Corry BanksThe Numark Electrowave Premium Isolating Headphones come with a “leatherette” carrying bag with a draw string, a nearly 10 feet long 1/8″ straight cable, a 1/8″ coiled cable and a 1/4″ adapter. The Electrowaves feature large 50mm full range drivers, cushioned ear pads, collapsible design and detachable cables.
As for the look and feel, the Numark Electrowaves are slick and modern with their white and silver design splashed of electric blue accents. There is a cool little 45 vinyl adapter symbol etched into both sides of the outer headband near the collapsible hinges. Numark added more eye candy with their logo and digital level meters screen printed on the outer sides as well. The headband is expandable for you big heads out there. The cups (cans or muffs) do not pivot but they do swivel so that they can be worn with one ear facing outward.
The cushioned ear pads are soft and way comfy. For such a large set of headphones the Numark Electrowaves are rather light weight when worn. The light weight feel adds to the level comfort. I was surprised that they didn’t feel more heavy and uncomfortable. The cans have an additional bit of swivel from front to back which make adjusting to the perfect fit a breeze. To add to the comfy and flexible factor, the cushions have the ability to turn a full 360 degrees. You may ask why they would need to do that? Well, when worn as intended, you can move the band from over the head to behind the neck and back without disturbing the fit. The headband is mad flexible. I almost felt that I would snap the thing apart with how far apart it allowed me to flex it. But it held up well under pressure. I suspect these extra bits of movement and flexibility have been implemented for the active lifestyles of the average DJ. moving around behind the decks can happen more freely without having to worry headphone repositioning.
So how do they sound? This is obviously all subjective. But then again what are reviews if not subjective? I think the Electrowaves sound relatively good but not extraordinary. To be fair I don’t think very much of Dr Dre Beats outside of commuter use. The Electrowave are not something I’d use for critical listening applications such as mixing. But for DJ purposes and beat making, they are great. Be forewarned, if you are the type of beat maker that needs to listen critically for subtle nuances such as reverb and other effects where you have to dial it in just right, other look towards something like the Audio Tecnica m-50s and save these for the live gigs.
The Numark Electrowave Premium Isolating Headphones are decent. One of the things that I dont like about some premium headphones is audio leakage. This means that sound can be heard outside of the cups which has a tendency to disturb others. For commuters and road warriors this can be a huge issue. The Numark Electrowave headphones do not have the leakage issue. They are a sight far better than my Dr Dre Beats in that regard.
I’d warn that these headphones are not really for just everyday kicking about mainly because of how large they are. Funny how the trend has gone from small headphones to large headphones, again. So maybe this isn’t a “huge” deal. These are DJ headphones, they are not for critical listening. For $149, there are other headphones more suited for audio engineering activities. Still, I’ve used these more often lately than the others that I own while beatmaking.
For more information on the Numark Electrowave Premium Isolating Headphones head over to Numarks site.