Jul 302013
V-MODA Crossfade LP Over-Ear Noise-Isolating Metal Headphone (Gunmetal Black)
- 50mm dual-diaphragm patented drivers provide deep vibrant bass, organic mid-range, and high-end clarity
- Memory foam ear cushions reduce ambient noise and enable a low bass response
- Lightweight metal construction lets you listen to your favorite music comfortably for hours
- Steel frame, flexible memory headband, and detachable Kevlar-reinforced cables for serious durability
- Includes hard exoskeleton carry case, 69-inch Kevlar-reinforced audio cable, remote/mic cable for compatible devices
V-MODA Crossfade LP headphones are the result of over four years of research and development collaborating with some of the worlds top artists, products and DJs. The revolutionary metal design, patent pending 50mmm Multimodal HD drives, premium materials and ultimate ergonomic comfort create the most sophisticated headphone on the market. Our award winning sound and signature bass make the Crossfade LP the best headphone for listening to all music genres from the street to the stage.
List Price: $ 199.99
Price: $ 99.99
May be Lifestyle Headphone – but they deliver outstanding audio,
I haven’t removed these headphones since they arrived three days ago. These are the most comfortable best sounding headphones I have ever put over or in my ears. Who would know that V-Moda would package Jimi Hendrix in the box and he would visit my house.
Looks can be deceiving; these are advertised as ‘lifestyle’ headphones. Oh by lifestyle, cool DJ’s should wear these and super models will magically appear, or if you are female wearing them, super models will appear all handsome and unshaven. No normal person should ever put them on, and they will likely sound like garbage because all the money was put in the fancy marketing. Looks couldn’t be more wrong.
These headphones are butter. They have a wonderful clear solid bass without ever being thumpy or over stressed pushing the low frequencies. The midrange is blended beautifully, voices are clear and precise. The only complaint is a slight closing up of the highs. Instead of that perfect high frequency edge, they sound slightly stressed at too much high frequency. That is not to say these are low rider car thumping bass heavy headphones, no quite the opposite, they are very well balance with a solid warm bass where lyrics are easy to understand.
The imaging in these headphones is exactly like listening to incredibly high end stereo floor standing speakers. I could very precisely hear the location of instruments whenever the recordings had that information. The piano was over here to the left, the drums centered in the back of my head, the guitar over here, and the vocals from this location…it was all there. Sometimes a soundstage that is too precise can be uncomfortable, my eyes dart all over looking for the instruments. That didn’t happen with these headphones, they were just that good.
My frame of reference is Shure E3c’s (in ear monitorsShure E3c Sound Isolating Earphones), Bowers and Wilkins P5 (over ear headphones Bowers & Wilkins P5 Mobile HiFi Stereo Headphones), and a just shy of audiophile home theater. There is no reason in the world to compare these to lesser ear buds. The Shure E3c’s are very bright, I’ve had them for four or five years now. But they lack bass in a major way. The B&W P5′s are very accurate, almost to a fault. The ear cup is not as comfortable as these V-Moda’s. The bass doesn’t dig nearly as deep in the P5, but they have a better high end. In a way, the B&W’s are like BMW’s versus V-Moda’s that are like Mercedes. BMW is all about precise handling and making the driver happy; Mercedes is about the comfort of everyone in the car with maybe a little less precision in the handling department. Guess what, they are both outstanding cars and incredible to drive, they just have slightly different personalities.
I did an odd little test for DJ’s looking at these headphones. My son plays guitar, so I pulled out the sound meter and did a little audio test – how well would I be able to hear the music in the headphones over his playing. At 90db (that’s pretty darn loud) I could hear the music in the headphones very well. It was clear there was music going on around me, and I couldn’t hear all the nuances of the music, but the music in the headphones was clear. At 100db (that’s very loud) I had to turn up my music a bit more, and could still make out the songs, and hear the lyrics. We stopped at 100db. Airplane noise will not be a problem.
These are efficient headphones. They can play very loud. A setting of loud volume with iPod buds, or the P5′s or the Shures is almost ear shattering with the V-Moda’s. A trick some listeners use is to crank up the volume and wear them around your neck, the sound is outstanding like that. Almost every headphone starts to interfere with itself at high volumes, not the V-Moda’s. Bass remains clear and clean. Low volume is amazing with these. Headphones tend to work well loud and not quite or vice versa, these break the mould.
I had to break these headphones in. Out of the box they were horribly dull. Actually they sounded pretty bad that first day. So overnight I ran iTunes through these at full volume. The next morning they had loosened up and were just wonderful. I might guess that those rolled off highs might just clear up over time.
