Urbanista Copenhagen Headphones Review

Good looking, fashion-orientated headphones seem to have flooded the market over the past 2 years. Gone now are the days of the black plastic, over-sized cans and in their place have come smaller yet equally sound rich options. It makes for a somewhat daunting task deciding on a pair of headphones then, however Urbanista’s Copenhagen headphones which we covered not long back are aimed for the urban lifestyle with a few solid selling points. But what are these selling points? Well, as usual, read on.

What’s in the box?

The box for the Copenhagen’s is of a decent quality with the sleeve featuring an image of the product, the product name on each side and towards the back some marketing fluff. Its actually quite amusing reading this print, because Urbanista really big their headphones up with “As with all Urbanista headphones, the materials and colors are treated like fashion and jewellery design” being one such example.

Once you take the sleeve off you’ll find a silver colored side-door box which uses magnets to seal shut with two logo’s on it. In the box, you get a small booklet  featuring the Urbanista headphone collection, an Urbanista VIP member card to register your product (and make you feel special), a hard carry case which resembles a glasses case for your headphones and of course, the main product, the Copenhagen’s.

Product Design

The main selling point to these headphones and the feature being pushed as to earn your cash is the design of the Copenhagen’s, and it’s easy to see why. Quite simply, these headphones are great to look at. They’re made up from brushed steel and they fold away for easy transportation. At first glance then Urbanista has almost certainly thought about what their market wants which is a durable, easy to transport great looking pair of headphones. Construction wise, the headphones are as sound as you get with the steel frame making up the whole headphones enabling them to be, quite frankly, epically solid whilst flexible at the same time.

The Urbanista Copenhagens are available in 5 different colours; Pink Panther, Fluffy Cloud (white), Red Snapper, Crispy Apple and what we have for review, regular good old brushed steel. Of the colour schemes available, we think Red Snapper is our personal favourite, however the brushed steel unit we have looks pretty neat all the same.

Whilst the aesthetics of the Copenhagen’s are good, there are a few niggles I have. First of all is adjusting them to suit your head so the headphones go over your ears. The process is simple; you put the headphones over your head, and just pull them down from the metallic band until they fit. The problem is though that the headphones catch hair and genuinely cause discomfort sometimes, however those of you with a 2 at the sides and 3 at the top, or shorter, will be fine (as will hat wearers). Staying on the topic of the band, and there is another problem with it. In an attempt to make sure it doesn’t dig in to your skull, Urbanista has stuck two foam pads to the underside of it so it doesn’t rub against the head – two foam pads, in the case of the Copenhagen’s, simply isn’t enough. I can honestly bout for the fact that these headphones become uncomfortable after 15 minutes of use if you aren’t wearing a hat. We think this is a by-product of the amount of flexibility the steel frame gives, as it hugs the head really rather too tight.

The Urbanista Copenhagen’s weigh 117 g without their cable and from fork to plug, the cable length is 75cm. This is a decent length for the commuter and also for home usage, allowing oneself to sit on the sofa and listen Youtube clips from the TV sitting a decent distance away. Also of note is that these headphones do feature a microphone making them good for use with a smartphone with the ability for yourself to take calls. In tests, the microphone worked fine and the inclusion of a supplied 3.5 mm plug adapter is handy.

Sound quality

Unlike the aesthetic design of these headphones, and the obvious thought that went in to them materials wise, the same can not be said for sound quality. On the official website for this product, you get a sensitivity of 118 dB±3 dB SPL @ 1 KHz and 40mm speakers to play with, but to jump straight in with the verdict on sound quality; disappointment would be an understatement, and in cases the Copenhagen’s we’re a genuine insult to the music I was listening to.

Essentially, these headphones just sound incredibly weak, cheap and tinny. Under any music genre; acoustic, classic rock, instrumental, classical, metal, dubstep were all tested these headphones didn’t exactly glow under any circumstance. The only bass they have drains out all mid and low range, if a song has no bass the mid and low range drains itself out and humorously, whilst listening to Youtube clips and catching up on programmes via BBC iPlayer I found myself unplugging them due to them just not producing a natural in any way sound, and the fact they became uncomfortable (read design, above). Under low volume, the headphones perform adequately as most headphones do, but crank that volume up to 50% or higher and you’ll instantly want to take them off your head.

After the disappointing experiences above, I plugged these headphones in to my Cowon player and played Labrinth – Earthquake, Dire Straits – Expresso Love and Lil Wayne – La La La under FLAC format, and yet again the headphones provided utter shocking quality compared to our V-Moda Crossfade LP’s and Dr. Dre Beats, two headphones which audio purists would deem un-natural in their own right.

This lack-luster sound quality may be down to a few factors then; mainly, I don’t think the internals of these headphones are top notch but rather only the external materials are, and secondly the design of the ear cups neither go in your ear or cover them at all with their square design. Merge those two factors together and you just get an unnatural and sometimes unbearable noise throughout music playback and also internet media playback, which is so unfortunate because I wanted these headphones to perform well. If you have an expensive MP3 player I recommend you steer clear from these headphones as they won’t justify your initial premium.

Pricing

The Urbanista Copenhagen headphones have a RRP of £79.99, which to me is around £19.99 too much. If these retailed at around £60, then they might be able to justify themselves next to Denon AH-D1100 Advanced Over-Ear Headphones which you can grab for around £76 online, and offer superior sound quality in every sense.

Verdict

The Urbanista Copenhagen’s confuse me. First of all is their price; for £79.99 you expect adequate sound quality, however they simply don’t produce it. For £79.99 you expect headphones which are comfortable for extended use, but they simply don’t offer it. At the end of the day then, the RRP is being justified to me purely based on the headphones design, which whilst nice (and also not like jewellery) wouldn’t sway me towards them over Denon’s plastic and possibly less durable offerings.

Overall, then, if you like your music to sound good then these headphones are not for you. If you are buying a pair of headphones based on design, and for some reason not sound quality, then these headphones will fit you nicely if you can put up with them catching your hair and pulling it. Just make sure you wear a hat, or prepare for a soar head.

Rating: (5/10)