After the success of Beats by Dr Dre, everyone is getting into the headphones game. And that includes car companies. Ferrari joins the long list of celebrities and brands to release a set of branded headphones, partnering with Logic3 to bring out two headphone lines all based on its popular cars. The Scuderia R200 Headphones is one of them – but are they any good? And are they worth the $349 asking price?
Terence Huynh writes.
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Score:
7.0 / 10
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The Good:
Design and comfortable; choice of cables (including one supporting Android and one for iOS)
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The Bad:
Sound quality below expectation; headphone price is expensive
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Bottom Line:
Pretty average headphones for a premium price.
Design and Comfort
As you can obviously tell, the Scuderia R200 Headphones (from here on, the R200) has been designed to match the car of the same name. Incorporating the distinctive black and red colour scheme (there is also a white version) and the traditional grille on the earpads, the design does look good and while there is Ferrari branding, it is very subtle and does not dominate the entire design. You have the badge on both earpads, and the words “Scuderia Ferrari” etched on top.
The headphones are pretty comfortable on the ears. The lightweight design and the padding won’t cause an issue when worn all day. And in terms of fitting inside a bag, they don’t take up much space since you can the ear cups can be folded back. The headphones have a mixture of metallic and plastic elements.
Given the price tag, I was slightly disappointed by the plastic because it has some weakness (though not enough to be major concern). It’s probably because of it being lightweight that there isn’t more density in the plastic.
Accessories
The headphones do come with a carrying case that has a carbon fibre texture. Inside that case, you’ll see three cables. These three cables all do basically the same thing – connect the headphones (there is a line-in jack at the bottom of the left earcup) to your media player. The main difference is the remote control. One has no remote control, another has a 1-button control with microphone for Android and other phones; and the last one has the 3-button remote control with microphone for iOS devices.
Also included is a 6.35-mm adapter so you can connect this to your home entertainment system – though the cables are probably not long enough; and an aeroplane adapter so you can use this while watching a movie on their inflight entertainment system.
Sound Quality
But the all important thing is the sound quality. You’re paying $349 for these headphones and you expect pretty good sound quality.
What these produce are decent, but not outstanding as you would expect for a pricetag. Bass could be improved a little bit. But essentially, these are average headphones – and you can find something cheaper and produce better sound quality.
Conclusions
These headphones, while having brilliant design (of course, with some slight flaws), are more targeted towards the die-hard Ferrari enthusiast – which I am not one of those people. The price isn’t shocking, however. It simply follows the trend of other branded headphones – most of the ‘premium’ price comes from the brand itself.
If you’re looking for good sounding headphones, then you might want to shop around.