You might also imagine that these headphones are specialized for electronic house music. Well that would also be a mistake. I’ve pushed them around with folk, jazz, blues, and rock with great results. I haven’t really tried much classical music. Somehow I don’t think the classical music lover will be drawn to these headphones – they will be looking more in the Grado and high end Sennheiser territory . Movies, these headphones are good. In ear monitors might just work a bit better for video, watching a small screen the sound is probably…
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Caution – Has a serious design flaw,
I strongly urge anyone considering these headphones to go see them in person first.(like at the apple store)
I got these headphones in August after a coworker recommended them. He got his off Amazon and I got mine from the Apple store.
The speaker drivers themselves are great. Good balance of bass and treble across a wide range of music. The Crossfades seem well constructed and light. I use them only at work for about 4hrs a day and was happy for about a month. They stay on my desk when not in use and have never left the office
Unfortunately after a month I noticed the the inner plastic band where the metal adjustment bar that connects the phones to the padding the goes over your head had completely cracked on both sides of the headphones. If you look at the pictures Amazon provides, look at the 6th picture(for the gunmetal version – [...]). The cracks appeared right above the crossfade logo where the 2 screws secure the plastic housing on both sides of headphones(tops of the V). The plastic wasn’t just cracked on one screw on each side, it was crack on all 4 screws. This leads me to believe that they had some over-tightening problem when putting in the screws during manufacturing. A day after I discovered the crack, one of the plastic cracked fragments actually fell off the headphones, making it impossible for the headphones to keep tension on the metal adjustment bar.
I was sad to see this issue, given I had just dropped $250 on these headphones a month earlier. So I went and had a look at my co-workers set. SAME exact problem, cracks along the plastic on both sides of the headphones in the same 4 places where the screw look to have been over-tightened. The plastic had not fallen off on his yet, but he was equally pissed off at the quality of manufacturing.
Seriously, the rest of the headphone is well constructed of metal and solid plastic…. but the one location that would get the most stress has the cheapest made component??!?!? I don’t have a particularly wide head, and I’ve DJ’d for years and know how to take care of expensive headphones. What a shame that an otherwise great sounding set of headphones could be wrecked by a defective 50cent plastic part.
Thankfully the Apple store allowed me to return the headphones beyond the 14day regular policy. We went over to the iPod demo section in the store where they had 4 crossfades out for display to use with the iPod/iphones, and guess what!!! 3 of the 4 had the same exact issue.
I think these headphones are so new that this problem will start to become more prevalent in the next few months for folks who bought them early on. I don’t think this is a hard issue to fix with a redesign of that particular part (using metal). However it’s probably going to require folks to send them back to the manufacturer.
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Nov 26, 2012 6:20:54 AM PST
THIS IS PETE WEB PR AGENCY FYI http://www.webbpr.com/expertise.html you can GUESS who they represent:
CA±±O FUGGAZI
Sometimes you want your story splashed across the front page or leading the nightly news; other times you hope your story doesn’t even show up in the briefs of the daily newspaper. You may want to encourage bloggers to talk about your product, or you may want to find the most cost-effective way to reach an extremely targeted business audience. It might be important to host a community meeting to tell neighbors about your project vision, or you may need a community education campaign to actually change public behaviors.
Whatever it is, Webb PR will recognize your needs, because we listen. And in a crisis, we’re calm, collected and realistic. With 20 years under our belt, we’ve most likely been in a similar place before with another client. Nothing scares us. You tell us what your challenges are. We help you establish your communications goals, quickly get you organized, and produce what you need to sprint past expectations and report the measurable results.
THIS IS V-MODA
MILITARY-LEVEL DURABILITY
Crossfade LP has been out for 3+ years and is now among the top-ranked headphones out of 20,000+ headphones on Amazon primarily because of our FANATICAL COMMITMENT TO QUALITY. We take this extremely seriously as professionals, consumers and DJS depend on our products to work for years. We consider LP/LP2 the “workhorse” of the headphone industry that sets the standards in quality.
As you can see from the reviews, only a FEW people have had this problem out of the 100k+ units sold – it was very isolated in the first production run of 2,000 units. We fully back Crossfade LP with a 1-year warranty and a IMMORTAL LIFETIME 50% OFF PROGRAM. Rest assured, our six-star support team is there to back you up in the event you need anything (even recommending a local Pizza joint).
V-WING EXPLANATION
Even though this only happened to a handful of people, I will share the “C.A.R.”, or Corrective Action Report we did to improve reliability that now passes Military, MIL-STD-810g, test standards. On the first few units, some screws were “torqued” too tight. We implemented controls to make sure this does not happen and also changed the material to be even stronger. The reason a few at Apple store had the crack was because they are so tough that they were on display for MANY MONTHS vs most competitor plastic headbands that crack quickly and are replaced every day/week. In fact, we wanted to change the colors of the display models when they eventually broke, but most never did! Again, they were the first units before the improvements in torque/materials.
You can buy in confidence that the Crossfade LP will withstand much more abuse than the average headphones. Many DJs, including AVICII, EDX, Funkagenda, Norman Doray, Morgan Page and Kim Fai have used a single pair for years, 5+ nights a week (some up to 1000 gigs). My brother and co-founder of V-MODA is an active pilot in the military, so we truthfully get to beta-test in real-life military scenarios.
