For those short on time, the TL;DR of this review is that I tried to write this while using the Heavys, and I just couldn’t. You see, headbanging and writing don’t quite work together for some strange reason. If you like heavy music, want to hear the details you haven’t heard before and have fun doing it, then Heavy’s headphones are for you. While not being overly analytical in their sound, being tuned for heavy music allows your music to shine in ways never before.
If you’re looking for more than that, then let’s proceed…
How I Came to Own Heavys
On Monday, March 7th, in the two thousandth and twenty second year of our Lord, I backed my first ever Kickstarter. You see, I had been getting adverts for this new brand of headphones and considering myself a bit of an audiophile with a perchance for audio equipment and tech, I was intrigued by their tagline of “Headphones Engineered For Heavy Metal”.
Now, I am a metalhead. And I like headphones. I am their target market! How Instagram knew to surface said adverts my way is beyond me, but let’s not worry about how much information Facebook keeps on us, and move right on to the exciting part. We’ll save the technological dread for another post.
The Kickstarter, apart from advertising the headphones, promised a discount for backers. Metal, headphones and saving money – now you know me too well, Mr Instagram. After about a week of these ads on my feed, watching a few 30 second clips from people testing them, and feeling like my Sony XM3’s were missing something I never knew they were until now, I pulled the trigger. $169 USD parted from my hands to Indiegogo and into the hands of Heavys Inc.
And then patiently I waited. Days turned to weeks, weeks into months, and months into a year and a half. I believed in the project and at no point was worried I had given money to the makers of Ant Simulator. After all, when trying to launch something new, there are many unforeseen obstacles to surmount. When trying to launch a new physical product, I can only assume those obstacles increase in difficulty exponentially. The one thing that helped quell my fears was the transparent communications that Heavy’s Inc sent out month after month. “Yes, making headphones is hard” they said, “now imagine making headphones specifically for the most intricate and potentially complex music on the planet. And keeping it at the set price point too!” I did not envy them one bit.
And so it came to pass that five Hundred and fifty-three days later, Heavys Headphones – the H1H model – entered my life. Since then, I have been finding any excuse to listen to music. After a few days of using them, I let Simone try them out. Now being a country girl herself, I did not expect anything beyond “those are cool”, but after listening to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody Simone’s review stands at “I heard things I’ve never heard before”. One hundred and sixty-nine US dollars just passed the Wife Acceptance Test.
Unboxing
Now, on to the details! Unboxing the headphones is par for the course. You get a nice certificate saying how awesome you are being a backer, a very well-designed instruction manual, a short and not every impressive USB-C to USB-C cable and an ad telling me to record a video for a chance to win… something? My only gripe is that if it was not for the sturdy carboard shipping box, the Heavys box would not have survived as the actual packaging is quite thin. But who cares about packaging anyways! Removing a thin foam sliver, the headphones lay underneath. And when I call them behemoths, these things are tanks!
Coming in at over 300 grams, you can feel the weight in the hand and on the head, but the extra-large earcups and padded band do a lot to make it feel not as weighty. They rightfully reduce the Sony XM3’s to feeling like a child’s toy in every aspect.
Controls
Heavy’s boast wonderfully clicky physical controls. Begone swipe nonsense and give me back the tactile buttons that are easy to use when you can’t see them. In other news, get off my lawn all you fancy gesture-controlled headphones that have me pausing the song when I want to increase volume and jumping to the next song when I try to activate Siri. Real, tactile buttons! And buttons for everything – from turning Bluetooth on or off, to volume knob that can increase the volume 0.7 steps instead of a full step up.
Oh, how I love this choice, and it’s made using them super easy once you get your head around the button placements. More of this in our headphones, please! And of course, having Derrick Green (Sepultura fame) narrate the controls is even better. No girly anime voice here telling you that noise canceling is turned on. No! Instead, we have “HELLBLOCKER ACTIVATED”. And I love it, as cheesy as it is.
Now that we have the packaging, the controls, and a bunch of photos out of the way, let us talk about what really matters – the sound. Because that is what we’re really hear for.
Get it?
Get it?
Because we’re talking about sound.
I am sure you got it.
Sound
Let me begin by saying I have mixed use case of USB-C and Bluetooth listening, only because the audio-in jack to the headphones is 2.5mm, and not your standard 3.5mm. I would like someone from Heavy’s to let me know why they made this choice, even though it doesn’t affect me so much. I got these because of USB-C audio in!
Firstly, Bluetooth sounds fantastic. Seriously, you’ll not be missing anything by using Bluetooth. I know I just made a few audiophiles throw up in their mouth a bit, but hey – we’re in an age of streaming media and Bluetooth audio, so pipe down. Bluetooth comes with the caveat that you can’t go full lossless on Apple Music, so keep that in mind. USB-C in allows you to, should you be able to stomach the data usage while out and about.
After a few weeks, I think I have listened to all my hearted (❤️) music on Apple Music. I think. Don’t quote me on that. And wow! These headphones have made music listening fun again and right back in the mosh pit of all my favourite bands. But for clarities sake, let’s go over some standout tracks. Machine Head‘s latest offering Of Kingdom and Crown (which I called the release of the decade) is a joy to listen to. Eluvietie‘s Salania absolutely soars as it takes you through some of the best folk metal ever created while Make Them Suffer‘s mix of dirty and clean vocals really stand out amongst the punishing overtones. From classical overtones to slap bass, everything I have thrown at these has sounded even better than I could imagine.
There is one thing to keep in mind though – these are not studio monitors. That means they do not have a flat EQ, and they are tuned pretty aggressively to bring the best out of this type of music. The best way I can describe their sound signature is that this is how the bands imagine their music sounding.
Wrap Up
These are the definitive headphones for metalheads looking to have a really fun time listening to music. And they really should have a warning on the box “Do not attempt to be productive while wearing Heavy’s.” You see, I have tried to write this review about three times now, each time while using said Heavy’s. And I just couldn’t. The sound presence of the headphones would rip my focus away from the typing and right into the music.
These headphones command your attention.
And if you’re a heavy music listener, then that should be music to your ears.
If you’re wondering what other songs I tried the Heavy’s out with, the two playlists below should give you an idea.
