I’m always sceptical about unknown brands that turn up in the office, especially if they’re named in some kind of gimmicky fashion that looks to appeal to a youngsters who want to own the latest craze on the playground. We’re talking here about the Devil Horn Headphones from audio company Emie, who specialise in bringing weird and wonderful Hi-Fi and speaker designs to our homes. We recently looked at the Emie Radio Bluetooth speaker so had some idea of what to expect. But boy, were we wrong.
The Devil Horn headphones come in a metal tin, with a soft sponge padding inside. In the tin you can find instructions, some advertisements and the headphones themselves, which are wrapped up inside a plastic ball type case. It looks like a round devil’s face with the point of the headphones sticking out the top. Nicely presented I must say, but that was the part that I found a little gimmicky.
They come in two different colours, red and blue and have a shiny metallic finish. What surprised me was once they were out of the plastic ball case they were very heavy for a set of in-ear headphones. I was curious. Design wise they fit inside your ears very comfortably, using the horn segment to rest on my lower earlobe while the bud was inside. On the cable you can find a microphone to use for hands-free phone calls as well as a strap to keep the cables neat without tangling.
The Emie website advertises the headphones to have superior bass, and they’ve got that down to a tee. There were times I had to lower my bass equaliser so it didn’t overpower quieter tracks. One thing though, they never distorted at high volumes. On your typical heavy bass Dubstep or EDM, these Devil Horn headphones are fantastic. For softer tracks the bass is somewhat overpowering but if you have the facility to isolate the bass and turn it down, then that will work too.
Once I found a perfect level for the bass, the mids and highs sounded very crisp and sharp. I was especially impressed with the noise isolation from the outside world. I used these during my commute to work on the Underground Tube and heard very minimal noise from the clattering of the train. When music was playing nothing could be heard outside of the headphones.
For £42.99, these in-ear headphones are an absolute bargain. Yes they’re packaged rather gimmicky, but that shouldn’t turn you away from the audio quality the Emie Devil Horns can produce. You can find more information directly from Emie on their website.