MIL-STD-810 STANDARDS:
Survives 70+ drops from 6′ on concrete vs 5 of plastic headphones
Survives bending+twisting the headband vs 0 of plastic headphone headbands
Survives 1 million bends of the cable+plug vs industry average of 10,000 (100x)
View this video testing the Crossfade tank-like durability:c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QQXf_qFTX
As a family owned company, “we put our money where are materials are”. Your word of mouth and reviews allow us to make superior products with the highest quality metals, materials, ergonomics and innovations.
Internally, our motto is “V-MODA products can only fall somewhere between excellent and perfect”.
Thanks for your support!
-V^V
Val Kolton
V-MODA CEO + OWNER
A concert. In my Room. Two Years Later.,
I have heard several different kinds of headphones including Dre’s infamous beats and I can say, without a doubt, these are better. Right out of the package, these sound about as nice as Beats, but after about 24 hours of breaking in (mine took less) they sound 10x better, like smooth silky goodness. Ever wonder what it would be like to have a concert with you as the only audience member? try a pair of these. Perfectly balanced surround sound in your head. I am not a DJ, but an avid listener. So take this into account in my review.I listen to a WIDE variety of music: musicals, pop, classical, rock, j-rock, rap, folk, and everything is beautiful with these. Even I didn’t expect the sound to be so exceptional. You can actually tell where the instruments you hear are relative to you, as if you are front row. I apply a variety of music in testing the sound: my Radio Sunnydale Soundtrack, The Heavy, Fleet Foxes (Helplessness Blues), Rage Against the Machine, Bach, Gypsy Swing, Frank Ocean, EVERYTHING sounds beautiful! even at high volumes, these headphones perform exceptionally. no static no hiss no buzz!
These cans come with a really nice exoskeleton case, 2 male-male cords (one has a remote on the cord for iphone and other mac products), an extra amp adapter, a hook so you can hook your exoskeleton to whatever, as well as a nice cloth to keep the steel shiny. MAKE SURE you put the straight plug into the headphones themselves, not the angled plug. when I used the angled plug I had some crazy awful sounds and I was like “WTF I paid money for this?!” but it was just that the angled plug doesn’t fit into it right. I’ll mention that I have a small head (being a 5’1″ girl) and these fit very exceptionally. I can imagine they may be difficult or maybe a little tight for someone with a wider head?
The sound isolation is really great. If you wear them and dont play anything you easily remove any noise more than 3 feet away from you. Anything closer is muffled heavily. IF YOU’RE LIKE ME AND LIKE HAVING YOUR PHONES AROUND YOUR NECK ON THE GO, THESE MIGHT NOT BE THE BEST OPTION FOR YOU. That is what the case is for (storing on the go). They are a bit tight around the neck, unless I have a really thick neck (which I don’t think I do?). And I have expanded these to the max size and tried to put them around my neck, still some choking going on but not too terrible if you make sure the memory foam cups are against your neck. So be prepared to store these when you’re not listening to them in the nice exoskeleton case. If it wasn’t such a nice case I’d gripe, but it really is nice and holds all your cords and even your ipod if you want it to.
There is a REALLY sweet warranty on these. If they break in a year they fix or replace anything for free. And if they break outside of warranty you can turn them in and get 50% off the newest model! So you can rest easy knowing its a pretty good investment. One more reason that these are really great, you can customize your own shield plates at v-moda’s site. The steel plates are removable and you can have v-moda engrave new ones for you if you want some flair. ALTHOUGH THE STEEL SHIELD IN THE PICTURE LOOKS WHITE (I got the white pair), IT IS NOT. IT IS VERY REFLECTIVE STEEL. So, be aware of that. You CANNOT have white or light shields engraved because they engrave it white, so only dark colors. Also, this model and the new model have the same shields. so you don’t have to worry about not being able to use your shields on the new model.
Update 7/2/12: I’ve had these headphones a bit over 6 months at this point and they are still going strong. One corner of the plastic hinge part has cracked, but ill admit to having dropped these a couple times. The crack has not affected the sound or the fit in any way, and it is also unnoticable because it only occurs on the inside of the band. The sound is even better than it use to be. Deep and very much surround sounding. These really are built like tanks.
Updated 4/12/13: These are still going strong, and the sound quality is still perfect. Also I ran over them with my car accidentally (don’t ask) and while everything in my backpack I ran over exploded, the headphones weren’t so much as dented 0_o and they still sound PERFECT.
I love these headphones. HOWEVER I will note that the only cords that fit into these are the V-Moda Kevlar cords (which is kind of annoying given how they’re 13 dollars each without shipping). The cords you buy on here for 7 dollars will almost ALWAYS be too fat and won’t fit into the angled plug of your LPs.
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