphones mounted in each earpiece allow you to add ambient sound in a natural way. Talk to your friends or listen for announcements, all without removing your headphones!

The ambient listening microphones are designed to be as close as possible to your natural hearing. The microphone ports face inwards and incorporate acoustic screens to reduce wind noise.

With the siding volume control on the side of the amplifier the microphone signals can be adjusted from zero to slightly louder than normal hearing.

If a very loud sound occurs in your environment, a compressor in each microphone channel will instantly reduce the volume to keep the sound at a safe level.

The Cable

Lightweight headphone cables frequently tangle and break. Some products use replaceable cables but the connectors often fail before the cable. Our goal was to find a cable that was slim, flexible and extremely strong. We found this cable at Mogami® Cable, one of the most respected cable manufacturers in the world. This cable is virtually unbreakable and eliminates the need for connectors. The sound quality is unsurpassed.

The Battery

Using a AAA primary battery gave us a number of advantages: many weeks of use, no need for a charger and when the battery goes dead a just pop in a fresh one. Space is provided in the carrying case for a spare.

Wearing the SC1000

The SC1000 has an in-line amplifier that needs to be supported and positioned so the Ambient Sound Control can be accessed. Wearing the amplifier around the neck provides a number of advantages. The weight of the amplifier is easily supported and does not pull on the user’s clothing. It can even be worn under the shirt if desired. The wires, whether they’re worn over the ears or under, meet out of the way at the back of your neck. When the earpieces are removed they hang naturally on the left and right of the user’s chest.

In certain cases, it may not be appropriate for the amplifier to be positioned in the center of the chest. For these situations we supply a uniquely designed clothing clip that allows for a number of alternate wearing options.